No one is fighting...Do you see any elbows?

When I was little I would be taken with my sister to family holiday events at my grandmother’s house.  We would gather together not to celebrate the Holiday so much as it seemed was supposed to happen, but to argue.  

Well, I didn’t argue.  I was 9.  I had no interest in the apparent discourse other than when we were going to open presents and who was going to get the prize for the worst gift.  Seriously.  One year my cousin received a Bat House.  Yeah, you read that right. Who does that to a kid?  I myself developed a keen psychic awareness towards underwear regardless of the package it was hidden in.  I could tell when it was given to me and would respond with an audible groan.  Did one of the Kings give Jesus underwear hidden in any of the gifts they brought?  Nope.  Nor did our Savior get a bat house.

Anyway, around the time everyone had finished eating the arguing would start.  At least as a kid it sounded like arguing.  What it actually in essence was a family that loved each other very much; speaking freely and openly ideas that had contention and conflict associated with them.  Because of the family relationship there was no worry if someone during the heated disagreements would cut ties and discontinue the conversation for fear of offense or worse…hurt feelings.

 

During the lively wild finger pointing and elevated voices discussion, no one for once thought that anyone was trying to hurt anyone's feelings.  THIS was how you exchanged ideas, took a stance or contended for your belief.   It wasn’t personal.  It wasn’t vitriol spewing against who you were as an individual.  It was just how you would talk.  No subject was taboo. Religion, Politics, Abortion and current events were all up for debate.  All things were fair game.  There was no waiting your turn to voice your opinion.  You jumped in the ring and held your own, or you sat quietly back while the adults used big words that made you feel inferior.  It was rough, but it wasn’t personal.  You either hung in there, or you put your bat house together.   

Now I am older, a believing Christian, and I can only compare those things to which I have seen and heard.  And something has always troubled me horribly:  Some Christians can’t argue.  Most of them can’t tell or take a joke (or be severely teased), but some can’t argue.

I think it comes from the programming of hearing “Childlike faith” and then falling into the trap of believing what you are told all the time without question.  There is no iron sharpening iron, no practical contending for what they are taught.  No growth.   They rely upon someone else to support their beliefs.  And should that person ever fall, they either fold up their own convictions, or attach themselves to the next strong willed individual who they can feed off of.

Let’s look at something.  I’ll shorten the bible lesson because I am tired.  Jesus left the Apostles.  Peter was running the show mostly.  Here comes Paul, an outsider who formerly killed Christians but decided after a road trip to Damascus to join them, has Peter meet up with him in Antioch.  Peter, the guy who the Catholics say was the first Pope.  THAT guy.  Now, there is a lot of stuff that goes down but Paul says he WITHSTOOD Peter to his face because he was wrong.  That isn’t a simple “let’s work out our differences nicely” type of statement.  No.  It was Christmas dinner and Peter said something stupid about an incorrect belief he held.  The bell was rung and Paul came out before the sausage stuffing was put away.  They argued.  Christian believers argued.  Paul was right, Peter was wrong.   No one had their feelings hurt, if they did they got over it.  They moved on.

What I find even more distressing is people nowadays, not just Christians, don’t discuss or debate so much anymore as they shout down at each other what they believe.  There is no respecting of the individual or the person that they are.  We paint people quickly with labeled names and classify them as either one of us or against our firmly held and cherished beliefs.  Even worse, is the arrogance and pride associated with what appears to be a large number of people who fear being wrong.  Some individuals will THINK they know your background because of a belief and re-frame the argument consistently against how they hold a bias against your worldview.  There is no person in front of them, just a set of thoughts they choose to be biased against.  Conversation has lost its humanity.

There is no exchange of ideas, no refining of an opinion and worst of all no teaching of a different point of view.  There are fundamentals that I adhere to in my life, things that shape my worldview and personal perspective.  Because another individual doesn’t share those does not for a moment give me the right to discount them as a person.

In fact, the opposite occurs.  If I find someone willing enough to share their point of view with me and debate or argue the topic it proves out if I really believed and understood what my position was to begin with.  

During an argument with a friend over a topic close to both of us about American Government, I remember him stating in aggressive frustration “Read a book!”  I don’t think he had any book in mind, but it was perfectly in flow with what we were talking about.

The other day, I was driving with Katie in the car.  I asked her simply why she believed this or that.  Her response was “Because someone taught it to me”.  That’s a great starting point, but it isn’t good enough.  Because someone taught something to her means at some point someone else can come along, and unless she is grounded and knowledgeable in what she thinks she believes her perception can be changed.  That grounding only comes with discussions, questions, and sometimes arguing.

Don’t argue with just anyone who is looking to pick a fight.  Some people are more interested in hearing themselves speak than defending passionately what they believe while leaving the door open to be taught.  That’s key.  Every discourse should be entered with the understanding that you may very well be wrong.  Peter had to face it.  You might too.

 I have seen to many statements of faith come from some people’s mouths that when asked to back them up, crumble against basic stress testing.  They didn’t really have an idea or belief formed.  They were just letting stupid happen from their head.  In all reality though, their Holidays were probably a lot quieter than mine.

How I Parent - Honestly - People have asked me this

Several people (Seriously, ten people) have asked me THIS WEEK how I parent my children and I have to be honest, I have no idea why. 

My first response is always “Wrong, I do most of it wrong”.  I then follow it up with comments about my kids pertaining to locked closets, abandoning them for “survival skill training” and telling my children about their older siblings they never met because “They didn’t quite work out like we had hoped, but hopefully things will be different this time around.”  I have gotten my daughter to play along in this game now with the younger two.  It’s fantastic.

Yes, I do a lot wrong.  Mostly, I pass my humor to my children.  People hate to love my humor.  My daughter Katie has it mostly.  And I love to hate her.

My son Collin appears to be raised by feral cats while we aren’t around.  He gives the best hugs and he means it when he says he loves you.  He just doesn’t have an off switch.  I’d settle for a pause on this kid.

         Brandon?  He is the sweetest kid in the world.  But he is also the only 8 year old with washboard abs.  I am not telling him about his genetic good luck, because honestly, I am not sure where that came from.  Luckily, he looks like me in the facial feature area; otherwise some questions would have to be addressed.  Such as “Craig, When will your wife, Marianne, come back from vacation in Mexico?  She’s been gone for what, 14 years now?”

There are a few things I adhere to when being a parent to my kids.

Let’s do what the cool kids say and “Break it down…G”

#1  I am my kid’s best friend.  No one will be a better friend than I am.  People say “You can’t be their friend and parent at the same time.”  I say “Why not?”  A friend loves at all times, is honest at all times, will do anything for you, should never lie to you, be firm with you and if you step out of line how they know they should act, the friendship allows for correction to occur.  Listen, I am a parent in relationship to my children, but friendship is what binds us as a family.  I hold the authority position, but I am not an overbearing idiot.  I want my kids to come visit on Christmas after they move out, ya know?

Also, point number 1 gives me advantages.  By being not only their father, as a friend I can usurp the idiotic influence of their peer group friends they find.  Since I am a better friend that has proven over the course of their young lives that I do care for them when I tell them that the moron they just met is a bad influence I can say so and they believe me.  They then avoid the moron.  Simple?  Yes.  Biblical principle?  Yes.  Am I going to tell you which one?  No. 

#2  I teach my kids to apply biblical principles.  I don’t read verses to them and ask them to recite them back to me.  If I wanted memorization there are funnier movies we could do as a family and reenact skits or maybe musicals…Like Cats.  I never saw Cats, but I bet I would love it.  Space Balls would be a good one too.

No, I spend time explaining to them the reasoning behind the words.  It’s amazing, there are verses where God tries to explain to his people (He calls them his children)  he would just love to gather them, or reason with them.  Honestly, the Creator of the Universe who knows everything wants to explain and talk out things with us.  Figured as a Dad I should do the same with my kids.

The last thing I want to do is create kids, raise them as Christians and have their only explanation to things when asked intelligent questions that actually have answers to be “Because God said so!”  You know these people I am talking about.  

I avoid these people I am talking about.

#3  I realize I have few answers.  It’s OK to not know everything.  It’s fantastic to say to your children “I don’t know, let’s find out together.”  They see how you think, and they learn to think like you and to learn and understand like you.  This helps if you aren’t an arrogant moron. 

I am still working on this one.

#4  I adapt my parenting.  My daughter Katie is 11.  Sometimes, she elevates her thinking to that of a 14 year old or a 30 year old.  If I am not careful I miss the chance to broaden her viewpoint and give her a better understanding of something at the very critical moment her mind is THINKING that way.  Every moment parenting is a teaching moment.

Stop blowing it.

#5  Have fun.  Honestly.  I have heard people say when they get home form work they are to tired for their family or their kids.  I get the rut you can get in.  But I don’t want to be a horrible parent.  If I can’t pass my faith, my viewpoint and have my children know they were loved while doing so I failed as a parent.

Each one of my kids gets their own special time with me.  I take them out individually.  I ask questions, they ask me questions, or sometimes we just go and grab a toy.  You force this time.  You have it in your schedule; you just need to understand where to find it.

Katie and I, we’ll have tea, listen to music, ride bikes or go for a drive.

Brandon and I, we do experiments that he finds in science books from the library, play catch or head to Grandpa’s house.  He asks questions about what it was like when I was a kid.

Collin…Well.  I am Collin’s limo service.  He makes me drive him to the McD’s play land then ditches me.  Afterwards I get a hug and a kiss, but eh.  It’s all good.

In the end, my desire is to see my children THINK.  To think for themselves means they weren’t programmed.  They were taught.  Does that happen at age 6?  No.  But the older they get the more I need to understand that an adult is forming and not a child in an adult body.  God doesn’t wish for an obedient robot and neither do I.

I work from the understanding that at 18 years of age in the United States they could find themselves either by choice or potential draft on a battle field getting shot at or potentially killed in a foreign country.  At 18, my child needs to be an adult.  If I didn’t get the groundwork laid for that now, I failed.

And shame on me for that.

I hope that helps the few people that asked me my feedback.  For the other 200 of you that read this, I will write next time about the free telescope I got.

Free stuff is cool.

Truth Deserves An Audience

“Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Recently someone asked me one of the toughest questions that any Christian can be asked.  “Do Christians believe that because someone doesn’t believe the way they believe that they end up in Hell?  Do you believe that?”  Most of the time I am asked this question because the person asking the question ran into an abrasive, thoughtless and uncaring Christian who was more interested in “being Right” than “being Loving”.

I am not saying I am not abrasive and thoughtless, I just decide to handle this question differently. 

The fact is Truth deserves an audience.  It doesn’t demand one, and it shouldn’t.  It does not force a will upon people and it does not proclaim its case in self righteous statements of uncaring abandon to the listener.  Truth in essence is humble, it asks nothing, and it just is.  If I tell my kids that water is wet, whether my children understand my statement or not matters little.  Water is still wet.  It’s a simple application of a topic most can comprehend.  If we can associate to truth being water, sometimes water being wet is not a sufficient explanation to an individual hearing truth for the first time.  Sometimes, truth is an ocean.  It’s not just wet; it’s unfathomable and impossible to navigate without help.  It’s a tsunami and a destructive force when confronted alone.  And no one likes feeling alone.

We all are different.  We all come into this life with genetic imprints and then socially develop opinions and cognitive biases over the course of our lives that when challenged make us reflect on how we believe. 

“You never find yourself until you face the truth”~ Pearl Bailey

The question about Heaven and Hell is in essence “Is what you believe in, is it true?”  This is where I as a Christian arrive at the ocean.  It’s an isolating question.  It carries its own stigma.  What someone is asking for is a burden of proof.  Christianity, to me, isn’t only about a destination at the end of this life.  It isn’t only about a way of life.  It isn’t only about how I raise my kids, how I present myself to others or any disappointment that is generated should I do something wrong.  It isn’t about the petty judgments that some Christians pass on those that live a life they think is less than perfect.  It spans more than that. 

But every focal point of understanding of what I can grasp in my finite mind comes to this:

Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He’s coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day

One day they led Him up Calvary’s mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for me

The conversation needs to be shifted and the destination corrected.  We don’t focus on a destination. It’s a person. A person who had a most peculiar life, and after his time on this earth was finished, cast a reputation that changed the outcome of billions of lives.

Some of us had someone, an individual, which made such a profound impact on our lives, for good or for harm, that we never forget them and what they taught us by their actions.  I know very few people though, who would be willing to continue till death for that one person. 

We selfishly want to live.

Do people today die for what they believe in?  Yes.  But these men, they had a chance to flee, a chance to return to a normal life without persecution.  If the man they followed was killed, and at the very least what was viewed as a religious or political rebellion was put down I could understand a percentage of them, you know, the crazies, continuing on in the leaders absence.  Not all 11. 

And more importantly, would never suspect a murderer like Paul, a persecutor of them, to actually join them.

If I critically look at the 11 men that followed this one man, this Jesus, something clicked in them that according to historical tradition sent them to their deaths in their later lives for something they continued to believe in after the Jesus they knew was gone.

That deserves an audience.  It requires us to examine evidence and forces a conclusion.  What if what they saw was true that it affected them to push through the natural instincts of self preservation?

Or was it just a collection of made up stories?  Stories gathered from many different religions of the time, taking their themes and beliefs and amassing them into a large collection which some point to inconsistencies in to force a social means of control over a large populace to obtain power?

Or is the truth stating something else. 

Is there really a God?

Is what Jesus said and what he did the truth?

It’s a personal question.  Not meant for a crowd.  Not meant for a congregation.  It’s meant for an individual.

And each of us comes to that ocean.  It deserves an audience.  It deserves our attention.

Having Critical Criticism

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

 Winston Churchill

Just a heads up, this is straight to my children.  You can keep reading if you would like, but I offer little wisdom and less encouragement in writing than I do when I parent.

That being said…

In history, the critic has been around and has taken different names in its existence.  The satirist, cartoonist, political opposition and many other manifestations come about when dissention is pushed against the received mode of operations.  It some respects, these individuals are whiny, bratty, needy, annoying, know it all arrogant gas bags with little to no ability to think beyond what they perceive as a reality that was taught to them or enlightened upon them by someone else’s hard work and study.

And here is the hard part, at any one point in your existence you will be one of these people.

You will think you have something so figured out and so mastered that the very idea that someone may know more than you or someone may have a better understanding will never even enter your mind while you ramble off how much you think you understand.

If I can offer a piece of advice to help alleviate the horrible misunderstanding that you think you are hyper intelligent, accept this:

You aren’t.

Criticism is a tool, a necessary one. On your first performance review from your boss, you will see why.  But criticism that come from critical thinking, is the end game you need to reach.

Learn from everyone.  Criticism, in its wrongness, sometime stems from the assumption that you know the rightness of what you’re doing.  And you may very well be right, you may be the gold star test taker that does have the answer but that doesn’t mean you aren’t able to learn MORE of something, from someone else who may have had different experiences from you.  Instead, if you are going to offer your mouth and opinion come at it from a caring attitude.

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”  Abraham Lincoln

One of my greatest pet peeves in Christianity is with the accepted idiocy level I see with some people.  No other place have I seen a group of people so eager to not take thoughts and ideas and studies to a deeper level.  If I hear “put it on the bottom shelf so others can reach it” one more time I will tear up my copy of “Thinking as a Hobby” by Golding.  This enables people to not study.  You can’t hand something to people constantly and expect them to then think for themselves, ever.  They are happy to take spoken word to them as accurate and do no research on their own.  There is a bible verse that says “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  Did you see that?  You need to study.  And I mean study.  Be a student.  Humble yourself to a level of thinking that you need books in front of you with a notepad and pen.  Write down thoughts while reading, questions you may have on things that make sense and chain to other ideas you have about the same topic, or write down what you disagree with about the topic.  Learn about it as many ways as you can while you are of the understanding that you don’t know everything.  And learn, and re-learn.  Allow yourself the possibility that what you are learning may be the wrong way to look at it.  Allow that view to be wiped away and rebuilt.  Have no shame in being wrong.  We all are wrong.  We all make mistakes and we all appear idiotic at some point.  You are human, get over yourself.

 Here is the problem we are warned with studying though, it builds up knowledge, and that is where you have to be careful.

With any subject, gaining an understanding will increase knowledge and with that can come a puffed up attitude.  This is where people get stuck.  As with learning something, there may be the false assumption that you have all the understanding you need and you require no other input.  This is false.  When you learn something, it should constantly be assessed, refined, examined, questioned and settled upon.  Only when you have a full understanding of a subject can you confidently say to any doubt or circumstance that may challenge it “Come, and let us discover this again”.

“Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots.”  Frank A. Clark 

Your quest to learn something should be matched with the necessary desire to teach it to others.  To spread the understanding and to do so in a way that makes the knowledge available to everyone, but most importantly to your children.  Don’t leave the world with potential idiots.  Teach and train your kids as I have you.  And when teaching others, if you spot the pride of all-knowingness, remember, you have that too.  The quickest way to subvert this pride is with wit.  Never take yourself too seriously.  It impedes progress with others who already think of you as a know-it-all.  Trust me on this.

On the flip side, learn to accept criticism.   Let’s say this: Individuals today have a difficult time communicating.  For certain, there are many ways that they communicate and discuss, but we have reduced the art of conversation to simple text blurbs and status updates.  When someone hears something contrary to their own perceived viewpoint, it is rendered a personal attack as their failure as an individual.

“We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.”  Michel de Montaigne

There is a time and place for your words.  Learn that.  Keep in mind you are ever the student, ever learning, ever humble.  You are prone to mistakes and epic moronic failures.  Stay humble as you learn, and remember you will always be learning. 

But don’t let idiots rule the day.  If something goes against what you have studied, and it is presented as fact, feel free to question it, drill into it, and challenge the presenter with what you understand already of the subject you have learned.  If the first response you receive is “Why are you so critical in questioning?  Why do you think you are so smart?”  You do not have a teacher in front of you, you have someone who reads a lesson to you out of a book and is no better than a recording.  There are teachers in this world, find them, learn from them.

Exist in your life with the view as quoted often “"IN ESSENTIALS UNITY, IN NON-ESSENTIALS LIBERTY, IN ALL THINGS CHARITY.”

Don’t question to argue, question to learn.  Never stop learning.  If someone is offended by your questions move on, for you have learned all you can from them.

Operate from the position that some may know less than you, some more than you, but that should never affect your desire to come to an understanding of a subject in it’s completeness as it exists.  Answers are there, but you must be critical in your thinking and have a desire to find them.

As a Christian, we have an available resource given to us that others do not.  Use everything that is given to you, and you will find your answers.

I promise you, there are absolute truths in this world.  There are fundamental foundational truths that cannot be altered or argued with.

They just are.

And when critically thought about enough, and given enough effort in learning about, criticism has no power over them.

4-Give, and other math lessons from Taco Bell

Very rarely do I write about anyone except myself or someone in my immediate family.  I speak of my kids often because of my experiences as a parent and how I want to keep a running journal of points in our lives growing together.  One day I won’t have them anymore, and I would like to look back at the influence we had on each other as people.

That isn’t tonight though.

Something happened late last year that I still think about, and was brought up in the back of my mind while discussing a topic over the phone with a friend.

I love talking to my friends.  You know the good ones.  There are certain friends that topics are not off limits with.  Some friends may know some faults of yours that even your spouse doesn’t know.  These people are hard to come by, and if lost, almost impossible to replace.  I pick my friends very carefully, I teach my children to do the same.

Certain conversations with friends of mine who share the same faith started in early December about forgiveness.  And it all began at a Taco Bell.

Taco Bell is a magical place.  Honestly.  They have Mountain Dew.  That drink encourages you to attempt the impossible at 2AM.  Much like Denny’s use to while attending college and you needed to go someplace that was not your room at midnight.  The Denny’s in Orland Park had a mythical creature whose name was Acid Andy.  Acid Andy would stroll in about 1AM, dressed in his tie dye t-shirt and stone washed jeans. And smoke.  I am sure Acid Andy would have granted wishes if asked, he was truly a genie sage.

I have no proof of any of that.

So, sitting with 3 other adults in Taco Bell we started talking about situations in their lives that didn’t turn out as expected due to others.  Betrayal, hurt feelings and the onset of bitterness and how they had begun coping with that.  We made light of the situations, but still talked seriously over what was happening.

As an aside, I joke often.  You need to.  Seriously, I often mention my white hot ball of hate I have towards things.  It’s a fabulous ball that keeps me warm during Christmas.  I take it out in increments and use it to thaw the lock on my car door in sub zero weather.

But something came up that night I had to think about.  Three of the people there had a parent leave the family.  Mine was such a long time ago, but the other two were more recent.  One was just a few months ago.

We talked about the situations, the actions, and eventually, the forgiveness we are supposed to give.  We are Christians, right?  We are supposed to forgive, yes?

This is where it dawned on me that most Christians don’t forgive.  That’s a blanket statement I know, but follow me.  One of the hallmarks of a Christian is to display the same level of forgiveness that Christ did.  That’s easy right?   Even Peter asked Jesus if someone offends him, how often he should forgive them.  Jesus responded with a math problem.  Why?   Jesus loved math.

He was also trying to prove to Peter something.  You forgive them.  All the time.

Does this mean you let someone walk all over you?  Well, if you hate math, no.  But if you love math like I do then yes, you forgive.

Now fast forward to my conversation this week with my other friend.  We started talking the prodigal son.

Here is a story that Jesus starts telling in mixed company about a father with 2 boys.  It’s plain that it’s talking about God and how he takes back and forgives unconditionally the son who left.  Immediately.  No. Questions. Asked.

The story doesn’t end there though.  It carries on a bit further where the other son, you know, the one who didn’t leave and spend all his money on whores and smokes, he is ticked and standing outside the party of the returned brother who the Father is rejoicing over.

And you know what?  He is mad his Dad is doing this all for his returned brother.  Why?  Because he couldn’t forgive him for what he did, and he wondered, why did his Dad forgive him?

At the base level it’s a great story about 2 Christians, and the return of a wayward one to God.  But it also is glaringly obvious of another fact.

Christians don’t forgive.  Or more accurate they are in and of themselves unable to reach that conclusion of responsibility on their own.

I need to remind my kid often to practice this with each other.  Like when Collin erases Katie or Brandon’s DS game for the 5^th time.  Or when Collin sneaks into Katie’s room and takes her stuff.  Or when Collin does….well whatever else he does that makes Brandon and Katie mad at him and wanting to bury him in the backyard.

But on a more practical level, when we have been in a position to offer forgiveness, should do so as the example we have been given.  Wholly and complete with rejoicing.

Or at least a party at Taco Bell.

Men's Retreat: The Way i remember Things, Which means it's the truth - Part 1

Day 1 – The Drive.

Captains Log, Star Date 11411 + 4 and purple

Every year, around this time, a few of us stalwart men gather together from our church and trek up behind the cheddar curtain in Wisconsin.  It’s not just our church either, its several churches that contain groups of men that wish to shoot at clay pigeons, toss beanbags and share deeper conversations concerning how we get back to the camp site from McDonald’s at 3AM. 

This is the recovered footage from that trip. 

Names have not been changed, due to my uncreative mind with less than 7 hours of sleep for the past 2 days.

For the passed few years, the first weekend in November was always reserved on my calendar for a trip to Camp Joy in Whitewater WI.  Camp Joy was founded in 1962.  It has a lovely back story for it’s founding, but I can’t remember it right now.  Besides, I think founding comes from the Greek root “to stumble across”.  So, I am sure that’s how it was founded, maybe by some Greeks, like my wife.  Someone ran into it and shouted “Found it!” 

We decided to car pool to save on gas and because no one ventures into Wisconsin alone, unless you are keenly aware of the highway system in Wisconsin, it’s best to travel in a large group.  A larger group has more of a chance to become indefinitely confused when you cross into County Q on highway CC after taking exit W.  Also, this makes people from Wisconsin believe you are actually a larger animal not worthy to hunt.

Our trip consisted of myself, my friend Jim (The Driver), his son Kyle ( 16 years old, if we got lost we could eat him), My friend Jon ( Who will pick up ANY song at any point when I start singing and vice versa) and my friend Jeff ( the sweetest big guy I know, you can lick him and he tastes like happy, kids!).

We stopped off at the Lockport Speedway for drinks before the long road trip.  Speedway has horrible coffee, but they have a lot of it, so, because Jim was driving all of us, I decided to buy him a cup of coffee.  In my mind, 1 cup of coffee would equal the $135 it took to fill up his van to cart our sorry rears to Camp Joy.  Luckily, for me, while standing in line, my friend Jon says “I’ll pay for your stuff!” and because he is such a good friend, and I can’t say no to someone wanting to spend their money, instead of mine, I said OK.  I realized though, that I now had nothing to offer Jim compensation for the driving deficit i was incurring.  I decided that to make everyone happy, and balance the universe karma, me carrying the drink from the counter to Jim would suffice.  My carrier charge of drinks just happens to be $175.  So Jim actually owed me $40 after the fact, but I am too good of a friend to bring this up.

On the road, deep conversations take place.  These conversations include the word “Dutch oven” and other cooking metaphors.  What seemed like a blink of an eye, we already were at Gurnee Mills with Wisconsin just in sight.  When you cross over into Wisconsin, something magical happens when you’re in the backseat, and from IL.  You get to remove your seat belt.  Wisconsin isn't the nanny state that IL pushes itself to be. Also, Wisconsin allows you to hunt any kind of animal while drinking.  Personal safety seems to be your responsibility.

Crossing the border, or as my illegal alien friends call it, “Crossing the border” we found ourselves pulling into at The Brat Stop Restaurant.

The Brat Stop is one of those places you just HAVE to stop at when entering into Wisconsin.  It’s like the Mars Cheese Castle, or well, the Mars Cheese Castle.

Entering the restaurant I noticed immediately a sign for a band called “Infinity”.  What’s hysterical about this is I know the lead singer to the band.  He’s the maintenance guy at our building where I work, and he sounds exactly like Steve Perry.

I had to point this out to the rest of the guys.  They had to know I KNEW someone cool enough to play at the Brat Stop.  And by general rule of association, I would be cool as well.  Not only do I know him, he also FIXES our toilets.

Oddly enough, no one seemed impressed by this fact.  I decided to see if I could get a poster to take with me.  That way I could show it to the maintenance guy that I took a poster with him on it.  A poster that he most likely paid to have printed and setup at the Brat Stop to advertise his band.  I began to see the error in my logic, only after the hostess at the register said she couldn’t give me a poster to give back to the lead singer toilet fixer of the band.

When ordering food I noticed an appetizer plate called “The Sausage Sampler”.  It contained assorted sausage sticks and crackers.  It fit our group.  I put a motion to the table that we dub our road trip group “The Sausage Sampler.”

Was it risqué?  Sure.  A little homo?  Maybe.  But it made sense at the time, and no one said no. DONE!

Full of Kraut and Brats, with Jim the Driver ordering the Sausage sampler, our group Sausage Sampler piled back into the van.

We continued our trek up to Whitewater.  Everything at this point was a non event, with conversation bordering on the ill advised.

COMING SOON:  Unpacking and being unplugged from everything and how much that reeked.  Seriously, I got the shakes.

All of us are Important, or None of us are.

“If you see a friend without a smile; give him one of yours.”

Proverb quote

Life is hard.  As with anything hard, it has rewards, but the greatest irony (and believe me I KNOW irony) is anything gained in this life can’t be brought with you into the next one.  At least anything material gained or unless you are an Egyptian Pharaoh.  Those guys got to bring everything with them, even their pets.  If the Egyptians were right, I would want to be buried with a camera.  The only reason is I don’t think anyone else would have remembered to bring one.  Oh, and a harmonica. 

A good marriage and good kids make you realize something.  You matter as an individual in this life.  If at any point you remove yourself or one of those other individuals and the rest suffer, then you understand what it means to matter in someone else’s life. 

“It’s a Wonderful Life” explains as best it can the point I am trying to make.  In the office, after George’s Dad dies, there is a sign on the wall that says “All you can take with you is that which you've given away”

I remember the first time I caught that.  I was an adult, and Katie was just born.  We were staying in a 2 bedroom apartment in Tinley Park and we didn’t have much.  It was our first Christmas as a family of 3 and I got choked up when I saw it.  I didn’t cry, because I am not a sissy, but I was close.  But I thought then that I had heard this concept before, many times in one form or another.  You can’t take it with you or People are an investment worth making.

But this was a different application.  In fact, it so parallels Christianity in its simplicity and execution of how a Christian should live.  Our lives and our relationships cannot be measured in a qualifying chart of summarized returns like bonuses and profits.

You matter to other living breathing individuals that they may count on seeing you just to make it through their day.  Or maybe you happen to just matter to one person on this planet and you are everything to them.

Brandon and I were going over his spelling words out loud.  And as we were practicing he spelled one word out of twenty three wrong.  Now Brandon takes everything personally.  He hates failure and hates when he gets something wrong.  The word was receive. His eyes started to well up, and I thought he was going to be ok, able to hold in the disappointment until Collin shouted “BRANDON WHY ARE YOU CRYING!  DAD, BRANDON’S GOING TO CRY!”

Ugh.

Dismissing Collin, I told Brandon to come sit by me.  He sat on my lap in the chair and I asked what was wrong.  He replied “I don’t know…”  But he knew.  He is just too young to describe it and put it into words.  After he said I don’t know he really started crying.  

I spoke kindly to him, with a bit of encouragement “Brandon, look at me.”  Holding his spelling book in my hand I said “Buddy, these are just words.  It’s just simple memorization of 23 words.  On your bike 2 weeks ago you peddled over 11 miles.  THAT was hard.  You were an 8 year old that went over 11 miles on your bike.  These letters, these are nothing, you’ll get this.  Now, wipe your tears.”

He took his sleeve and wiped away a big tear that was stuck in the corner of his eye.  He looked at me and said “Dad, can I get a piece of paper and write them down as you say them, instead of spelling then out loud?”

Of course he could.  He ran and got paper and we went over the letters and he spelled every one of them correctly on his sheet of paper.

I have a few years left with Brandon to break the self image he has of himself, the image of “I make too many mistakes to try”.  But I noticed that if I believed in him, he believed in himself.

People, all people, at one point or another need someone to believe in them.  For kids, it might be parents or grandparents.  For students, it’s a teacher.  For spouses it’s their significant other, and for Luke Skywalker it was Obi-Wan Kenobi.

What should happen in life is we should all believe in one another.  As a fallen race, we should look to our left and right at our co-humans and realize no one does this life right.  And we all need a little help, a little belief that we can matter to the next person, that we can achieve something that we didn’t think we could.

What is characteristic of what we are as a race is our inability to be helpful to those outside our view of responsibility, to be jealous of another’s success, and to demean those of a different perspective than our own.

John 3:16, when not being put on cardboard and shown at football games starts with “God so loved the world…”

That, needs a longer pause than most of us Christians give it, we so focus on the rest of the verse that the very reason for the rest of it is this part here.

He loved every facet and variation of people. Never minimize your purpose or existence and never allow someone else to minimize you either.

  

We all matter. 

As far as we have fallen as a people, as far away we stand on matters of politics or religion or are separated from each other depending on whatever issue we feel is important for the hour of whatever day it doesn’t matter…

Because He so loved us.  And that love gave a gift, and that gift salvages what is left of life into something everlasting.

I don’t have time to be anything BUT a good father to my son.  He needs to know that his Dad believes in him, that he can succeed.  And that no matter what happens, I so love him.

Not just my son, or all my kids, or wife, or friends either.  But my enemies and strangers as well are deserving of this same kind of love.

Because they are the world and they all matter too.  If I am so loved, they should be as well.

Luke 12:6-7 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.