So Long for Now

I've been on vacation this week, and I've decided to take the blog with me. 

I had to come back to work today, but the blog still isn't ready to return.  It will come back at some point, and it will be better than I left it.  In the meantime, I just need some time away to recharge my batteries, refresh my creative drive and train for a triathalon (I'll explain someday).

If you came here expecting something else, then I'm sorry, but you can pass the time in the interim by getting your own blog.  I promise to read it devotedly.  It's your turn to entertain me for awhile anyway.   

Truth is, due to a combination of life events and obligations, I've haven't been in a good place to write lately.  I'm just not happy with the quality of the stuff I've been writing here lately, and the statistics on the site reflect that opinion.  When I was too busy to attend a seminar on "Living a Balanced Life" last week, I knew I need to make some changes.  I need to take enough time away to clear out some clutter so that writing feels like a joy once again rather than an obligation. 

I've often complained in this space about how the loss of summer vacation is one of life's cruel tricks of adulthood.  It suddenly occurs to me that I'm part of the problem.  So I'm taking the summer off. 

After all, no one makes me write this thing.  I'm always telling you guys to relax and enjoy the pleasures of life.  It's time I took my own advice. 

I'm taking off the entire summer.  I'll be back the week after Labor Day. 

Until then, I leave you with the following advice: 

Relax, renew your spirit, and try to enjoy a little bit of your summer, even if you don't get a vacation.  Don't fill your schedule with things you don't want to do.

Hear the birds in the morning.  Remember that life is short.  Don't waste time arguing with loved ones about things that won't seem important years from now.  Don't get bogged down in every problematic detail life presents, because there is an endless supply of them.  Look for the good in the world, even when life doesn't seem good. Love your neighbor, even when she has a stagnant, unclean, above-ground pool filled with frogs.

Life is hard, so love even harder.

Remember that life's troubles are temporary and that things will often look better on the other side.  Don't worry about things you can't control.  Don't waste time and peace of mind arguing with people on facebook.  Think about what others see when they look at your life and let that vision inspire you to do just a little bit better. 

Turn off the tv.  Change your mind about something.  Don't stop growing. When you disagree with someone, try to think about how things look on the other side of the argument. Pray for someone you care about.

I'm going to try to take my own advice here, too. 

Maybe when we meet again, we'll all be in a better place.

......................................................................................................................................................................
Good luck to all of you who are going through something difficult right now, and there are far too many in that number.  Here's sending some cyberspace love especially to S, who is courageously going through more than what seems fair.  Never back down.

I believe in you.

My T-Shirt Says "Life is Good." Is it Really?

My favorite t-shirt is one of those “life is good” shirts that have become popular lately. It has a stick-figure guy reclining in an outdoor chair with a drink in his hand, and underneath that picture, it reads, “Life is Good.”

I usually wear it on vacation, during summer cookouts and spring crawfish boils, and any other time I specifically want to remind myself to relax and enjoy the moment. It’s one of those shirts that fits perfectly, and it’s a shade of green that nicely accentuates my dark skin.

It’s a great shirt.

I just can’t bring myself to wear it anymore.

I came across my shirt when I was packing for a short vacation this week. My initial, familiar instinct was to grab it and throw it in my travel bag like I always do when I travel. But then I remembered what it said and put it back in the drawer.

I haven’t felt right putting the shirt on since my brother was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer a few months ago. I’m not sure if I actually agree with the shirt’s message anymore, and I don’t want to feel hypocritical.

Of course, I knew that young people got cancer before March and still felt fine wearing a shirt saying that life is good. So maybe I’m being even more hypocritical now by suddenly reversing course.

Or maybe wearing a “life is good” shirt was insulting to people battling serious, life-altering illness all along, and I’m just now sensitive to that.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that if I’m ever going to wear my favorite shirt again, I have to figure out whether I think life is actually good or not. So is it?

Life certainly can be good.

Life feels good when a hope is fulfilled or a goal is accomplished. It feels invigorating during time with soul-affirming family or friends, or a great meal, and even more so if the two things are combined. It feels meaningful during an insightful play or a time of spiritual reflection. Life is fun during a sporting event or vacation.

Life may feel good for a moment, but in the long run, life isn’t fair.

Illness and disease strike without warning or apparent cause. People who work hard don’t always
get what they worked for, through no fault of their own. We get no control over the genetics we inherit or the circumstances we were placed into from childhood, and these factors play a bigger role in shaping our destinies than perhaps anything else.

So how can life truly be good when some people seem to win its lottery while others seemingly are fated to become its garbage can?

The usual answer that optimistic people give is that even those of us who are down on our luck are probably taking 8,000 things for granted. That’s probably true. But it doesn’t explain why some people have 8,000 things to take for granted while others get 8 million.

Others say that life is what you make it. They say that if you choose humility, love and enthusiasm as your guides, then life will feel good even when it also feels really hard. If you dwell on the things you don’t have, you’ll miserable no matter how much you actually do.

I see that point. Still, life doesn’t feel all that good at the moment.

But I have the feeling that it will again someday.

Someday I’ll look back on all the times that God answered a prayer; or didn’t, and ultimately showed me the reason why.

Someday I’ll look back on the friends and family I encountered who brought more to my life than I possibly could have brought to theirs. I’ll be glad that I had them in my life for however long our paths crossed.

I’ll think back to those moments of pure joy where the world seemed to fall perfectly in line, to those times when I was saved by another’s unselfishness, to the occasions where I felt inspired by someone else’s dedication, imagination or example.

I’ll reflect on the joy of life’s best moments, what I learned from its worst, and I’ll be thankful that I managed to be around for however long God had in store for me on this Earth.

I’ll look back and realize that the joy of life’s best moments are one thousand times more powerful than gloom of its worst.

And you know what?

Life will suddenly feel pretty darn good.

Good enough that I might just pull out a certain t-shirt.

How Not to Screw Up Mother's Day

It's almost Mother's Day, that time of year when we think deeply about how our mom, or some other important maternal figure, impacted us so greatly that we're forced to thank her by buying her one of same three presents that we rotate between every year. 

I haven't always liked Mother's Day.

For one thing, I'm not eligible to participate in it, because I don't have kids.  And possibly for other reasons.

Mother's Day can also be stressful.  There are only so many years you can buy the mom in your life flowers or a gift card before you feel the obligation to try to think of something unique. 

Then you strike out trying to come up with anything new, and end up deciding to take her to an overpriced brunch where the overcrowded restaurant loses your reservation and by the time you sit down to eat your mom wishes that you would have just punched her in the face instead.

To make up for this inescapable annual failure, you try really hard to at least get a really entertaining Mother's Day card.  The problem is that there are also only three different Mother's Day cards in print.
 
Although this ratio matches up perfectly with the three available gift options for Mother's Day, it makes doing finding something truly unique about as likely as finding proper grammar in the comments section of an online newspaper article.

So inevitably, you buy a card telling your mom, or a loved one who is a mom, to take it easy on Mother's Day, knowing full well that the job description makes that impossible. Or you buy a card with a joke in it about how much better of a child you are than your siblings.  If you've bought these the last two years, you're stuck buying a card full of sentimental musings that you could have said to her directly for five dollars less.   

These limitations to Mother's Day creativity used to really stress me out.  This year, though, I have a whole new, stress-free outlook.  Want to know my secret?

It's simple: my mother will be on a cruise to Alaska on Sunday.  She'll be inaccessible by phone or to delivery persons, so she won't know what I tried to send her, or even whether I remembered to call.

While this is a perfect solution, if you're reading this blog instead of working right now, then there is a very good chance that you can't afford to send the mother in your life on a cruise this year.

So if she insists on remaining in the continental United States, you are left with three familiar choices: buy her one of the old standbys, take her out to eat, or figure out how to trade your mom in for mine. 

She's a lovely woman, and, more importantly, she already has all the flowers she needs. 

Saturday Morning Felony

One year ago, I almost got shot. 

In the post below, originally written in May 2011, I wrote the entirely true story about the morning an armed robber came to my door, exactly one year ago. 

It's funny how time changes your perspective on things. A year ago, the intended moral of the story was to wonder why God chooses to intervene to save some lives in situations like this, but not in others, before concluding that some purpose must remain for my life since I'm still here. 

I wouldn't finish this story the same way if I were writing it today.  But the one point that still resonates is that regardless of whether I survived this close call by Divine intervention or random chance, had just one little detail gone differently that morning, I might not be here now writing this blog.  

I don't know if God intervened or if fate just happened to work in my favor, and in a sense it doesn't matter.  The point I wanted (and still want) to make was that if we still have life, we should use it in a way that matters, because who knows how long we'll have. 

It might have been God's will that I didn't become a crime statistic last year, or it might have just been an accident.  Regardless, I suggest we mark our continued existence by living on purpose.




Someone is pounding on the door at 8:10 on Saturday morning. 

I don't know who it is or what they want, but that is one seriously loud knock. 

Should I answer it? 

I had wanted to sleep in this morning.  It's probably just a Jehovah's Witness anyway.  I got some literature from them in the mail yesterday.  But it might be the guy I found to cut my grass two weeks ago.  My lawnmower is broken, so I'd really like him to cut it again. 


Maybe I should go down.

But I don't have a shirt on.  If it's a sweet old lady trying to save my soul, I'll feel like awkward discussing religion with her half nude.  I'd better grab a shirt before I go down. 

But there's a problem.  I have on blue shorts and every available clean t-shirt within reach is green.  I'm going to look ridiculous answering the door like that.  But it might be the grass guy, and I really don't want to cut the grass myself. 

Finally, my wife implores me to come back to bed.  Let the yard guy cut the neighbor's yard, and I'll find him in an hour, when he's done. 

Two minutes later, there's an indecipherable shout outside.  My wife and I run downstairs, and look outside.  The scene is calm by the time we open the door, but there are police cars all over my yard, my neighbor's yard, and my street. 

I see some officers standing by their police car on the street and ask why they knocked on my door. But they all swear they hadn't.

It turns out someone had just robbed a fast food store about 1/4 of a mile from my house at gunpoint.  And he left a bag of money in my driveway and a trail of bills in my neighbor's backyard. 

I learned from my neighbor that the shout I had just heard was the cops apprehending the robber--in the bushes beside her house.  The same bushes that are 20 feet from my front door. 

The same door on which the armed robber had apparently pounded just minutes before, intending to do God knows what, had I answered it. 

The door I would have opened had I slept with a shirt on the night before. 

The door I still would have opened had I been wearing shorts that matched a green shirt. 

The door I would have opened had I not gotten a Jehovah's Witness track in the mail, leading me to think they were the source of my morning caller.

The same door that leads the to the porch where my wife sits almost every Saturday morning, with the front door open, to drink her coffee and soak up the morning with our kitty. 

But somehow, this particular Saturday morning, she slept in.  Or else the armed robber would have been on the porch with her, or, had he preferred, had free access to the open front door to get in the house. 

But somehow, none of that happened.  My wife wasn't on the porch, and I didn't answer the door.

I don't know why God protects us from harm sometimes, but not others.  Lots of bad stuff happens in this world.  Often, it happens to people better than me.  More often than I'd like, bad stuff happens to me too, though on a smaller scale.  There are people who feel immune from life's greatest difficulties because of their own presumed righteousness. 

I'm not one of them.  I don't claim entitlement to the special protection that God for some reason, provided Saturday. 

But I sure am thankful for it. 

Some might argue that the whole thing was just chance, and I just got lucky this particular Saturday morning. 

That's possible.  I can't prove one explanation or the other.  I can't argue with you if you want to see it that way.

But I'd rather see this as God's protecting me for some grand future purpose, yet unfulfilled.  There's something else I've been put here to do, and my time to do it hasn't yet run.  The Divine Plan is that I'm supposed to be around for some future opportunity that's going to knock on my door. 

Just hopefully not at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning.