Normal people always ask…

Insurance means that all of your risks are considered safe.  You give a portion of the money you earn for a piece of protective paper.  The paper protects you from nothing.  It does not drive defensively, it is not flame-retardant, it will not make you quit smoking or lose weight.  It will not prevent death.

Risk is everywhere; be fearful.

Or not.

Gnarly things this week

Last Sunday night I read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which proved to be the smartest decision I made all week, all Summer, all of 2010.  If I were the sort of person who passed around MUST-reads, this would be a mustmustmustmust.  A 4-must read.  (Pic is an affiliate link.)

My truck broke down.

I fixed it.  This is an accomplishment since I only have one hand.  Technically I have two hands, but the left one is only useful for tapping keys, waving and head-scratching.
The pick up broke down on the way to register for some classes.  Is this a cosmic sign?  My wife says yes.  She says that difficulty is a sign that you MUST do a thing. This is why we’ve managed to stay married for almost 14 years.

Attended my nephew’s graduation party.

Ate the best sandwich of my entire life!  Thanks for graduating, Rem.

I wrote a thing that I fear.

I wrote a thing that I enjoy.

For money.  Yay, money.  FYI: RoP does not love money, but he does need to make a little to buy bacon.

I read Seth Godin’s post this morning.

Here is a quote from it:

“…you can’t take things at face value, even things that you might be more comfortable leaving unexamined, as truths. Theologians wrestle with this dilemma all the time. How can you study an idea or a trend or a belief system if you also accept it as a universal, unquestionable fact?”

If you ever do any God-type thinking, you should read it too.

If you’ve ever spent any time in the figurative desert, you may have seen me there over the past three weeks.  I am trying not to hate the environment in the desert.  A friend of mine just asked me a cacophony of “why” questions.  I told him, “I don’t know and neither does anyone else.  Chill, bro, and try to smile a little.”  That’s the way of the desert.  Have a cool beverage.  No one knows the answer to the “why’s”.  Smile.

One more week of stay-at-home-dadding until I can be p-p-p-productive in the real world.

Coaching a baseball game later in the morning.

Life is beautiful.

I got a gig writing some things for a group of people who need some things written.  So far, my work is good, I think.  My ego says, “Add the words ‘I think,’ because what if it turns out to be not-so-great.”

Ah, the ego.  It will keep you so very safe and completely average.

The leader of the group asked if I could write some material about God and the creative individual.  Now, I know these people; many are friends, all are acquaintances.  Everyone of these people are wired to make stuff.  Painters, dancers, writers, clay-throwers (I’m sure there is a real word for this, I’m just too busy to look it up), musicians, jewelers, play-writes, movie-makers – interesting people.

Even amongst like-wired individuals I toy around with phoning-in something vanilla, because I want to be accepted.

I minimize risks in my work.  Ego wants to be accepted.  That is the ego’s job.

The ego says, “Look at me, I’m ***awesome.”  Then, “Okay, stop looking that closely; I’m not really awesome.  Didn’t you see the *** before the word awesome?  The *** means – I am barely noteworthy, but good enough to hang around with; I fit in.  I fit in.  I fit in.  Hire me, just don’t expect remarkable!”

Then the ego says, “You should probably write a blog about what you’re doing to validate yourself today.”  So I listen to ego.

My hope is that maybe this post will help someone else overcome their ego-driven fears today.  If so, you’re welcome.  It’s what I do.

In case you’re wondering about the “God-business” in all of this: God doesn’t give a crap about your fancy, disguising ego.  He wishes you’d loose it.  He is rather fond of your Self though, the honest stuff.  He mentioned that.

Also, in case you’re wondering, my ego sure didn’t intend to include any God-business in today’s post.  Ego is prone to be non-offensive and wildly inclusive.  See what a devil it is?

(If you comment it will probably go right to my ego, but feel free, if you must.)

Go do what you must do today without your apologizing ego getting in the way.  As for me, I am off to make a litany of phone calls.  I suspect my ego will tell a bunch of white-lies the whole freaking time.  I hate that.

Every couple of weeks I try to point you to a great online place to kill some time.  Occasionally time needs killing.  If you’ve got a couple moments running around aimlessly this weekend, I suggest:

The sticky note has never been such a useful tool.  Find a tiny piece of viral art at thingsweforget.blogspot.com.  Found this site on Twitter thanks to The Daily Letter, who is, as you’ve already discovered, awesome.

And if you are a writer, visit YingleYangle – two dudes who blog about writing.  Stephen Maher is a librarian, so you know he is a mad reader, and Paulo Campos is, well – I’m not sure what he is but he writes great stuff for other writers.  Check them out for daily prompts and ideas.

I should add one positive way Christians can use their social media presence.  It seems like a given.

7.  Prayer is good.

You should definitely do that.  Also things like saying “Thank you” to other people is a really important dimension to social media.

Thanks for reading.

I grew up knowing a couple things about faith.  On certain Saturday nights my mother and I would drive past the local Catholic church.  The building was painted red like a barn with maybe a bit of brown stirred in to darken it a little.  This was Minnesota after all, and I suppose even the Catholics knew a good deal on barn paint when they saw it.  I’d ask my mother, “Why do they go to church on Saturday?”  She told me it was so that they could go to the bar afterward.

The other thing I learned in the race toward heaven was that Lutherans were as unlikely to make it upstairs as the Catholics.  When I became a little older, my mom assured me that my great-grandparents were good Lutherans who read the Bible, as was Sharon, her closest friend from work.  The Lutheran section in the afterlife included two Gatewoods, two Linds and Sharon – that was probably it.

I have written a lengthy ditty about my year outside of church and my adventures in Lutheranism (if Lutherans are allowed to have adventures).  I am breaking it up into about a 300 parts and posting it on RoP.  There is no underlying intention.  Just a story; kind of a brief internet memoir.  Hope you subscribe to receive email updates (or RSS) on my madness.

I began my career of rescuing pagans from their imminent conversion to Catholicism or Lutheranism when I was a very young man.  That went well for a while.  Several pagans did not become Lutherans under my watch.  Eventually I got so good at it, people started paying me.  Then, at some point, people decided that I wasn’t as good as I once was, so they stopped paying me.  Ironically, this had always been a goal of mine, but it was not as enjoyable as I had imagined.

Molly and I spent about a year purposely not going to church; it was a nice break.  Sometimes I missed the people.  Most of the time I did not miss anything.  I made two lists: one to keep myself from being a haughty prig, and the other was basically a list of religious turn-offs, like the back page of a Christian-centerfold.  The first list kept me graceful and quiet.  The second list challenged the first.

In Ohio, were I live, religion is broad-sweeping business.  If you’re a penitent looking for a house of worship, sit still; they’ll find you.  Like everywhere else, they all have glossy mission statements and their brochures mimic one of those Brake and Muffler shops posing as full-service.  The cheekiest of them all poke fun of their marketing strategies while they market themselves to you.

Prior to my de-churched year I went to one of the less-cheeky places alone, just to see what I could see.  There was a guy who owned a guitar on the stage and 19 backup singers, another guy who actually played the guitar and, I think there was also a drummer.  Words were projected onto bare a wall.  I was bored, but tried to sing the songs about how God made me feel.  He didn’t make me feel anything so I was lying.

Fortunately, he was not there.  I mean, I’m sure he was, because he is God, maybe he was sitting in the back row admiring the projector.  Since I am not one to judge human motives, I gave the people more credit than what I felt they deserved.  A guy got up and talked.  It was terrible.  He talked about integrity; about how you had to do certain things to maintain your witness and not do a bunch of other things.  His suit was too long in the arms.  I wanted to accost him in the parking lot so I left as quickly as possible with a sheave of paper in tow explaining why these people were so great and godly and probably full of integrity.

Excuse me if I sound prideful.  I own 5 guitars, sometimes I play them.  When I do, I am a lot better than the afore-mentioned guitar owner.  Far better singer.  Better communicator than the integrity guy, who is a contractor, by the way.  In some ways this made him more dismissible.  And if you must know, I have created slides for the projector as well.  The whole show seemed so uninteresting (could I have been that stale in my day?), I decided that as for me and my house, we would serve the Lord quietly for a while.

It was the hour and a half that convinced me to stay away; 90 minutes of feelings.  I feel like this about God.  Then the contractor promised that if we did certain things and avoided others, we might feel a certain way about ourselves.  Then others, especially sinners, would join in the goodwill and feel pleased to know us as well.  While this theory is popularly espoused, I doubt it works for anyone.

People would ask, “Where you goin to church?”  I’d say nowhere.  Christians act demon-possessed when they find out you don’t go to church anymore.  They twitch and they stop making eye-contact and their breath goes sour.  They talk close to your face without looking at you, admonishing.  You both make nice like a crucifix where the subject of the execution has been wiped clean of the blood.  You talk about the weather for a minute.  They give you a brochure for their flock which is just like the brochure for the last one, maybe glossier or more Spirit-Filled.  They are doing a service.  You are supposed to grab the flotation device, never mind that you’re on a sidewalk.  You don’t grab the life-preserver; disappointment abounds.

The absenteeism lasts for a year or more.  My mother-in-law tries to convince me that my kids need the scriptures.  I tell her about the printing press, and that we have several copies in a thousand different tones.  We even read them together sometimes.  I’ve got a couple in Hebrew, a gift from a Jesus-Rabbi – even with a gracious version of the New Testament.  One in Greek.  I read neither language.  She says that the kids need fun.  I disagree.  When you get down to it, faith is not fun.  Why build up to a let-down?  I read them Ecclesiastes before bedtime; they don’t get it.  Kids are shallow.

I hear myself uttering something like, “In my day…”  I’m way too young to say this sort of thing.  However, in my day, Jesus did not cruise around Galilee with an inflatable jump house and a row of Xboxes.  The disciples did not dress up like clowns and twist animal figures from balloons until there were two of every kind to populate Noah’s Ark.  “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”  That’s what it says, and though the word “suffer” may be intended differently, I prefer the common usage.  Kids get enough innocuous humor on TV.  Why foist the same stupidity on religious instruction?

Though I had once been inclined toward brochures that read “Vibrant children’s ministry!!!,” I have since decided the term “vibrant” isn’t as useful as we think.  Add it to my list of turn-offs.  Anything with the antecedent vibrant.  I don’t want a kick-ass worship band either.  Though I am definitely not opposed to great music, I just want, as Garrison Keillor has suggested, church to be a moment of transcendence.  Perhaps you have been transcendentally entertained.  I have not been.  Also the word excellence must go.  Turn offs.  I like the word sweaty, but no one advertised their church as being sweaty.

(The service is not supposed to be about what I want or need or like.  Certainly I am not trying to make the case for selfishness; this will become clear in part two.  Splitting up stories into sections is hazardous in this way, and I realize I am leaving you on a very ME note.   My apologies…)

Church, I have come to believe, should involve some commiseration.  Of course this is not the goal, but since a church at its core is a bunch of haggard human souls gathering to seek God, you might as well admit the bad, while searching for the good.

So I started visiting the Lutherans…

You never die from the big undoings.  You might have a heart attack, but you’ll go out with untreated pneumonia because you thought it was only a cough.  Or you’ll get a cut and it will become gangrenous because all your white blood cells are busy tending to you healing heart.  And you’ll leave behind a stack of unopened mail, small envelopes, mostly bills for your loved ones to pay.  Not the big bills because you’ve got enough foresight to plan for those with your life insurance policy.  It will be the the two bras and the fancy corset you bought your wife on the Victoria Secret card at like 47% APR.  You never got to see them; now you won’t.  Yeah, it’s the underwear and the TV you charged at Sears.  Those are the things your wife will inherit.  She’ll have her boobs pushed up perfectly, watching your plasma screen on the couch you bought on your Visa card, while you decompose.  She watches beautifully unaware of the mounting bills because their relatively small in unopened small envelopes.  It’s never the big things.  You’ve got them covered.

And then the people will come and say big things about you; how you were so great, and how your company flourished under your guidance – even though you were barely above the bottom rung of the corporate ladder.  They’ll forget all the shit they said about you before.  The people, they forget with timeliness.  They’ll forget they called you a micromanaging tyrant one day and mealymouthed flake the next.  You couldn’t have made them happy.  Smooth over their little things, placating themselves with posthumous fondness in order to forget you.  They’ll retell a joke you cracked in a meeting.  They’ll have a beer.  “To life, and to you,” they’ll say.

The whole while you just wanted to be small, even regular.  Once your boss said you were the future of the office.  Once your wife said I do with great enthusiasm.  Once your kids always listened and when you came home from the office they joined the family puppy greeting you like Napoleon.  For a few minutes in the afternoon you believed, or made-believe, that it was all true.  You knew it wasn’t, but so what?  Those few minutes might turn into an hour or three and you pass out from the flattery onto your bed into the arms and legs of your adoring spouse.  Of course these good little things can become the other sort.  They never last.  The boss gets tired of your paperwork.  The wife doesn’t like the placement of your socks.  The kids stop coming to the door.  The dog runs away.  Hair starts to fall from your head.  You are not Napoleon, but you didn’t want to be.  Hell, they had to force you to even become a pawn.

It is the 1000 tiny things that take you out.  800 of them are entirely beyond your control.  You are not a rain-maker.  You’ve met a few rain-makers, which is why you took the crap-job hocking widgets and playing solitaire in the first place.  For a minute you thought you could learn to be like that guy who made things happen.  Of course he makes things happen because he hates everyone around him, so he maneuvers to control them to make his existence easier.  Not easier, because you know that is a fallacy, it’s all an appearance.  You know that.  For that matter, maybe he doesn’t hate the people around him.  He simply uses them.  You decided you couldn’t do your existence like that.  You didn’t, and look what you get for your good deeds.  Gangrene and pneumonia and a mixtape of 998 other little things that shouldn’t take a man out.  But they do.

224 of those little things were the result of other people’s stupidity, the people you hired or the ones you birthed or even married, the ones you worked for and with.  170 of them were just the weather.  Just the cloudy spring weather; that might take you out.  There are no May flowers, you know.  50 of the little things were relatively small actions that you couldn’t stop doing.  You did them to erase some of the other things, and then you hated yourself for doing them.  What’s her name?  Miranda, the intern?  Her.  You should have stopped.  You didn’t do much, nothing really, it was all in your head.  Just enough headspace to help you flip the calendar one more day.

95 of the little things you just forgot to do.  You wrote them down on your white board and booted them with a clear conscience.  7 of the little things involved over-sleeping.  6 of those instances were because you stayed up too late.  You could have avoided 12 of the last 13 little things if you had gone to bed earlier.  But your kids didn’t greet you and your wife wanted to talk and you tried to listen and the conversation lasted until the stars turned off.

Some of the little things you got from your dad, some from your mom.  Doesn’t matter now, you’re just hoping that St. Peter isn’t waiting with a clipboard with 50 sheets of paper each containing 20 lines of tiny accusations.  That is what he does in the joke you told; he stands there waiting, and the guys from cubicle nation think it’s effing hilarious.  You did too.  (You didn’t swear.  Not much.  At least in public.  If that makes the list it will be really small, maybe half an item.)

They all said that there was a great light.  They were all wrong.  Anytime you refer to some party as they you can bet they‘re always wrong.  There is only a bunch of small items along a corridor and the small things mock you one last time.  St. Peter isn’t there.  He hangs out by the shore; you’ll learn that later.

You wish you would have smiled more.  You’re smiling now, but it is harder than you wish for it to be.  You should have smiled more.  The sun is shining like a disco ball in a thousand tiny rays.  If you could have said what you needed to say on a rainy June Saturday it might have taken 1060 words (should have edited 106 of them out).  But you wondered what they all  might think.  The sun is shining in about a thousand tiny rays.  You count them.

Yeah, on my bad days I write snotty little chunks of fiction.  (Yes, it helps.  I am now happy as the proverbial lark!  Especially since I copped out and wrote in second-person, negating any personal involvement.)  I never post them, but I thought, “Why not?  It’s a Saturday and no one reads blogs on Saturday.”  So I did.  And if you’re reading this, and you know me-KNOW ME; relax, it’s fiction.  Only about 789 of the little things are true.  Fiction on the internet is always overwritten and never any good, so I suppose I am in fine company.

What do you do for kicks on cloudy, non-work days?

I spent the weekend crooning My Way, dragging out the line that states clearly, “Regrets, I have a few,” adding a stunning vibrato, rivaling Old Blue Eyes.  All of last week was a reminder of my condition, or maybe the human condition.

I got a traffic ticket two weeks ago; no big deal, I deserved it.  My plates were expired.  I have a list of excuses.  I’ve spent over a thousand dollars this year repairing my truck, which sat undrivable for two months, while I scraped together money to get her fixed.  The work I had lined up at that time required the use of my pick up, so I was, as they say, in a pickle.  Having spent so much money to make her roadworthy, I ran out of money to get her to pass the emissions and safety test.  I need one more repair, and I cannot do it myself – the speedometer cable or sensor – no one knows which.

When I got pulled over I knew what was coming.  The officer was understanding, and he gave me only a ticket for expired registration, instead of impounding my old, white truck.  Funny, I drive an old, white truck to save money!

On Tuesday I had to chauffeur my wife to Columbus for a meeting.  I got a call from the officer, who said I had to appear in court the following day.  I was not told this when I was pulled over, neither was the “Mandatory Appearance” box checked on my ticket.  I had a client meeting on Wednesday, the officer said I could request to have my court appearance moved.  The following day I did just that.

“This is Ryan Lind.  I am scheduled to in court later this morning.  I was wondering if there is any way I could move this to next week.”

“One week will not be a problem.”

“Thank you.  Is there anything else I need to do?”

“Nope.  You’re all set.”

And this is the point where I began joking with the voice on the other end of the line.  I say, “So no one will be knocking on my door with an arrest warrant over the weekend?  I don’t have to live like a fugitive?”

She gave me a courtesy laugh, “Nope, you’re all set.”

“All right, same bat-time, same bat-channel next week then?”

“Yep.”

“Thanks so much, have a great day.”

“You too.”

I did as she wished.  I had a great day; a great week.  You see, while all of this was going down I began reading this important book, Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life, by Kathleen Norris.  It has been very helpful for me.  Acedia is basically a portion of the mortal sin of sloth, however it is trickier than that.  Her treatment of the ailment has opened my heart to unique problems of the cause/effect of spiritual (and maybe clinical) depression; namely the cyclical nature of lack of love, avoidance of responsibility, and the increasing funk that follows.

As a result of studying this book, and a few of the external sources, I have made significant changes to my daily routines, namely increased diligence and improved attitudes while carrying out my lot in life.  Making extra phone calls.  Tidying up things.  Even repairing the truck (though I am still financially destitute!).

The small things have become more important.  My acts of service have an added dimension of grace.  Things I have let sit; I have picked up and slogged through, even mimicking something like joy.  For the desert fathers, their work, unimportant hand-work, gardening, weaving etc. was part of prayer, and this makes perfect sense.  Yes, I am imitating the old monks, though I am privy to spend my life with beautiful female.

All of that to say: last week was one of breakthrough and joy for me.  Until Friday.  Friday I got a call from the county mediator’s office.  She left a message requesting a call back.  I called back eight minutes later.  She didn’t answer.  I feared the worst.  Molly googled my name with the word “warrant.”  She found a website, which I later learned was bunk, that said I had not one, but TWO warrants for my arrest.  This was a shock, as I had just been pulled-over; I had a clean record at the time.

Sometimes you cannot win!  I spent the weekend holed-up in a barn behind the OK Corral, playing Bon Jovi’s Dead or Alive on my guitar.  I left several frantic messages on the mediator’s voice mail.  I thought, this is how acedia works, even when you do the necessary things, you can get stuck because of external results.

I broke down and cried on Saturday morning.  And I cussed like the Fantastic Mr. Fox.  But then I listened to ancient fathers of faith and went about my business.

This morning I cleared up everything with one phone call.  I discovered the website was a a background check business trying to get you to purchase their services, that my appearance had been rescheduled, and the mediation is for something entirely unrelated and expected.  I did not enjoy my time on the lam.

Today marks my glorious reappearance in the realm of the free world!  I was looking forward to bartering cigarettes for the newspaper.  Maybe next time.

Hey, real quick…

I am trying to generate some revenue to get my reused and reusable coffee sleeve into retail stores.  Many of you have stopped by cupThreads.com, and I wanted to say thanks.

If you buy one this week (please do because I’m really close to proceeding!) enter the coupon code “ryansfriend” and you’ll get yours for just $4.  Order 4 or more and I’ll also ship them for free.

Thanks so much.  I’ll be back to inspire you tomorrow morning.

art cred: outofmygord.com

Dear Regular Readers:

I’ve been away for a while.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know if there is such a thing as blogger’s block.  Normally I think blockages are reserved for people with real creative jobs, and regular Joes with blogs shouldn’t be subject to their rules.

As Norman Mailer once famously said: “Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.”  Perhaps I have taken this season of Lent a bit too seriously to be creatively productive.  I don’t know.

Life happened in its severest form this week.  Does that ever happen to anyone else?  I’ll be back next week.  I promise.