June dreams.
Originally uploaded by jon.swanson
What are your dreams for June? By the end of the month, what do want to accomplish?
What one fun thing? What one tough thing? What one thing that’s been on the back burner? What one thing that will light up someone’s eyes?
Me? I’ll let you know. Tonight I’m grilling steak for Allie’s birthday. (2 weeks late and sale steak).
What do you know. I’m ahead of the plan.
I have turned into a regular contributor at GNMParents.com. It’s a great place to be.
A week and a half ago, I wrote about Andrew. More accurately, I’ve been writing about Andrew for three months. But a week and a half ago I wrote about looking at his ability, at times, to play much better than I can play, to take breaks from work and crash. I wrote the post at midnight on Sunday, May 18.
The next day I spent at a conference. I led prayer at a couple of points and ended up apologizing to a college for an attitude of aggravation I’ve had for several years (Yes, to a whole college). As I sat down for supper, I realized that I had eaten the previous two meals standing up. I spent the evening at a meeting, getting home at 11:45 pm.
The next day I spent at the conference again, and then had a meeting. I got home about 7:00 pm for supper. I didn’t quit for bed until 12:23 am.
I got up at 5:30 for a meeting at 6:30, and then called the other person to cancel before heading back to bed with a migraine.
I spent the day on the sofa.
I’ve written before about my self-induced migraines. In fact, I was pretty specific about the problem:
1. They remind me of how out of balance I get. For some odd reason, my migraines show up when I’ve been pushing too hard and not keeping a sabbath. I’m not Jewish, but I still have the same command to keep one day in seven for God. Some seasons of the year or of my life I don’t “remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” I keep working. I don’t stop. I Push on with good things. But when is a good thing not a good thing? When something else is what you are supposed to do.
For the last three weeks, the weekends have been busy and the Mondays haven’t been clear. And I pay the price. Not because God is judging me. But I think because I’m built for balance and I’m not keeping that balance.
Ironically, on Sunday night I identified the problem of not stopping while writing about Andrew. On Monday night, we talked in our meeting about the drivenness that we have, and the need to rest. In a post on Monday I talked about the need for the “ruthless elimination of hurry.”
And yet, I kept going until my body made me stop in a pretty ruthless way.
The cost?
I’m not looking for sympathy here at all, nor for a sense of “yes, we all do things that aren’t consistent.”
The truth? I have a responsibility to take simple steps to say yes to the things that are essential and to say no to the things that get in the way of the essential. And if I don’t, it is, for me, sin.
Little steps. Small decisions about rest and balance. Not checking email constantly. Not writing one more thing. Not worrying about one more task. Just doing the task. Just taking the step. Just sitting down.
If this were a good and helpful post, I would make a list of 8 ways that I am going to change. But this isn’t that kind of post. It is a repentance post. It is a “Stop going that way, start going the other way” kind of post. It’s a “I’m taking a day off” post. It’s a “time to do what I say I believe” post.
You know what I mean?
“We have now reached an altitude where you may now turn on personal electronic devices. However, you may not use cell phones, televisions, radios, or any other devices sending or receiving a signal.”
If you have flown recently, you know the speech. It’s a frustrating rule for me because the camera I use most IS my cell phone. The pictures I use here are pictures I take and most are taken with my enV phone.
When I was talking with a friend, he indicated surprise that I couldn’t turn off the cell phone part of the “personal electronic device.” So I decided to look again.
Standalone mode.
That’s what the setting is on my phone. When standalone mode is “on”, the phone doesn’t try to connect with the rest of the world. It becomes safe to turn on in the airplane, at least when the plane reaches the right altitude. I tried it the other day and was able to take all pictures I wanted to. I was shooting inside the cabin and out the window. We have pictures of Massachusetts and Michigan, of tray table locks and Indiana rivers.
It was great.
Until I wanted to upload them to my flickr account to share with others, the way I always do. Suddenly I realized that standalone mode lets me capture images but it keeps me from sharing them. And my phone is built to do both.
Just like me. There are days that all I want to do is hide, to capture images and impressions, to not have to interact with anyone. And then, in the middle of those days, as something suddenly makes sense, I realize how important it is to me to be able to share, to interact, to connect. At those moments I understand what a people person I am.
I’m guessing that most of us need to spend most of our time with standalone mode turned “off”. It’s nice for occasional flights, while we are getting perspective from 21,000 feet, to stand (or sit) alone. But to be what we are made to be, we need each other.
Right?
Back from vacation, facing a challenge.
“How was your trip?” That’s what everyone wants to know.
Well, not everyone. Some people couldn’t care less about our trip. They wish they could have a vacation, wish they could go somewhere, wish they could just fly off.
But other people want to know about our trip. They want details. They want to know whether we saw what they would see. They want to know whether we did what they would do. They want the story to be the story that would be the way they would tell it.
So what do we tell them? What parts matter to the person asking?
It’s challenging to know where to start. You see, we were gone from Thursday morning until Monday evening.
It would take more than 5 days to write all the details of touch and taste and sound and sight, of voices and glances and expressions. And it would take weeks and pages to capture the different perspectives and the unanswered questions. And if we take it to the level of the moss, to detail that is the size of a matchstick head, we will be here forever, trying to describe what happened.
Recently, a friend said, “We don’t have many details in the Bible do we?” And I realized that it’s true. There are huge gaps. But then I read what John writes about his book, the gospel of John:
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.
And it suddenly made sense why we don’t have very many specifics about the sound of his voice or the kinds of things he built or all the jokes he told or all the miracles he did or why Mary Magdalene cared about him so much. All of those are things that we would love to know, that would round out our picture of him. We would love the details.But we don’t get them. Because if a five day trip takes weeks to describe, then a life would take, well, forever.
We only get enough detail for John to do what he wanted to do. And here’s what he said he wanted to do:
Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.
The gospels are selective history of Jesus, just like every conversation with me is selective history. Not because I’m trying to hide anything, necessarily, but because there is so much detail available and so little time to talk that I have to filter.
And so the mental frame for us in reading John is, does the detail we have tell the story he’s trying to tell?
It’s a great question.
Want some pizza and decaf?
We spent the past few days in the northeast, Nancy and I. This year was our 25th anniversary and we decided to be extravagant. A long weekend. In Maine and Massachusetts.
We saw some sights, some historical sights. We saw the outside of several buildings in Boston. We saw a lighthouse in Portland. We looked at rocks and flowers and restaurants.
But we discovered that as nice as old stuff you’ve never seen is, old friends you have never met are even better.
So though we know little about the geography or history, here’s what we know about people in Maine and Massachusetts:
I realized that although I like the sights, they seldom change my life.
Unlike the people.
Memorial day at the airport.
Originally uploaded by jon.swanson
He’s a marine vet, waiting for someone, sitting at Logan. I knew he was a vet because of the hat.
The headline? “We remember heros.” I thanked him and shook his hand. I pointed to the headline. He sort of smiled, nodded, and went back to reading.
Heros seldom think they are. They just do what they need to do. Because so many of us don’t do that, doing what needs to be done ends up heroic.
(This post was first published on April 3, 2007)
I was sitting in the VA Clinic in the western suburbs of Chicago with my dad. He was there for a regular blood test, something that’s part of his regular checkups. There were a dozen of us in the room, older men, wives, me. The appointment was for 9:30 am, but if you arrive early, Dad said, you don’t have to wait long.
The door to the medical space opened and two nurses appeared at the door. One called one name, and then the other, with a giggle in her voice started calling names: “Mr A, Mr. B, Mr. C…”a list of 6-7 names.
The men stand and slowly fall into line. One with a walker, one who can only shuffle, a couple standing at attention, others just quietly complying. They follow the nurses and, though I can’t remember what he said, I heard my dad making some funny remark.
“Mister” is what they are called now, but the service that qualified them for this service never showed them such politeness, nor smiled as they came nor waited patiently. These are men who paid for this attention with time and with blood. They gave up the ability to sleep without nightmares, some of them, and the ability to tell stories of significant chunks of their lives to their grandchildren. For them, shots still are about blood, but this time they are giving small amounts for testing. The last shots, at least in one case I know of, nearly cost them life.
The only bathroom for the clinic is out in the waiting room, and so they must come with little bottles back through the doors and one at a time into the bathroom. It seems pretty obvious to those of us in the common space, but for these men, who abandoned privacy with the draft, it is far more modest than anything they knew in Viet Nam or Korea or anywhere in between.
“Good morning, young lady” is the greeting from one called later. “They didn’t call the ambulance so I must be okay,” said another. And a steady stream of phone calls while I wait. The staff voices are always patient, always cheerful, always helping. For a Monday morning, this is remarkable customer service.
And then, he appears at the door, ready for breakfast. Dad had to fast for the blood test and
we’re off for pancakes and coffee and conversation. But as we move slowly to the car, limited to the speed of the walker in his hands, and the legs slowed by a stroke several years ago, I am aware that my dad’s service to his country didn’t end when he got out of the hospital 52 years ago. He and his fellow soldiers keep showing up for roll call, keep responding with dignity. They still are a cross-section of humanity. They still stand for what happens when ordinary fragile human beings understand what has to be done and do it.
And at least one of them faces the rest of his life with a deternination to do what he can for his family and for the God whom he has served well for the last five decades.
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“Looking Back” is an opportunity to republish posts which have mattered to me. They may matter to you, too. This one is being republished in honor of Memorial Day.
I “had” to get coffee on the way to a full day of meetings. None of my usual spots were on the route. I wasn’t sure about the coffee at the venue. What to do.
I remembered that one food place had added new coffee to their menu. I turned in, drove through, and moved on, coffee in hand.
As I sat in the first session, I began to read the coffee cup. It’s a habit formed at the breakfast table long ago, when cereal boxes gave my eyes something to do. (The habit of reading everything may explain how I can move through my feed-reader so quickly, and why reflective reading is so hard for me these days).
As I stared at the sleeve, I realized it was talking to me, or about me at least.
“Serving the Best.”
I felt pretty good. Here was a coffee company, protecting my hand from being burned AND evaluating me and deciding I was among the Best. I’m not sure what the criteria were. I’m not sure I care. I’m just grateful that they wanted to encourage me.
I’m working on that kind of encouragement myself these days. Not the indiscriminate kind like Seattle’s Best does. I’m trying to figure out how to specifically encourage people. What is good about what they do? How in particular do they excel? What was it about their presentation that rocked, exactly?
Those specifics can help people improve. The details allow for additional polishing. The insights into how the ideas or presentation or conversation worked its way into your head or heart or soul can make the person ever more effective in the future.
I felt better this morning as I was able to twist the advertising into a compliment. I’ll feel even better tomorrow morning as I help at least one person figure out what exactly they are doing right.
Make sense?
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