A Day in the Life

Today is my birthday.

February 27th - I should say today is our birthday - we were born thirty-six years ago in the large metropolis of Blue Earth, Minnesota. Ryan, Vikki and I were born three days late; my sister, the largest, tipping the scales at 6 1/2 pounds and Ryan and I managing a mere 4 1/2. Imagine that - if you will - fifteen pounds of kids in one belly. It all seemed rather large until I saw the mortifying picture of the mother who was pregnant with septuplets. Her belly looked like a gasoline tanker; I had to resist my gag reflex. I did always tell Christine that she looked beautiful when she was pregnant, though.

As I reflect back on this life of mine, I'm trying to ponder what has changed most since the 1970's. Many would say it's the music - digitally compressed files packed with digitally enhanced voices paired with digitally enhanced videos; it all seems so fake now. Gone are the disco kings and queens who made us (perhaps I'll speak for myself), me, want to shake my groove thing, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although by the time the disco was closing shop, I was all of five years old and I didn't even know what a groove thing was.

Some might say that the biggest change is in how information is passed. I am just old enough to remember when there was an actual dial on the phone and it took approximately a minute to call my friends, especially if they had a lot of zeroes or nines in their phone numbers. The phones were connected to the wall by a chord - there was a large fascination for me to curl the cord around my finger as I talked on the phone. In my home town of Rake, we didn't even need to dial the first three digits; since the town was so small, we only had to dial four numbers. The computer has changed the world, I know. All that information at our fingertips. I can type in a word on Google and have billions of hits in less than a second. I remember in high school writing papers and having to finger my way through the encyclopedia to look up the gestational period for the hoary marmot (it took me most of one study period). I also distinctly remember when there were only three channels to be had on the television. Perhaps because we lived in a rather remote section of Iowa, and the airwaves were a bit thinner (that's my assumption), we could only get PBS and two CBS channels. People always talk about the Cosby Show, but I have no recollection because the NBC station was too far away. My television experience from the younger years bounced back and forth between Dukes of Hazard and Love Boat. Also the early morning Saturday cartoon experience watching "Cartoon Olympics" and "Superfriends." Now the cartoons are for mature audiences. What's happening in the wild world of sports.

Speaking of sports, they've changed a bit too. Instead of athletes making a decent living, many of them earn (I use that term very lightly) more than the GNP of many small countries. I just found out this morning that Manny Ramirez turned down 45 million dollars for two years because he feels that he would be underpaid. Everything about that situation makes me want to scream and boycott any type of baseball for the next fifteen years. But, I won't. I am addicted to baseball and I will only inwardly scream and then hope the guilt goes away while I watch the Mets blow another September lead. Our sports addiction is fed by the media. For twenty-five years we have had ESPN - imagine that, one whole channel dedicated to just talking heads talking about sports. In college it was so bad that I would watch the same ESPN program two times in a row just in case I missed something before it. I'd also even watch ESPN if they were broadcasting the national spelling bee. Sports? Not necessarily, but that doesn't mean it's not a competition for which I can yell for the underdog to win.

These things have changed, perhaps, but one aspect that has evolved the most (in a negative way) is community. Remember when there were block parties, or card parties, or simply picnics when a whole community was invited? Where have those days gone? Well, I think I have a few answers and you can disagree with me if you want to.

1. Kids are busier than they have ever been before. Parents place kids in dance, sports, music etc. so early now, that the family is simply left gasping by all the places they need to drive them. this problem is driven by the need to succeed and where the parents failed in the past; they live out their dreams vicariously through their children. "I never was able to make it to the state championship basketball game," one parent might say, so he has them dribbling a basketball obsessively when the child is four months old. It's the Tiger Woods syndrome, I think. Tiger started golfing when he was two - even on the Johnny Carson show - and now every parent wants their child to be a prodigy of some sort.

2. Information technology has destroyed face-to-face communication. It is now thought that seventy-five percent of youth are not able to carry on a conversation with an adult and look them in the eyes when they speak. The cell phone has slain any sort of communication. And now that text-messaging is rampant, youth and adults no longer need to hear the voice of the other person. Even if we want to, we no longer know how to talk to each other. Instead of talking about important events in our lives - to share kids birthdays, special events, even just a meal, it now seems like work to many people and it's much easier to stay at home and be sedated by our television sets or computer screens.

3. Eating together is non-existent. A recent study suggests that an average family will sit down to a home-cooked meal once per week. Throughout the ages, this is where most family communication occurs. Taking time to prepare a meal, taking time to sit and discuss the day - these things are passe. Because we don't eat as a family, most of us no longer eat as a community either, which is one of the main reasons a community of faith is so important - eating together reaches into our innermost self and reminds us that at heart, all of us were made to be in community together.

4. Lastly, we are what we earn. The more money we make, the more important we are. People spend more time at work so that they can spend more money on a house that they are never in. There is no such thing as a nine to fiver anymore. Our value is translated by our work habits not our connections. It is the appropriate time in human existence, I believe, to refocus the community back to its roots - the greatest things in life are not things but relationships.

There is a bit of soap-boxing on my 36'th birthday. I was in the mood to take a sentimental journey and am looking forward to attempting ways to counter-act the four anti-social points that I sometimes add to my own life. Keep strong and have an excellent February 27th.

The Way of the Dodo

A few weeks ago, I ran across an article expounding on the different aspects of life that are becoming obsolete or extinct. Of course we can all think of a few that have occurred in the last ten years: typewriters, eight-track cassettes, manual transmission cars, but the list from the Washington Post was a bit more exhaustive. Here is a list of a few of the things that Anna Jane Grossman brings forth as leaving - the way of the dodo:

Maps: With new GPS technology, folding maps has become a thing of the past. No more expletives when trying to figure out which section is folded first or finding the most direct route to towns that might not even appear on the map itself. Plus, it's much more fun to listen to a GPS system tell you to 'TURN AROUND NOW!!!" I think they even come with GPS systems for men which tell us "Now you'll never again have to pretend you know where you are going."

Cash: This is a true head-scratcher to me, but our society may be in the last throes of money that folds in wallets or jingle lingle lings in your pocket. For the first time in history it now costs more to make the money than it is worth. So - plastic. But, fear not, plastic in the next ten years will also become instinct. Cell phone technology will probably increase so much that all banking transactions will be done on the phone. Another interesting detail about a cash-less society is that even the most iconic of games, Monopoly, has now switched to cash-less. Each person is given a credit card and the banker swipes the card every time a transaction is made. Only the banker and the buyer know how much money the player has left. And, instead of receiving $200 when passing 'Go', the player receives two million dollars. That's quite the increase in real estate value.

Blind Dates: What used to be the scariest of moments in a single person's life, is now a little more under control. Because we are a 'googling' society, we can find out exactly what our blind date is like even before we accept the uncomfortable pressure from our parents.

Short shorts: Although these shorts, thankfully, went out of style in the early 1990's, they actually weren't buried until John Stockton retired from the NBA. Although, as recently as 2006, at a retro-throwback game between the Lakers and the Celtics, the Lakers wore short basketball shorts. Here was the quote from Kobe Bryant, star of the Lakers whose team was losing dreadfully at halftime: "I don't know what it feels like to wear a thong, but I imagine it feels like what we had on in the first half. I felt violated. I felt naked." Ah, remember the days. My high school basketball uniform shorts were so tight, it looked like I was wearing only my underwear. No wonder we lost so many basketball games.

Cassette tapes: They went out of style quite a while ago; CD's took over and hadn't really given up the ghost. But not only were tapes popular back in the 80's so were 'mix tapes.' Perhaps all of you gen x'ers can remember waiting for the top 9 at 9 to hear your sweet love muffin in 7th grade dedicating a song by Chicago or Styx. By that radio you would sit and as soon as the DJ would start to announce the dedication, you would press record on your 'boom box' which was as big as a hatchback car. Then, after recording Richard Marx's "Hold on to the Night," you would try to add a few other songs that would help you get through the day. Maybe "Money for Nothin'" or "We Built This City on Rock and Roll." What about "Heart of Rock and Roll." Sheesh. It's like taking a stroll through music's hall of shame. I remember when I was about ten years old, while we were eating family supper, I would take out the tape recorder, set it in front of the television and record the music from "Solid Gold." It wasn't quite the same without the dancers, but I was unusually hypnotized by Dionne Warwick.

So many treasures of the past become useless or else simply irrelevant with new technology. One of the startling beauties of the past that seems to be going the way of the dodo is prayer. More and more I talk to people about prayer life and they say that they either find prayer outdated or useless, or else they just don't have time. They don't see the purpose and more than one person has said, "God already knows what I want and He'll give it to me if He wants to." Prayer has been relegated to a role of polishing Aladdin's lamp and expecting a handsome thirty-three year old Jesus to come dancing out of the spout to address the concerns of daily monetary conditions, not just daily bread.

The confirmation class and I were talking about this very question just this last weekend. They now wonder if God really listens or if we should just pray when we are expected to like bedtime. "Now I lay me down to sleep..." or the speed prayer at meal time. During the rest of the day we're on our own. But C. S. Lewis and others liken prayer not just to asking God for what we want but allowing God to share with us what we need most. Sometimes we don't' even know ourselves. Prayer is not changing God's mind but allowing God to change us so that we realize we depend on Him for everything. When we think about our relationship with parents or guardian growing up, often they provide all of our needs without asking or even thanking. But imagine the shock if a child were to ask and thank their parent for everything that was given to them? What would happen if my own children were to thank us for the roof over their heads, the meals in front of them and the books that grace their rooms? Imagine my delighted shock and then my willingness to give even more to make them happy.

Isn't it so with God? If we were to ask and thank God for all the things to come, imagine how much more blessed we are in realizing that God does this simply because He loves us. Just through prayer. And the more we pray, the easier it becomes - the conversation is not limited to bedtime or mealtime, but lifetime - one long dialogue between the holy one of the universe and a minuscule human like me. It is hard to imagine.

So, if the option arises for you, don't let your prayer life go the way of the dodo. It is not obsolete; in fact, it is so incredibly important, that living without it is like living with shortened breaths. Pray, my friends. Pray.

Sleeping Beauties

I have a friend, Roger, who called and complained to me that he has yet to end up in one of my blogs. Roger, by nature, is neither a complainer (nor a frequent caller, for that fact) but an excellent friend who is delusional about his basketball abilities. He's into old age now; in his fifties - old enough to be my father, or at least older uncle. Roger is one of those unique people in life that bring memories alive - not that he is a living fossil, I would never say that - at least not to his face, but the memories he brings forth are opportunities for us to smile and remember that life really is connected by moments of joy.

Roger is the principal of elementary schools in Waverly, Iowa. He is of average height, skinny, but not stick figured; my memories of him still picture him with brown hair but as of this age, I would guess salt and pepper is more likely. He has a smile that starts on one side of his face and then spreads to the other, kind of like the sun rising; the way he speaks is a constant sort of amusement to me - sarcasm, but not the biting kind - more like the bouncing kind (it bounces off me like water on a duck). His intelligence is apparent and kindness is evident (I'm stroking his ego a bit here). To put it simply, after years apart, Roger doesn't change - and that's a good thing.

Roger, as we were talking the other day, brought up his disastrous summer last year when the flooding of the Cedar River ravaged Waverly and the school district. Irving Elementary School lay underwater; its bathing produced devastating effects and Roger was left trying to relocate all of the children in his school to some other place. When disaster occurs, of course the first thing that is sacrificed is sleep. From what I hear from another friend, Roger seemingly didn't sleep for two weeks; his eyes looked like empty walnut shells - his body language suggested walking death. But like many Iowans last summer, Roger simply rolled up their sleeves and did what he had to do to save life as he knew it.

Even last night as I spoke with my spiritual practices class that one of the things that I take most for granted is sleep. I never really think about how great I feel after a good night of dreaming (or sometimes not dreaming), but when I don't get any sleep it feels as if the world may indeed come crashing down around my bed headed hair. Sleep is truly a gift - doctors might say it is the most necessary element to healing.

Even in one of the most famous fairy tales of all time, Sleeping Beauty, the main character, is put under a spell so that she might sleep instead of succumbing to illness and death. It gives new meaning to the phrase "getting some Beauty Sleep." Roger could really use some of that.

But we live in a society that seems to call a good thing bad and a bad thing good. I heard the other day a group of people bragging about how little sleep they get. One man said, "I average about six hours of sleep per night." "Oh yeah," said the woman, "I'm lucky if I get five. I go to bed at midnight and get up at five o'clock and begin work." The last man in the group looked at them with derision, "Four hours. That's all I need. I guess I'm blessed." It sounded like a demented episode of name that tune: "I can name that tune in four notes..." We consider ourselves blessed if we can get by on less sleep so that we can 'work' more. But, the studies show that the less sleep we get, the less productive we are. More hours of work does not necessarily increase productivity. It usually only lessens job satisfaction. But, we are a society that worships at the altar of work and bows down to the idol of ergomania. Those that work more are lifted up as ideal citizens; those that work 'only' forty hours per week are considered slackers.

Sad, really.

Many cultures around the world emphasize the need for rest - the need to replenish resources. Of course the traditional afternoon siesta in Spanish culture speaks to this. When Christine and I were in Germany in the mid '90's, some towns would shut down for two hours after lunch. A nap, at times, is not a luxury, but a necessity. Sleep is for healing and refreshing the soul. Take, for instance, Jesus modeling of retreating silence. Mark 1:32-34 Jesus spends his day having the sick and the demon possessed brought to him. After healing from the beginning to the end of the day, Jesus needs to retreat. So, in spite of the fact that not every person was healed, he gets up early in the morning to spend time in prayer - to be silent. Luke 8 also speaks of Jesus' need for sleep. The disciples have put out onto the Sea of Galilee and Jesus descends into the boat simply to sleep. Even the Son of God needs to rejuvenate.

My encouragement to you this week; in the midst of connecting joys in life - in the midst of stress and tragedy - look for sleep; look for rejuvenation; look for time in silence with God. Prepare for the days ahead.

Go ahead. You deserve a break today.