Spirit and Mind?

It's always nice to wake up and find something like this in your inbox:

Apparently, this guy is the poster-child (to whatever extent) for the A&M Foundation's new Spirit and Mind fundraising initiative.  Oddly enough, seeing this doesn't really say either "spirit" or "mind" to me.

A true American hero

Along with my church, I just saw my friend Bill off at the airport, on his way to Iraq.  He's one of the bravest men I know.  And I don't just say that because he's off with the Air Force to serve in a war-torn country suffering a grueling war, but I also say it because I've witnessed in him one of the greatest transformations I've seen the Lord do in a person.  I'm not exaggerating.

I'll let him tell his own story.  I'm just here to say that the man I met a couple of years ago is night and day different than the friend I know today, the one who lights up the sky with some amazing fireworks displays, who nearly puts me to shame by his eagerness to jump off of 50-foot cliffs, who has shown a deep spirit of generosity to those who are truckless.

It's not easy to live life boldly and fully when so much of your life has been lived in a way that's anything but.  (This part is as much autobiographical as it is anything else.)  In my mind, courage to change the 'quality' of your life in this way is the kind that's most admirable.  More impressive even than the kind that leads you to answer the call into harm's way, though that kind is impressive, too.

Bill, yesterday I encouraged you to be safe.  Today I retract that comment.  Instead, I encourage you to continue to live as you've been living: boldy, fully and courageously.  (Notice that I didn't add recklessly, in honor of the spirit of those encouraging you to be safe.)  I'm proud to be your friend, and trust you'll keep to what the Lord has begun and is doing in you.  And I trust him to keep you until you're back with us, at which point, just in case someone hasn't already verbalized it, we'll all be expecting the kind of fire in the sky that we've been sorely missing for a year.  And I'll bring the beer.

Fourth time's the charm: the joys of being an alumnus

WARNING: the post you are about to read contains thinly-veiled bitterness, justifiable cynicism (probably) and pervasive sarcasm.  People with weak stomachs or those preferring lighter-mood-fare are strongly cautioned.  Not recommended for the school-spirited or exceedingly loyal.  Read at your own risk.

Last night a student worker of the Alumni Association at my alma mater called and asked me for money.  I respectfully declined.  Four times.  And yes, I annunciated.

This seems to follow the stubborn-persistence strategy of Abraham pleading for Sodom.  (There are some limitations to the connection, but you get the idea.)  In fact, I don't know that I've ever had to tell someone 'no' so many times who wanted my money.  It was a little exhilarating, really, being all firm and stingy and stuff.

Oh, and they're clever, too.  The students are great conversationalists who can think on their feet.  They're formulaic, but not predictable.  Still, the conversations all tend to loosely move through the following stages:

1) Address Confirmation.  This happens first as the initial 'occasion' for the call, and though it serves a useful purpose for alumni and association alike, is ultimately not the 'real reason' for the call.  You know what's coming.  

2) Caller/Callee Identification.  The caller gets me to talk about what I'm doing now while finding points of connection, in an I'm-your-pal-or-if-we-lived-in-the-same-place-I-could-be fashion.  It just so happened that this particular person last night had a connection to Texas A&M and had even been there recently with her family.  Smooth. 

3) Nostalgic Recollection.  "You remember the good ol' days at the Caf' and the Yo'?  How about those overseas trips, that crazy fun you had?  Ahhhh...."  The caller, now your best friend, tightens those concentric circles, strengthening the lulling effect, painting a broad-stroked picture with both of you standing arm-in-arm with your classmates at your favorite campus spot, preying on those powerful "those were the days" emotions as he/she moves in for the kill...

4) Heartfelt Supplication.  All those fond memories rekindled, the caller pounces.  They start high, and ask if you could help make possible for someone else the blessings you've enjoyed, though not in so many words.  After all, our school motto was, "Freely you have received, freely give."  (Not quite sure how this plays into Pepperdine graduates having the highest rate of indebtedness among all American schools with doctoral programs - which they did a few years ago, at least - but I'm sure it all works out, somehow.)  They work their way down the list of commitments you could make, scripted all the way down (they must know they've got some hard cases out there), until they utter their final plea that the agencies that rank the school look at alumni giving rates to determine standings, to which, though it nearly broke my heart, I was courageous enough to not cave.

Do I sound a little cynical?  I'm just tired of being played.  Maybe it's because of things like the guy who acted like everyone's friend our senior year so he could get the entire senior class to give money in the senior gift.  Maybe it's the fact that one of the older men I knew at the church while I was there (he also worked for the university) died earlier this year, and the first time I ever heard about it was when the Alumni Association sent out an email announcing an endowed fund in his name, painting a portrait of his life as if the only valuable thing about it was his allegiance and contribution to the university.  Maybe it's that I'm still paying for a degree that has cost me way more than it's gained me.  Maybe all of the above.

Ah, the joys of being an alumnus.  What were they again?

In defense of emotional basket-cases

I've had this thing lately that runs through my head: what about people who are mental?  Crazy?  Emotionally unstable?  I have this real feeling of injustice towards them because it seems like life goes on without them just because they can't seem to get it together.

Partly this is a confession, as well, at perhaps some anger directed at God for feeling like maybe he's okay with the fact that some people can't handle responsibility (and are thus deprived of coming into their full humanness) and that he's content to let such people fall by the wayside.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, this post is autobiographical to a degree yet-to-be-determined by how long I can hold out before ending up in the quack-shack.

Sometimes it feels melodramatic to me to make such statements about my mental health.  At other times it seems as if I'm not quite capable of joking, as some people do to cope, about going crazy, and enjoying the joke.

Do I feel like God needs to somehow prove himself or his record on this to me?  As far as my record goes, I think I've pretty consistently been able to unmask my own ironies that disguise themselves as justified ranting and raving at the Almighty.  Which is to say, it kind of comes down to an issue of patience with me.  God never seems to be in much of a hurry to prove himself to me on the things I think are important.

I don't think that means I can't be a little bitter over our culture's worship of self-confidence and how it drives people just struggling not to lose it to appear as if they can conform to the popular idolatry.  Or at least, a little bitter over what I perceive as the church's possible complicity (to whatever degree) in this crime.  Really, maybe I'm just bitter because I know I'm not just the president, I'm also a client.

I mean, am I wrong about this (the cultural pressure to become someone that you and everyone else can worship)?  I seriously wonder if crazy people in other countries are nearly so famous in their cultures as we are, I mean, the ones here are in ours.

This may be one of those posts that far exceeds my normal levels of, "where in the world is he coming from?"  If none of these thoughts make any sense to you without the context, I'd be glad to share more of why I think I'm marginally insane with you some time soon.  Seriously.  After all, misery loves company, whether or not the feeling is mutual.

In response...

I made a deal with my friend Cory that if he got back on his blogging-horse, that I would post a response to whatever he wrote about.  Here are some of his thoughts on the financial bailout.  And following are some of mine.

Honestly, though, before I start, I have to say that he could have picked a better topic (better for me, I mean).  Economics, along with math, government, and science, is something I last studied in high school.  Meaning I'll probably make quite the arse of myself trying to sound educated about all of this.  So bear with me.  Better yet, you'll enjoy this post all the more if you go ahead and agree with me that education itself is overrated; at least, my $120,000+ undergraduate liberal arts degree certainly was.  ;)  Well, at least I'm qualified to give my two cents as it concerns bad investments.  (Although, I probably should be throwing every pair of pennies I've got towards paying off those student loans...)

One of my biggest hopes in this whole financial crisis is that, having some of our flaws exposed in our national culture, we might be more open to fundamental change in the way we understand our way of life.

Consumerism blinds us to the larger realities of life.  Instead of thinking about my neighbors or a kingdom that brings true peace, I'm concerned about my daily ration of premium coffee or whether the flooring I bought for my house is going to crack or warp because I should have paid someone to level the house from the outset.  

Capitalism promotes a free market where we're free to jostle and step all over each other (it's called competition and it's great because it lowers the price and increases the quality of that premium coffee) in our rush to be the vendor of choice for all those consumers out there with their heads in their wallets (or the headphones of their iPods, ignoring all the people passing within a few feet of them).

Lest I be a hypocrite in my criticism, I want to be clear that I certainly share the blame in a culture that values people based on their knowledge of and attention to machines and materials over and above that of people (by and large, anyways).  I'm caught in the cycle of buying and selling, too.  I'm often more likely to be concerned with what a person's job is than what their relationships are like.  I've spent a disproportionate amount of time in the past several months obsessing over an orderly (quasi-) assemblage of wood, paint, nails and electrical wires than I have showing consistent concern for the people in my life.

How much of that is going to matter when everything that's now broken encounters the Great Fix?  When I get to that point, which of my "investments" will truly pay off?  (Isn't it wonderful that we sometimes use financial language to refer to "spending" time and attention and energy and empathy on people?  Even the word "spend" there - wow, it's just really hard to say anything in English if you want to truly affirm the "value" of humanity and not "diminish" it.  Oh well, I tried.)

I doubt that we'll stop building on shifting sand.  But perhaps our days of building skyscrapers on top of skyscrapers there are nearing an end (which is how I envision the whole enterprise of investments stacked upon investments in risky mortgages, which are basically ways of getting things now that we just can't live without, even though we really can't afford it, nudging us to make assumptions against the future about what our lives and financial situations will be like down the road, as if we could predict or guarantee that somehow - hey, I've got a mortgage, too... it's tough).  Perhaps.  It's hard to tell.  Let's not wait around and see before we start seeking a better vision of building whatses (and whoses, especially) that will last.

Recent highs and lows of life (rescued from the draft pile...)

(QUICK EDITOR'S NOTE: I INTENDED TO PUBLISH THIS POST WEEKS AGO, ACTUALLY JUST A DAY SHY OF A FORTNIGHT SHY OF A MONTH AGO, TO BE KIND OF EXACT. THAT'S BECAUSE THERE ARE PICTURES I WAS HOPING TO INCLUDE, BUT WHICH I HAVE NO WAY OF GETTING OFF OF MY PHONE. SO MAYBE LATER I'LL FIND A WAY TO GET THE PICTURES ON HERE. OKAY, I'LL STOP CAPS-SHOUTING AT YOU NOW SO YOU CAN READ THE POST...)

Pre(r)amble
Well, it occurs to me that there are basically two ways to start any blog post, assuming that you're me (other than with the word "Well," which is always a good choice). It's either going to be, "Life has been crazy lately," or "Life has been boring lately" - and everyone knows, of course, that there never is an in-between option. So, without further mucking about in hyperspace...

Life has been crazy lately. I'd like to share with you, in somewhat random order, some snippets from recent Joe-history. When they finally make a movie of my life, this will be the part where you think you can get up and go get a refill on your popcorn without missing too much. But then when you get back and whisper to your movie neighbor, "What did I miss?", there's no possible way they could catch you up to speed without missing something themselves. So you'll just have to read on for now.

160/50
On a recent camping trip I took with some guys (including him and him and another, non-blogging guy) to Inks Lake State Park, we explored a swimming location called Devil's Waterhole. I think I know why it was so named. Like a casino, the place draws you in and gives you that kind of reckless confidence that nudges you towards making internal statements like, "I bet I could do more. Why the hell not?" (Such things are quite likely to be said at locations named for the devil.) Only, here it wasn't about spending money you don't have (or soon won't), but about jumping off of cliffs and rocks and risking the physical health that you soon may not have. It was awesome. In retrospect, of course.

The first challenge was about a 20-foot cliff. I don't know if you have much of a sense of distance when you hear numbers like that, but 20 feet is a long way up. Consider that, in the normal course of your life, you are not often likely to jump off of walls that are taller than your own height, or even perhaps twice that. Well, this was in the neighborhood of three Yao Ming's high. The worst part about it all was how slippery the rocks were climbing up to this height. My non-blogging friend who went has been to other places in Austin for cliff jumping that he says are much safer, and where the bottom is deeper closer to the cliffs. Here you had to be sure to jump out far enough, or else you're hitting part of the rock formation closer to the cliff. Anyways, the place is fairly crowded, and kids probably less than a quarter of my age are jumping off this thing like there is a bed of puffy marshmallows below, so I couldn't make too much of an ordeal out of my first jump. So I jumped. A little while later I did it again, if for no other reason than I found myself trying to talk me out of jumping again. At times like this I just have to "man up" and silence my inner chicken.

Okay, now for the numbers. As you'll notice in the picture (that is, if I can ever get it transferred from my phone - anyone want to loan me a laptop bluetooth adapter?), one rock is significantly higher than the cliff I first jumped from. We estimated this at about 50 feet. Ay ay ay. (sp?) Two of the guys on the trip decided they were going to jump the tall rock, since we'd seen some other people doing it and not dying or exploding or anything. So they go up and jump. Great. Here comes the inner chicken again, clucking something about how I'd already proved enough manhood for one day. Stupid chicken. Yes, eventually I make my way over the rock. I start climbing. Right before I get to the top, there it is - BAM! That's the sound of my pulse kicking into high gear. I stop to check it. It's at about 160 beats/minute. FYI, btw - I rarely get up this high when I'm jogging. I step up to the top of the rock. Did the wind just pick up? I swear it did. I look down at my legs. They're shaking uncontrollably. I realize that the longer I wait, the harder it's going to be to jump, and also the higher the possibility that I will lose my balance and blaze a new trail down towards the water. So I jumped. About a week or two later, I hit the water. As I come up, I punch both arms into the air for the whole "did that guy just win a teenage karate tournament?" effect. And then I swim gurgling and sputtering to a place where I can sit down and bask.

Joe, the (sheet)Rocker
I've also been working with a very different kind of rock at our new house. Sheet rock. I'd make some kind of official pronouncement that now I am officially handy, but in the current place we live, I've also fixed a leaky washer drain, so this is simply a status that I am renewing, not recently acquiring. Honestly, there's really not a lot to say about this, other than that I really don't enjoy screwing it in. Or cutting it. Or hanging it. Or squatting to get the really low-to-the-floor screws. I think that about covers it.

I think it's an ungrounded myth that guys like power tools. I would offer that, more accurately, guys like power in whatever form they can find it. Kind of like women with chocolate. But power tools are really just a way to do more damage, faster. Noisier. And I'm not just talking about the swearing that follows the router's excursion away from the straight line. Neither am I excluding it.

No use crying over spilled coffee; no use throwing a trash can over it, either
While I'm on the topic of angst, it would be interesting to note that recently, on a frustrating morning of dealing with a handful of housing "decisions" (in quotes because they're really little stinkbombs disguised as situations that people have to deal with), I thought I'd pick up some Chick-Fil-A breakfast on my way home to pick something up before heading to the office. I arrived at home after smelling dark coffee and various forms of heated lipids wafting through the car's recirculating system, ready to chow down. As I'm adding the finishing touches to my coffee and preparing to replace the lid, one of my fingers (investigation still pending) knocks over the cup. Spilling every ounce of the coffee. Onto the table, chair, and floor. Did I mention that this morning had already been frustrating? Swearing ensued. (Some of you may be of the opinion that such action is of minimal benefit to anyone. I would disagree. In my opinion, this blog would be much less interesting if the story continued with, "and I thought to myself calmly and rationally, Self, you know, this really isn't such a bad situation at all - take inventory of how blessed you are and you'll see that this is no big deal.") I think I strung some words together that made very little sense being together, semantically speaking. I went and got a towel to mop up the mess, placing it on the floor. Feeling as though the situation was reaching a resolution too quickly, I promptly picked up our kitchen trash can and sighted in the perfect spot on the wall where I should heave it. "Yes, that's just the spot. Too far left and this might not work at all." Thankfully, at this point my hippocampus stepped in and told my amygdala that it would handle things from here.

The moral of the story? Sometimes being calm and rational will save you from having to clean up extra mess. But not being so makes for good story.

Ten things I hate about summer
1. THE HEAT.
I have an uncle who moved his family to Washington state several years ago (maybe some time while I was in college). What I heard was the reasoning at the time was perhaps he did it to help his allergies. I can't say that I don't find that kind of thing extremely appealing. I don't know whether he really moved for that reason (in a recent-esque conversation with a cousin of mine, I asked about why he had moved, and I received a rather dramatic response about how they just wanted to get away from family), but finding a climate more conducive to not sweating and sneezing sounds really good to me (I realize that there would likely be tradeoffs, but who doesn't want to live in a place where there's a drive-thru coffee shop every few hundred feet?).
2. THE ROACHES.
Seeing as the Brazos Valley only recently seems to be getting some rain after more or less months of little to no rain, perhaps only recently have the roaches been driven out of hiding on a larger scale. Bad grief, they've been crazy at our new house. I had actually forgotten how big they could get (our current property owner does a decent job of keeping the pest service coming, it seems). Silly me. Oh, and did you know that at that size, they make noise on hardwood floors and concrete (in the garage)? Sooooo creepy. Give me a 50-foot cliff I can 'man up' on (over an army of roaches) any day. But hey - roaches - don't take me for soft. Those of you I haven't already decimated, your time is coming. And you'd better beg for the spray if I have a broom within reach.
3. SWEATING.
Really, this one is pretty much a corollary of no. 1. But I didn't think it should go without mention. I'm pretty sure that, whatever my particular mix of Scottish and English and Polish (and someone told me there may be some Cherokee in there somewhere, I think), it wasn't intended for a climate like Texas. I'd go into details as to why I make this claim, but I am at least aware of this much, that certain things do not make for good blog storying.
4. THE WAY THAT THE AFOREMENTIONED THINGS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO KEEP ACCURATE COUNTS OF THINGS, AND THINK CLEARLY IN GENERAL.
So I don't have ten things, but I do have a theory about summer. (Also winter.) Fall and Spring are my favorite times of year, being the seasons that the weather in Texas is most bearable and allows for that feeling that things are either cooling off or thawing out. It's those in-between times when the long hauls of sweating and shivering begin to fade from memory as they are eclipsed by times of refreshing, when you can walk outside and for a short time, breathe cool air and enjoy that kind of feeling that you want to make last as long as you can. I think of Fall and Spring more of transition periods. Obviously, Summer and Winter transition as well, but they feel less so since they lie in between the pendulum swings. Every second gets counted when pressure is applied. But who stares at their watch in those moments when you can simply be at ease? I think it's those moments that are like little peeks at the Kingdom. Brief glimpses of something that may not last very long now, but one day we won't have to settle for inevitable disappointment. One day, disappointment will be absolutely evitable. Come, Lord Jesus.

Reunions galore
Actually, this post is incredibly long already! I can tell by the fact that my own attention span is being stretched into some kind of funky yoga position. So this is a little taste of what I'll hopefully be posting soon. Tune in next time to hear a little about Kathryn's family reunion and my own 10-year high school reunion, both of which happened in the span of two weekends. There'll be laughs, wittiness, tangents, and of course, me taking every possible opportunity to magnify any of the stories which highlight my manliness. I can't wait, and neither can you! Blog atcha soon!

Yellow Card

Yep, got my first ever yellow card Sunday night at the Scrubs' soccer game. Let's just say I barely earned it. What I mean is people (self included) have been way more physical in past games, and the referees have been letting all kinds of contact go uncalled. If the games were called by the book, then I would have earned two or three cardable offenses in our previous game. Hardly disputable, in fact. (And I wouldn't probably rank in the top several most physical players on the field, either.) Even assuming this past game had been called by the book, this was a questionable call. And this referee wasn't calling by the book. (Let's put aside for a moment the practice of "taking it like a man" - I've got something to say.) I got pushed out of bounds, shoulder-to-shoulder. No call. Another one of our guys got pushed out of bounds with the other guy's arms extended (a textbook-perfect push). No call. Both cardable offenses, by the way.

If I sound bitter, maybe I am. I don't think I am - it's been two days and I've had time to cool my jets. But this particular referee had more than just a handful of us seething by the end of the night. I don't know, there's something weird about getting fouls called in soccer. In basketball, it's no big deal to get called for a foul - you can even get up to 5 or 6 before they toss you. Rugby? Hockey? I can't say that I really watch the sports that much, but tell me there's not some major jostling and jarring going around, and it's par for the course. But somehow, soccer is different. It's not just that the play gets stopped, it's that the ref has to reach down his shorts and pull out a colored card and wave it at you, signaling to the world that you just behaved badly and would be receiving a low grade for conduct. Does this bring up any juvenile associations for anyone else? Remember those colored conduct systems they had in Kindergarten? (And maybe up through second grade or something...) In mine, green was good behavior, yellow was testing your limits, red was bad and black meant you were a child of hell. (Surprise anyone that my conduct card was pretty much always on red and black? To any educators out there who may be reading this: YOU ARE GIVING YOUR KIDS COMPLEXES. STOP RUINING THE CHILDREN.) You may not agree with the connection, but I think there's something there. I'm just sayin'.

Now, lest you begin to fear that I will leave this story on a sour note, I have good news that there is a redemptive element to it all! It came in the form of a teammate's comment to me upon hearing that I had indeed received a yellow card. "Joe, you're just going to have to stop being such a badass." (Tongue-in-cheek, of course.) You know what? That seriously made my day. Instead of being called up to the front of the class, only to be scolded and sent to stand in the corner, I get to make my way up to the front of the class and take a bow. With the teacher, by the way, directly behind me.