I have a very good friend who, by choice, lives a very conservative, simple, life style. He and his wife choose to live in a rural area, in the woods, without many close neighbors.
They are both professional people and earn a good living. They just made a choice to do the things that bring them joy and less stress in their lives.
They grow a big garden each year and can, freeze and otherwise preserve much food. They hunt for elk and venison and use that as their main meat source. They don’t have television, choosing instead to read good literature, and play games and have actual conversations with each other and their children.
I was at their house visiting one day and one of their children came in and of course, as kids the world over do, wondered what was for dinner. The mom told her, and then she said, “For dessert we are having homemade ice cream”.
I want you, for a moment, to think about the whiniest voice you have ever heard, and imagine the next sentence as being uttered by that voice.
“Homemade ice cream again? Waaaaaaaa, I Hate Homemade Ice Cream.”
Upon hearing that, I thought to myself, Of all the simple, wonderful pleasures in life, homemade ice cream had to be right up near the very top. But if you think about it, if you are rewarded with that kind of thing to often then of course it is going to get old and stale.
When we think about what being blessed feels like, wouldn’t it also stand to reason that if you were totally blessed all the time, would you even be able recognize a blessing?
Sometimes blessing doesn’t mean a reward, or a feel good thing or money or anything like that. Often, a blessing is the very thing you have learned from adversity. It’s an epiphany or insight. It’s having your eyes opened to see that the very thing you stressed or even cried over could have been God making you stronger and isn’t that the best blessing of all?
I am going to add to this post a writing I did when I lost my wife. You will understand when you get to the end. I am a blessed man. I know what it feels like.
Digital cameras really are convenient. I have one of the latest models and it takes awesome pictures. I was thinking though, about how easy it is to delete a memory. We take a picture and then we preview it. If it didn’t turn out just so, we hit the delete button and away it goes. I guess that’s ok at times, but somehow it seems wrong. Yes, I do it as well, but I think about all the pictures I have from years past. We can sit around some times and get the old pictures out and look at them. Each one a memory, such as that picture of Aunt Mary with her underpants showing, or the red eyes of Uncle Dick, were they red from the bad picture, or from the booze. We took pictures with our old film cameras and we took them to the photo place and got them developed. Then we put those pictures in an old shoe box somewhere. Sure they weren’t all professional quality and some of them were stupid or embarrassing, but they were memories and they bring back feelings of that time. Now we all seem to want to be first class photographers so we delete the pictures that don’t fit that mold. How sad to lose that moment in time even if it didn’t turn out postcard perfect. We also take many pictures that are good, but all we do is download them onto our computer and leave them there. It was always enjoyable to get the big pile of old pictures out and have the family sit around on the sofa and pass them back and forth and laugh and remember. I don’t know all the reasons these things bother me so but they do. I am a huge nostalgia type guy and it just bothers me to see memories deleted even if they weren’t perfect.
What if we had a button like that in our lives? Man, I could delete that night in Portland, or that bicycle wreck when I was six. Maybe I would like to erase that fight I had with my son when he was fourteen and I said things that were hurtful and stupid. And I can’t believe I wore those shorts in 1987, my god what was I thinking. I wonder if I could erase that day at the doctors office when they first told Karen she had cancer. Could we skip right over the part with the surgery and the hair loss and the chemo. Could I delete that part when she went to be with the Lord? What of this period now when I ache so bad sometimes and miss her so much. How about that? There are many of those things that weren’t just picture perfect. Some cause us much pain and sorrow, but they are our lives, the things that make us who we are. I don’t think I would erase that stuff if it were possible. The person who is me is the whole person with the good and the bad. So many things that we would just rather not go through or deal with. Some can be very devastating, but to pretend that the bad didn’t happen I think would cheat me out of how incredibly cool the good things make me feel by comparison. Yes, there are sad times, and bad times, as well as the good times and I keep thinking about my life with Karen, and about the words from the old Garth Brooks song.
I could have missed the pain
But I would have had to miss the dance
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Cookies and story time
In 2000 and 2001 when I was president of the local youth soccer association, I and some other board members set a goal to establish soccer as a sport that would be available at our local high school. Through several meetings and discussions with the local school board and administrators as well as the high school athletic director and principal, we reached agreement and implemented boys and girls soccer for the first time at our high school beginning with the 2001 season.
It really was an unprecedented agreement and we would be only the third school team in North Idaho at our division level. Now 8 years later all 6 North Idaho 3a schools field soccer teams. It has proven a very successful and popular program.
I coached the girls team the first two years and oh my, the things I learned about high school girls. It really was a great experience though. That first year I had 23 girls turn out and only about 4 of them had ever even so much as touched a soccer ball before. We were going to be playing many bigger schools with well established programs. In short, we were going to have a ‘learning’ year.
We lost every game, many by a huge margin. We did tie one game with a team in our division. The girls worked hard and we all learned a lot. Knowing that we were probably going to get schooled in most all our games I had to decide how I was going to handle my response to that, as well as keep the girls positive and upbeat.
I think I talked about this before but I decided that if all I did was teach soccer then I was a failure as a coach. I started to have a time each week when I would talk about life experiences and challenges and how they applied to life and sports. It was just one of those things that happen and somehow become a part of who we were.
One of the first stories I told had to do with all the separate ingredients in cookies, which by themselves aren’t to tasty. But when you put them all together and add some heat, you get this wonderful delicious combination. The analogy was that all these girls were different, they all had their strengths. It was putting them all together and making a team which would make them so much better as a whole than as individual parts. Any way I brought cookies to that story. After that whenever I told a story they wanted cookies. These weekly sessions began to be called, ‘cookies and story time’. The thing was, after the end of our second year, there was a picture of all the senior girls who had stuck it out for two years. They gave it to me and they all signed it and almost everyone of them wrote about cookies and story time. It had made a difference. We did actually win some games the second year too.
We were playing in the district championship game at the end of our second season. The winner would go to the state tournament. At the end of the first half we were getting our butts handed to us. BAD. The girls came off the field at half and it was cold and rainy, and windy and miserable and they were frustrated and mad and cold and picking at each other. I gathered them all together and looked at them and finally said, “Are you having fun?” No, they said. “ Then lets do something about that.
We mixed it all up on the field at the second half. For these senior girls, it was going to be their last game. I didn’t want this to be their last memory. I moved the goal keeper to forward. Moved some of the backs around, just changed it all up. Now, they still went out and played hard, they probably played harder being in a different position. It was still raining and cold and windy and miserable. We still lost, bad, but when the game was over they came off the field and they were laughing and joking, saying “man that was fun.” And that was the goal wasn’t it?
So what does all this have to do with anything? I had a bad day on Valentines. I guess you could say I got my butt kicked. So, maybe at half time when so many of you were giving me comments and encouragement it made the rest of the game turn out ok. There are so many of you with so many perspectives and strengths, you’re just a great bunch of cookies. Thanks
march on
In 2000 and 2001 when I was president of the local youth soccer association, I and some other board members set a goal to establish soccer as a sport that would be available at our local high school. Through several meetings and discussions with the local school board and administrators as well as the high school athletic director and principal, we reached agreement and implemented boys and girls soccer for the first time at our high school beginning with the 2001 season.
It really was an unprecedented agreement and we would be only the third school team in North Idaho at our division level. Now 8 years later all 6 North Idaho 3a schools field soccer teams. It has proven a very successful and popular program.
I coached the girls team the first two years and oh my, the things I learned about high school girls. It really was a great experience though. That first year I had 23 girls turn out and only about 4 of them had ever even so much as touched a soccer ball before. We were going to be playing many bigger schools with well established programs. In short, we were going to have a ‘learning’ year.
We lost every game, many by a huge margin. We did tie one game with a team in our division. The girls worked hard and we all learned a lot. Knowing that we were probably going to get schooled in most all our games I had to decide how I was going to handle my response to that, as well as keep the girls positive and upbeat.
I think I talked about this before but I decided that if all I did was teach soccer then I was a failure as a coach. I started to have a time each week when I would talk about life experiences and challenges and how they applied to life and sports. It was just one of those things that happen and somehow become a part of who we were.
One of the first stories I told had to do with all the separate ingredients in cookies, which by themselves aren’t to tasty. But when you put them all together and add some heat, you get this wonderful delicious combination. The analogy was that all these girls were different, they all had their strengths. It was putting them all together and making a team which would make them so much better as a whole than as individual parts. Any way I brought cookies to that story. After that whenever I told a story they wanted cookies. These weekly sessions began to be called, ‘cookies and story time’. The thing was, after the end of our second year, there was a picture of all the senior girls who had stuck it out for two years. They gave it to me and they all signed it and almost everyone of them wrote about cookies and story time. It had made a difference. We did actually win some games the second year too.
We were playing in the district championship game at the end of our second season. The winner would go to the state tournament. At the end of the first half we were getting our butts handed to us. BAD. The girls came off the field at half and it was cold and rainy, and windy and miserable and they were frustrated and mad and cold and picking at each other. I gathered them all together and looked at them and finally said, “Are you having fun?” No, they said. “ Then lets do something about that.
We mixed it all up on the field at the second half. For these senior girls, it was going to be their last game. I didn’t want this to be their last memory. I moved the goal keeper to forward. Moved some of the backs around, just changed it all up. Now, they still went out and played hard, they probably played harder being in a different position. It was still raining and cold and windy and miserable. We still lost, bad, but when the game was over they came off the field and they were laughing and joking, saying “man that was fun.” And that was the goal wasn’t it?
So what does all this have to do with anything? I had a bad day on Valentines. I guess you could say I got my butt kicked. So, maybe at half time when so many of you were giving me comments and encouragement it made the rest of the game turn out ok. There are so many of you with so many perspectives and strengths, you’re just a great bunch of cookies. Thanks
march on
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Last Call
In my younger, hard drinking days, of my early twenties, my friends and I used to shut the bars down on Friday and Saturday nights. Then we would gather at one house or another and party until daylight. At the bars, when it got close to closing time, the bartender would always yell out “Last Call”. We would always ask each other, ‘how you doing, do you need one more?’
These days on the country radio stations is a song called ‘Last call.’ It kind of takes a different twist on that mantra in the sense that the woman singing it is singing to a man whom she knows is in the bar and its closing time and her phone is ringing. She just knows that he used up all his other options and she is the last one he is calling.
As Christians, we read the promises of God in many places about Christ and his return someday to claim his Kingdom. He will come again, and we hold on to that promise of eternal glory.
Down through the ages, many people and cultures have expressed that they were in the end times. It has recurred many times. People read things into the events of the day and make assumptions that so far, haven’t come to pass. That very thing is happening today. With the world events and wars and rumors of wars, climate anomalies and many other things, a lot of people are certain we are in the last days.
Scripture is very clear in expressing that No One, not even the Son, knows the day or hour, only the Father. We are of course given things to watch for and that’s where many draw their conclusions.
Maybe we are in the end times and the return of Christ is at hand, I don’t know. The point is, are you ready? I know many tea-totlers and puritans are going to take umbrage with the analogy I am using here but we know that the spirit, the helper, is with us. I cant help using the analogies I use and if we are still and listen, I envision the spirit as the bar-tender so to speak. If we be still and listen to the still, small, voice we just may hear that nudging. “How’s your walk?” “How’s your assurance of salvation?” “How’s your family?” “Christ is coming back, are you ok? Are you waiting, like the guy in the song, until you have no other options? When the last trumpet sounds are you ready for LAST CALL?
These days on the country radio stations is a song called ‘Last call.’ It kind of takes a different twist on that mantra in the sense that the woman singing it is singing to a man whom she knows is in the bar and its closing time and her phone is ringing. She just knows that he used up all his other options and she is the last one he is calling.
As Christians, we read the promises of God in many places about Christ and his return someday to claim his Kingdom. He will come again, and we hold on to that promise of eternal glory.
Down through the ages, many people and cultures have expressed that they were in the end times. It has recurred many times. People read things into the events of the day and make assumptions that so far, haven’t come to pass. That very thing is happening today. With the world events and wars and rumors of wars, climate anomalies and many other things, a lot of people are certain we are in the last days.
Scripture is very clear in expressing that No One, not even the Son, knows the day or hour, only the Father. We are of course given things to watch for and that’s where many draw their conclusions.
Maybe we are in the end times and the return of Christ is at hand, I don’t know. The point is, are you ready? I know many tea-totlers and puritans are going to take umbrage with the analogy I am using here but we know that the spirit, the helper, is with us. I cant help using the analogies I use and if we are still and listen, I envision the spirit as the bar-tender so to speak. If we be still and listen to the still, small, voice we just may hear that nudging. “How’s your walk?” “How’s your assurance of salvation?” “How’s your family?” “Christ is coming back, are you ok? Are you waiting, like the guy in the song, until you have no other options? When the last trumpet sounds are you ready for LAST CALL?
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