You're Not Alone

 

I've been a loner since I was a young child.  That's one thing.

I suffered through periods of loneliness up until I was about 30.  Once Tina and I got married, she pretty much cured that. That's another thing, a different thing.

I have experienced the sensation of being alone at times for the past 20 years or so.  So that's a thing different from the first two, and the thing I want to discuss. Perhaps the three things are tied together, I don't know. 

It was been very apparent to me that various people who have influenced me tended to pull me off the beaten path of life.  When it was happening, I was fully aware of it, yet I embraced the influence they were having, because it felt right. 

Those people challenged me to reconsider views I had taken on simply because people around me who I respected held those views. 

As time went on, I became more comfortable in taking some positions I would not have previously taken.

Gradually I found that I was becoming less and less mainstream. That's when the sensation of being alone began. That's when the battle to make the best of it began.

I had two choices - 1) Conform to some ideas that everything within me didn't want to conform to, or  2) Find a way to move on and hold the positions I felt strongly about without alienating people.

There was a caveat to choice #2. It would be a lonely path.  The feeling of being alone would rear it's head periodically. It would be brutal at times. That came with the territory.

Fortunately, as I mentioned at the beginning, I have two things going for me.  I'm still a loner, and I still have the love and support of my wife.  Apart from those, I am not sure what would have become of me.

Once in a while, while experiencing that sensation of being alone, I am reminded that that is in fact a lie.  I am NOT.  I'll write something, and a random person will make an encouraging comment, and let me know that they too may be experiencing that sensation of being alone.

It's that kind of interaction that makes this entire lonely path worth every second.  I know, in that moment, that I connected with just one person, and perhaps eased their own feeling of being alone.

You, my friend, whoever you are, you are not alone. 

 

49 Winchester - Leavin' This Holler

I don't recall how I stumbled onto this song, but I listened to it repeatedly all week.

Somehow, I think it expresses some feelings I've had. No idea exactly how it specifically applies to me, but the concept of yearning for freedom rings loud. 

 

  

Well, I can feel it changin' in every moment, every hour

Lives start rearranging, and the sweet things all turned sour
Tried to take one for the team and stick around
Try to make things what they should be
But I can't, not in this town

 

So I'm leaving this holler
Leaving the heartache
And I'm leavin' the way things used to be
I will not be returning
My spirit is still yearning
For a chance at being happy, Lord, and free

 

And those chains they use to bind me
I'll break 'em off and find me a lover who will never let me down
Well, a brand-new start and a clean-washed heart 

And I'll be good to go
Well, they say that you can't keep a good man down
I'm skippin' town

 

Well, I hate to waste my time here
I ain't got but so much left
I'm tired of running from the question
When the answer is the test
And I thought it would be easy
Let the chips fall how they will
Oh, I know that I got love to give
But I ain't got time to kill

 

So I'm leaving this holler
Leaving the heartache
And I'm leavin' the way things used to be
I will not be returning
My spirit is still yearning
For a chance at being happy, Lord, and free

 

And those chains they use to bind me
I'll break 'em off and find me a lover who will never let me down
Oh, a brand-new start and a clean-washed heart
And I'll be good to go
Well, they say that you can't keep a good man down
I'm skippin' town

 

So I'm leaving this holler (leaving)
Leaving the heartache
And I'm leavin' the way things used to be (used to be)
I will not be returning (return)
My spirit is still yearning
For a chance at being happy, Lord, and free (free)

 

And those chains they use to bind me (chains, I'll break)
I'll break 'em off and find me a lover who will never let me down (let me down)
Oh, a brand-new start and a clean-washed heart
And I'll be good to go
Well, they say that you can't keep a good man down (good man down)
I'm skippin' town

Bias, Anger, and Depression, Oh My

 

Where to start…

Let’s just get to the point.  I have tended throughout my life to get depressed.  After a lifetime of doing that and analyzing it, I’ve concluded I don’t suffer from “depression” in the clinical sense.  It’s just a tendency of mine. It’s not debilitating. I can go about my daily work (which in fact can easily snap me out of a depressed mood.)

My getting depressed is directly linked to my view of the world around me, whether it be my immediate world, or the world in general.

To be completely honest, I think my being depressed is simply a response to things not going my way.

Things aren’t going my way on the National Front.

It’s depressing.

Other people deal with things not going their way in a different way.  One of those ways is to become angry.  I see a lot of that. It’s not that I never get angry, but I tend to try to stamp down my anger because it doesn’t feel productive. I could be wrong.  Maybe I should be a more angry person, and that would make me better.

When I say anger isn’t productive for me, I mean that anger tends to steal the whole stage when it presents itself.  When anger comes, it’s like a movie scene with Clint Eastwood standing in a dusty street in the hot sun, squinting his eyes with a cigar in his mouth.

After pushing Clint out of the scene, I often try to view what is happening in an objective way. This is where the problems start.

I can’t be very objective. There, I said it.

Too much has happened already that has probably caused physical wires to connect in my brain which lead me to see things in an nonobjective way.

This phenomenon is not unique.  YOU can’t be objective either.  Just, please, admit it.

We see what we want.  We see what those we align ourselves with tell us we are seeing.

It’s frightening.  I’ve never been this frightened about the potential issues that could emerge from this place we find ourselves in.

I remember thinking a few years ago about this situation.  I spoke of it as something coming in the future. I couldn’t picture exactly how it would play out.  It’s playing out.

Tire of me if you must.  I have always known my intensity is off-putting to many. I accepted that years ago. I’d rather you unfollow me here than hate me.

Is there any hope at all? I suppose it depends on your definition of hope. 

Are we going to learn to view situations with less bias?  The short answer is probably, for the most part, absolutely not. 

What about our national anger issue?  Can we do anything about that? I suppose that depends on whether we want to or not.  Anger has become a righteous thing. The more, the better. With that thinking, there IS no hope for a dampening of the anger.

So here we are, a nation of biased people, full of righteous anger.

What could possibly go wrong?

What Christmas is All About

It’s taken me 65 years, but it finally dawned on me what Christmas is all about.

Through no fault of our own, for most of us, our first understanding of Christmas revolves around receiving.  It’s perhaps the only concept we can understand as a child.  We don’t begin our lives with an innate understanding of giving… we can’t, as we have no capacity to understand that concept as a child.

As we age and mature, our view of Christmas makes a shift, and we begin to learn the concept of giving. We look to the Christmas Story to reinforce this sentiment, drawing attention to the Three Wise Men who came from afar to visit the Christ Child and bring him gifts.

At some point in our lives, we realize that commercialism has overtaken Christmas, and we begin our fight against falling into that trap.  We are remined by Charlie Brown’s Christmas that Christmas was originally about the birth of Jesus. With that in mind, we make attempts to avoid the pitfall of getting distracted by anything that distorts our understanding of the meaning of Christmas.  We are often successful.  We set budgets for gift giving and remind ourselves about why we give the gifts we do give.

We may shift our giving from giving to each other, to giving to someone who may really have a need for a gift. The concept of giving for a need, rather than giving simply as an expression of appreciation or love, may be more satisfying. 

Our view of the meaning of Christmas continues to be adjusted throughout of lives.  The idea that Christmas “brings out the best in us, that we are more loving, more understanding, more patient” during the Christmas Season often takes hold.  Ironically, Hallmark movies are great for capitalizing on this idea.  We watch them because it feels good to be reminded that good feelings about human behavior come to those who watch Hallmark.

Certainly there’s an element of truth in all of these efforts to find the true meaning of Christmas. Yet often, we find ourselves asking “Is there more?” Why is it that we constantly find ourselves searching for something more true, more authentic about Christmas?

Perhaps it’s because we still lack the full picture.

So, at last am I about to reveal the full meaning?  Of course not.

As is the case with all things, we are constantly evolving.  This is simply where I am at this point in time.

To get there, yes, we have to go back to the original story from which Christmas gets its name… the birth of Christ.

Your particular view of who Christ was or wasn’t isn’t the point of this. The idea is true regardless.

It’s undeniable that this person Jesus did something that few in the history of the world have done. Across much of the world, people celebrate this event called Christmas.  Every person doing so has attached some meaning to it across a whole spectrum of ideas.

We don’t need to agree on that meaning for this discussion.  The point is, we have all attached some meaning to this holiday.

We probably can agree that all this had its beginning somewhere.  It began with one person.

The word that comes to mind concerning that one person is “influence”.

Somehow, some way, maybe for reasons beyond his own control, this person Jesus lived a short life and altered the course of history. Regardless of your opinion of Jesus, that is just an undeniable fact.

It is because of that one man that many of us celebrate this day and attempt to understand why.

Influence.  It’s because of his influence.  Perhaps that’s the lesson here. 

So the lesson is simply to acknowledge the influence of Jesus?  No.  The lesson is to acknowledge the legacy and influence we can leave by how we live.

Jesus was a perfect example.  He came from humble beginnings, lived a simple, ordinary life, said unpopular things, and is still talked about over 2000 years later. 

Have I said even one thing that will be remembered tomorrow?

No doubt it’s a product of age, but I consider my own influence more every single day. I consider how I might influence my adult children without overstepping boundaries.  I consider how I might influence the people I work with. I consider how I might influence people with my social media presence. I consider how I might influence my friends.

That influence can either be positive or negative.

Every single interaction is an opportunity to influence someone else. Now don’t get me wrong… I’m not talking about how to get people to do what I want them to do.  This has absolutely NOTHING to do with social media influencers.

So in the end, I AM talking about giving after all.

I’m talking about giving people what they need at that moment.  I’m talking about giving out of our lives to a cause that’s authentic...that's much more than empty words.  

That's how many of us view the life of Christ... a man of influence. And he is our inspiration to lead similar lives.

And that’s what Christmas is all about.

Merry Christmas everyone.

The Quiet

 

From a young age, I understood that my grandfather, Elias Tingle, read profusely.  Part of his daily reading included several daily newspapers in order to keep up with the times. While he was with us, I never quite understood his drive to consume the daily news.

At some point in my life, much later than when he did, I too began my day with a daily consumption of news. 

My media is certainly different from his, of course. I just read a statistic about how much information we now consume at the beginning of our day, compared to someone like my grandfather. It’s astounding.

One of my regrets in life is that while Elias was living, our conversations were limited.  I was too young, too distracted, and that drive to understand the world had not yet set in. The means to understand him… long conversations about life… never happened.  I probably learned more about him from his son, my Uncle Bud, and the long conversations that I did have with him.  Those conversations were through the eyes of Bud, and were slightly tainted due to that, but I would guess his analysis of his father were mostly accurate.

I did in fact witness many adult conversations between Elias, my uncle, and my mother, when Uncle Bud would visit - the kind which involved such heavy issues as the state of the world.  The most serious ones, however, were probably reserved for after my family had departed, since the presence of young ears would have moderated those adult conversations.

I bring this up because I have long recognized the similarity between my grandfather and me.  That similarity involves the way our minds work, the way we absorb and ponder on information, and the effect is has on our demeanor.

The similarity increases the older I get.  One way I see it clearly in the past year is my ability to  transition from gregarious (a term I would never have used in my younger years to describe myself) to quiet and contemplative in a matter of moments. I used to view my grandfather as mostly gregarious.  Over the years, after contemplating his life, I see more accurately that he was in fact more like I just described myself. 

Coincidentally, I am now at the age he was when I first began to understand who he was, and what was important to him.

All which leads to this… in his quiet moments alone and out of his gregarious mode, I picture him pondering on the state of the world, and feeling a great weight on his shoulders, just as I do.  I picture him wondering what his role was, and what he could do, if anything.

In 1976 Elias ran in a Delaware State Senate race and was handily defeated 4,556 to 7,552. It was a great disappointment to him, and a blow to his ego.

That effort to make an impact in the political arena was his last. After a long history of community engagement in various organizations, his voice became more quiet.

I now wonder about why that was the case less than I used to. I now understand a little better what drove him to that quiet place.

 

More Lessons from Kids

 

Sometimes when I’m trying to figure out how God must work, I consider things that happen between our kids and us. I do that because we are in a parent/child relationship them, and since, as people of faith, we view ourselves in a similar way as “children of God”,  I make the assumption our children are there to teach us something about how God views us.

Our kids are older now, so the parenting role of our relationship has evolved. While it has changed over time, a little parenting will always be part of our relationship.

In the recent past, we have had conversations with both our boys which made me reflect on that idea, and how it may be a reflection of our relationship with God.  The conversations were basically the boys telling us about what was going on in their lives.  One of the boys didn’t come right out and ask what we thought, but one did in fact request our opinion about an employment decision he was considering.

I thought carefully about how to answer that question. Honestly, I didn’t have a strong inclination either way, but I wanted to be careful about swaying his decision.

Instead of giving him a straight answer, I explained what I would do if I were in his situation.  I discussed the things I would consider, and the tools I might use to help me make the decision. I told him to let it brew a while in his mind.  And then I let it go. I assured him that in time, he would gain clarity, and the best path forward would come to light.

It didn’t take long, but soon he made his decision. Coincidentally, it was the decision I probably would have made too, but that was irrelevant.

The important thing was for him to figure out how to make difficult decisions, decisions where you have two good options, decisions where there is no “right” or “wrong” choice, but perhaps a better one.

A little back story  – this decision was all part of a situation that had been developing for months. In order for him to even be faced with this particular decision, several pieces of the puzzle had to fall into place first, and that happened over a period of time.

It all reminded me that this is probably how God looks at us when we ask things of Him… in essence… when we ask Him for “His opinion”.  Early on, we are taught to make our requests known to God, and then we expect God to just plop the answer in our laps.  In my experience, it almost never works that way. I do believe God looks for the asking part, but then, rather than feed us a quick answer, He reminds us of what we already know, of things we have already learned by walking with Him.

I don’t think God always wants to just hand us answers to our requests.  He wants a people who grow through having to trudge through difficult stuff. He wants a people who mature over time, a people who become increasingly able to operate out of a knowledge deep within themselves. He wants a people who are increasingly able accept that what He has taught them can be trusted, and that the life they are living really comes through Him.

Lest you misunderstand me… I don’t believe we grow to the point of not needing God. Our lives will be spent in learning increasingly difficult things which we learn by constantly coming back to Him for guidance. 

I fully expect my boys to ask fewer and fewer questions of me.  They will be less and less dependent on my advice.  Is that because they will become self-sufficient?  This is tricky. In a sense, yes, yet at the same time, that self-sufficiency is based on the fact they are carrying within them a trove of knowledge they acquired over a lifetime, not just from Tina and I, but from everyone who took the time to make deposits into their lives.

My boys will increasingly operate out of something that has developed deep within them.  They will live out of a maturity built out of a relationship with their father, their mother, and a host of other people who were dropped into their paths for the purpose of maturing them. And they will live in a constant state of recognizing that there is always more to learn, there are always more difficult decisions to make, always more impossible situations to walk through, and there will always someone there to walk beside them through it all, ready to continue to offer guidance.

Such is our walk with God… always progressing… always acknowledging that there is more to learn… always understanding that we are mere humans.