Expectations

Low expectations have been the prelude to some of the greatest moments of my life.  There’s a great joy to entering into an experience with modest expectations, only to have them vastly exceeded.  That concept applies to concerts, restaurants, vacations or football seasons.  It’s enough to make me wonder if there’s not some grim wisdom to pessimism.  If you expect the worst, then you’re prepared for it when it comes, and if it doesn’t, then you’re in for a pleasant surprise.  Of course, the down side to pessimism is that you spend your life so preoccupied with unpleasant potentialities that you fail to enjoy the good moments when they come.

When I bought the family canoe a few weeks ago, I did so with expectations of a hundred Saturday afternoons floating down the gentle Chattahoochee River with the kids, seizing those quiet moments to impart wisdom and build memories for a lifetime.  Yesterday I took our three oldest on our second canoe trip.  The first trip was a success.  Only Mary Kate was with me on that trip, and it rained, but overall it was a lot of fun.  This time I chose to up the ante by adding our two boys and bringing along our fishing poles.  Some of you could write the end to this story.

Canoeing with three kids is tough.  Teaching three kids 9 and under to fish is tough too.  Now try doing both at once… while feeding them lunch…and navigating shoals. 

As I was baiting one hook, another was lodged in an obstruction, the canoe was turning sideways, and a paddle was knocked into the water.  Take that particular moment and multiply it tenfold and you have a pretty good taste of my afternoon.

Here’s the crazy thing - I had fun.  We all did.  Don’t get me wrong, I had my moments of frustration.  Getting tangled amidst three fishing lines while chasing down a paddle floating with the current doesn’t bring out the best in me.  But I knew it would be chaotic.  Almost everything I do with my kids is chaotic. At some point in my parenting journey I recognized that nothing I plan will achieve the ideal.  The best I can hope for is managing the chaos, and a selective memory that salvages the best of things.

If I tried to limit our experiences to things that were easy and pleasant, I’d live in perpetual frustration. Easy and pleasant just don’t happen with 4 young kids, at least not in big, extended doses.

I think the secret to parenting a sizeable brood like mine is to keep expectations at a minimum, good ones or bad ones.  With consistently high expectations comes consistent disappointment.  Consistently low expectations are generally met.  Instead, I think we should learn to take things as they come, and laugh rather than rail at the chaos.  We’ll live longer, and one day our kids will thank us for it.

 

My L.A. Story

I just went four days without wearing socks, a new record.  I was in L.A. over the Labor Day weekend, and socks seemed out of place in a city where “formal” wear is a collared shirt and “casual” is no shirt at all.   Some folks in L.A. might be offended at that statement, but if the sandal fits…

I’ve had family in California for most of my life, and I made a number of trips out west as a kid, but it had been nearly 20 years since my last visit.  By fortunate coincidence, my uncle is a UCLA booster, and I am a fan of the Tennessee Volunteers.  For the first time this decade, those teams met up in Pasadena for their season opener.  My uncle invited my wife and I out for the game, and we took the opportunity to visit the area from which I’d long been absent and where my wife had never traveled.

My Uncle Larry and Aunt Kitty are unfailingly gracious and generous.  From the moment they picked us up at LAX until they dropped us off, we were treated to a high-paced itinerary full of wonderful meals and diverse attractions.  Their plans sounded great, but the one unplannable item on my agenda was to spot someone famous.  Atlanta is not without its celebrities and attractions, but whenever I go to L.A., New York, or D.C. I have the sense that I’m headed to where the action is, to where decisions are made and important things happen in the worlds of entertainment, business and politics.  There’s a glamour factor to Southern California that’s impossible to beat, and unnecessary to explain.   L.A. is the object of our nation’s collective loathing and lust, representing the things those of us in the flyover states both criticize and crave. Even NYC and DC kowtow to the cultural agenda that L.A. sets for the rest of the world.  For a few days, I was eager to bask in the other-worldliness of it all. 

Saturday morning, after reading the newspaper and enjoying breakfast in my aunt and uncle’s perfectly manicured back yard, we boarded the Lexus for the beginning of our three-day tour.  Day One included Newport and Laguna Beach where we enjoyed a great meal at a sort of Mexican/Mediterranean merge restaurant with a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean.  Beautiful sites and girls abounded, though none more beautiful than the one I brought with me.

(Please forgive the poor photo quality.  I forgot our regular camera and used my camera phone for this leg of the journey)

The topography of Southern California is radically different than anything in the East.  Virtually every house in L.A. is built on a dry, brown, creosote-covered hill.  Surprisingly tall mountains tower above nearby ridges in almost every direction.  The coastline can be disorienting, because in most instances the beach is located to the south, when logic tells you it should be west.   Only the irrigated lawns are lush and green, and the rest of the parched landscape produces sparse, drought-hearty plants.

The evening of Day One, we drove into Anaheim to visit Disneyland.  At 38, I’m still not over the thrill of visiting the Disney parks, even when my kids aren’t with me.  We met a friend of my aunt and uncle’s who has perhaps the most wonderful job in the world.  She hands out prizes at the park - ranging from mouse ears to overnight stays in the castle suite originally designed for Walt Disney.  She provided us with passes to the Fantasmic show, which we enjoyed after a wonderful meal and a few rides.  My relatives were probably a little surprised at my childlike enthusiasm for the rides, which wasn’t significantly dulled from my first visit to the park with my aunt and uncle back in 1976.

 

After Raiders of the Lost Ark, Space Mountain and a stroll down Main Street, U.S.A., we retired to the house, our east coast bodies telling us it was much later than the time showing on the wall clock.

On Day Two we visited the Getty Center, a wonderful example of the power of generosity, even when it comes from evil oil men.  J.P. Getty’s bequest upon his death in 1976 led to the construction of the museum, completed about 11 ago.  A quiet tram carried us above the cacophonous freeway to the grand, breezy structure overlooking the surrounding valleys.  Some of Bernini’s paintings and sculptures were on special exhibit, and we marveled at the detail in his busts of popes, nobles and jesters.  The Getty itself is a work of architectural art, providing seemingly infinite angles and perspectives to view the art and the surrounding countryside. 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a study of stark contrasts, we drove from the Getty to Venice Beach, which is where photographers capture stock footage of hippies, rollerbladers and other West Coast bohemians in all their glory.  The street scene looked like I imagine a post-Castro Cuba, complete with poverty, rebellious debauchery, reckless abandon and socialist inclinations.

  

  

done

I couldn’t wear my preppy golf shirt in that environment.  It screamed “Right Wing Republican” as loudly as if I’d been wearing a Bush/Cheney t-shirt.  So, just as the Apostle Paul was all things to all people, I chose to conform to my surroundings.  No one else joined me.

done

My elegant aunt was a little mortified by the whole scene, but she consented to pose with me for this memorable picture.

 

 

I kept expecting to see Fletch walk out onto the beach in a Lakers jersey, but neither he nor anyone else I recognized was to be found.  My search for celebrity came up empty again.  Not finding any suitable gifts for the kids, we moved on to the remarkably incongruous Rodeo Drive.  Other than the dearth of shoppers (it was a Sunday afternoon), it was all that I expected it to be.  We looked in a few shops, but mostly marveled at the extravagant inaccessibility of it all.  Paris and Nicole were nowhere to be found.

 

  

From there, we drove through Beverly Hills, Westwood, and Hollywood where we saw recognizable sites and opulent, tree-lined streets.  But alas, I saw no famous faces.  That evening we ate at a wonderful bistro near my Aunt and Uncle’s home where we sat and continued our running conversation about the extended family.   My father is one of six, and my uncle Larry is his youngest brother (one of twins).  By my count, there are 18 cousins and now more offspring of cousins than I can count (What are they, my second cousins?  Second cousins once removed?) , so we had lots to discuss.  Uncles and aunts are great sources of family history that your parents may have intentionally forgotten to tell you.  Things like the story about Larry and Kitty rekindling their long-dormant relationship while on a double date with my father - who was on that date with Kitty.  These are interesting things to know.

The next morning we visited the Nixon Presidential Library. I didn’t recognize anyone I’d seen at Venice Beach among the museum visitors or docents.  It was an impressive library, built next to the President’s birthplace and childhood home.  The small house is still in its original location, just a few yards from his grave.  I found it odd, but not terribly surprising, that I saw not one mention of Watergate or resignation in the library.  I imagine that he had a hand in the library’s design, and hoped that deleting such mentions would somehow dull the incident’s resonance in history. 

From there, we began preparations for the long awaited event - Tennessee versus UCLA at the Rose Bowl.  Tennessee was a heavy favorite, due in part to the fact that UCLA was starting a 3rd string quarterback and had suffered injuries and other depletions at key positions.  Tennessee was coming off of a strong year with a lot of returning veterans.  The table was set for an opening game win, and I was excited to be a witness.

My uncle and aunt do things well, including game day.  We parked near a large tent full of UCLA fans where we enjoyed good pre-game food and an open bar.  It was there, finally, that I enjoyed my first celebrity sighting.  Perhaps to those under 30, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is not a celebrity, but for those of us who remember him as a Laker in the 80’s, or as a UCLA Bruin before that, not many celebrities are bigger - certainly none taller.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him.  I was at the Salt Palace in 1988 to watch a playoff game between the Lakers and Jazz.  John Stockton, the young Karl Malone and towering Mark Eaton were giving the defending champion Lakers fits in the playoffs.  Leading 2 games to 1 in the series, the Jazz had electrified Salt Lake City, and the Lakers were on the ropes.  Those were the days of Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and the elegant veteran, Abdul-Jabbar.  The Lakers were down at halftime, but Abdul-Jabbar used his sky hook to lead the Lakers back and ultimately win the game 113-100. They took the series in 7.  My father and I were two of the very few Lakers fans in the stands that day, and it was one the most gratifying sports experiences of my life.  I still remember Abdul-Jabbar’s unstoppable play.

He still towers over everyone else, but he walks slowly and with effort.  He looked thin and in pain.  Not unhealthy, but not powerful.  He wasn’t a celebrity, just a man.  He seemed weary to me, my flashing camera adding to the constant invasions of his space.

 

After enjoying the shade and refreshments for a few hours, we moved to the Rose Bowl.  I can’t hope to recall how many games I’ve watched in that stadium from my living room couch, but this was the first time live.  UCLA fans were universally friendly and certain that they were about to lose.  Being accustomed to SEC regular season games and the few SEC Championship and Peach Bowl games I’ve attended, I expected a packed house, but was surprised to see large sections of empty seats.  School hasn’t started yet, so the student section was mostly empty.  Everything about the scene bolstered my confidence in a Tennessee win.

As the game started, Tennessee looked flat.  They have a new offensive coordinator and new starting quarterback.  Their lines still seemed to dominate, and had an effective running game, but the team was generally mis-firing.  I was comforted by the fact that UCLA’s quarterback was doing worse.  He threw 4 interceptions in the first half.  Teams don’t win with those kind of turnovers.  But despite its opportunities, Tennessee just couldn’t score.  The large Tennessee contingent grew restless, and the UCLA crowd grew optimistic as the game wore on without the expected Tennessee breakout.  I didn’t like the direction we were headed.  The last UCLA interception resulted in a touchdown just before the half, giving Tennessee the lead.  UCLA’s only points had come off a botched Tennessee punt.  I watched the fatigued UCLA defender’s with their hands on their hips and figured the game would effectively end early in the third quarter, once Tennessee pounded the ball through the tackles a few more times.

Early in the third quarter, my predictions seemed to be coming true.  UT’s quarterback connected on his one long completion of the game, and the Vols seemed destined for the end zone.  Their senior tailback had been running downhill all day and outmatched the Bruin defenders in speed and size.  Larry mentioned how strong he looked and how many yards he was gaining.  I responded that he almost always did, and then managed to fumble at exactly the wrong time.  No sooner had I said that than he fumbled on UCLA’s 6 yard line.  The game had just changed again.

A game that lacked offensive excitement for 55 minutes more than made up for it in the last five minutes of the game.  With about 5 minutes remaining, UCLA had scored a touchdown, pulling ahead by 4.  Tennessee eventually drove down the field and Montario Hardesty (if I get any of this wrong, it’s because I’m doing it from memory) sprinted into the end zone with 1:44 left on the clock.  I was elated, Larry was dejected.  The game was certainly over.

But no.  UCLA’s 3rd string quarterback had found a soft spot in the middle of the field.  He kept going to his tight end, and Tennessee had no answer.  Why hadn’t they seen it?  Why couldn’t they adjust?  Seconds ticked off the clock, but the Bruins kept connecting on passes.  Finally, with some 35 seconds on the clock, the Bruins had driven to the UT 6.  Then their third stringer connected on a final short pass into the end zone, with only 24 seconds remaining.  Once again, the game seemed over.

But no.  UCLA pooched their kick and Tennessee returned it to mid field with two timeouts left.  A couple of plays later they were within field goal range with 5 seconds left, and they needed 3 to tie.  Daniel Lincoln, Tennessee’s kicker, had missed twice from beyond 50 yards, but this one was a 47-yarder.  He nailed it, the orange nation was euphoric.  We were headed for overtime.

Tennessee won the toss, elected to defend, and held UCLA to a field goal.  Again, I thought Tennessee held all the cards.  It would be an ugly win, but still a “w”.  All they had to do was run it through UCLA’s weakened defensive line.  But they couldn’t, or at least they didn’t.  Lincoln lined up for another kick, shorter this time.  Well within his range.  The snap was good, the hold solid, and kick was up…wide left.  The UCLA faithful erupted, and I sat dejected, unbelieving, the hopes for a good season crushed in the very first game. 

My Aunt Kitty felt like a bad hostess.  She wouldn’t trade high-five’s with Larry and couldn’t even meet my eyes.  You can see her in this picture, looking away.  My uncle, male that he is, insisted on taking the shot - wanting to capture my pain in real time.  I did my best to be charitable, but you’ll have to ask my car mates how well I pulled it off.

After a leisurely breakfast Tuesday morning, it was time to go.  We left the land of glitz and glamour and headed home for our regular lives among the non-movers and non-shakers.  I thought of Abdul-Jabbar and his limping, weary entrance into the booster tent.  I thought of Daniel Lincoln’s long flight home.  I thought of Nixon’s failed efforts to throw his scandal down the memory hole.  They are, or were, just people.  At the airport, I looked over my wife’s shoulder at People magazine and read about Jessica Simpson finding love again, knowing full well that within weeks I’ll be reading about her losing it once more.  People magazine reads like a tragic novel for people with ADD, most every article consisting of five sentences telling the tale of a breakup or putting spin on some other personal disaster disguised as triumph.  The characters in the grand play -actors, athletes, and other celebrities, are just people, walking with whatever limps life has pressed on them or they’ve taken on themselves. 

After we landed, it was time to reclaim our own baggage and go home. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll never forget our wonderful weekend, or the generosity of our hosts.  But it was good to go home where I slipped into my children’s rooms and gave them each a kiss as their grandmother had promised, grateful for my flyover life in a second-tier city, living a rich and wonderful life that will never make the pages of a magazine.

 

What if We Were Different?

 

The political season is in full swing.  The men who aspire to the nation’s highest office are giving speeches, picking their running mates and running each other down.  While I recognize the greatness of democracy and am profoundly grateful to have been born into this wonderful country, I generally loathe the political season, and these days it seems like it’s always political season.  I’ve been a fairly consistent Republican throughout my life, but the last few years of corruption and scandal among Republican Congressmen and Senators has left me thoroughly disillusioned.  I find many outspoken conservatives to be obnoxious, oblivious and hard-hearted.  At the same time, I find much of the Democratic platform frightening and repugnant.  But what I like least is how many of my brothers and sisters in Christ identify themselves by political party rather than faith.

There are sincere, believing and right-thinking Christians on both sides of the political aisle.  Those of us on the right are there for various reasons, many because we’re more morally conservative, and others because we generally believe that “less is more” when it comes to government taxation and control.  Some are there almost exclusively because of the repugnant legalization of abortion.  On the left, there are believers who are profoundly concerned with the poor and with peace, and they perceive that the Democrats are more likely to deliver on those things than the Republicans.  But generally, at least since about 1980, Evangelical Christians have been predictably Republican.  So much so, that it seems some are Republican first and followers of Christ later.

I hate that Christians have become another powerful voting block to be wooed and pandered to rather than a community noted for its love, moral uprightness, and grace.  Consultants have been hired to shape political messages to tickle the ears of the “religious right” with messages about moral standards and “faith based” government programs, and many of us are all too eager to capitalize on that power.  We’re as eternally transformative as the AARP.  We’ve bought into the notion that the significant things of this earth are accomplished in the voting booth rather than the heavenly realms.  We’ve drunk deeply from the intoxicating draught of power, and we’re more concerned about losing it than we are about sacrificing our witness in the process of wielding it.

What if we were different?  What if we dealt with each other and the world around us in a manner radically different than everyone else.  What if we actually obeyed Christ’s commands and loved each other, forgave each other, stopped suing each other, stopped divorcing each other, started giving sacrificially to the poor and generally became as consumed with following Christ’s commands as we are with putting another Republican in office? What if our chief distinctive traits were not an intolerance for homosexuality and passion for lower taxes, but love and grace? 

Don’t get me wrong.  There is sin, and the world at large has ceased to recognize sin.  The consequences of sin are grave, so grave in fact as to demand blood for atonement.  But we Christians serve the God who paid that atonement, and it is sufficient.  Despite Christ’s admonition not to do so, we appoint ourselves as judge.  Despite his admonition not to do so, we do not forgive as we have been forgiven.  Despite his admonition not to do so, we store up for ourselves treasures on earth rather than heaven.  But what if we didn’t?   What if he did what he said?  What if we were as different as he called us to be?  I think the world would change.

Note, I don’t say that I think the world would love us.  In fact, one of the more bewildering motivations for those on the left is that they want to be liked by other people in the world.  Being liked is overrated.  In fact, Christ promised his followers that the world would hate us because it hated him.  But right now, I don’t feel like the world hates us because we follow Jesus, I think it hates us because we tend to act like pious jerks.  If we did follow him as we are called to do, some in this world would see that example and follow him as well.  Others would see that and hate us more, because darkness hates the light.  The world system works on a system of unforgiveness, revenge and power.  If we started unwinding those structures by speaking truth and living in love, then many in the world would hate us very much indeed.

In Plato’s allegory of the cave, prisoners are chained to benches in a dark cave, permitted only to face forward and look at the wall of the cave.  Behind the prisoners, there are people manipulating silhouettes of things that exist in the word.  Plato calls them “forms.”  Behind the puppeteers there is a fire that causes the forms to cast shadows on the wall, and the only things that the prisoners ever see in their lives are those distorted shadows moving on the wall.  One day, one of the prisoners is set free.  He walks past the forms and the fire and out into the real world.  He sees the real things upon which the crude forms are based.  He is astonished and overwhelmed at the beauty and complexity of the world of which he has only seen a shadow.  He eventually returns to the cave and tries to explain this reality to his fellow prisoners.  Unable to comprehend the magnitude of this truth, that their lives have consisted entirely of a lie, they kill the now enlightened prisoner.  At least, that’s what I remember from a philosophy class many years ago.

Like the freed prisoner who learns that the things of this earth are but a shadowy example of the enduring things, the things that will remain, we need to share that truth with others.  Some will believe, and others will hate us for it.  In the process of sharing, we need to demonstrate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Even then, some people will still hate us.  But they should hate us because we bring light, not because we wield heavy-handed power.

Some reading this will protest - “If we stop wielding our political influence, then we’ll lose our freedoms!  We’ll be taken over by the hard left who will force us to stop preaching the truth!  The law will make a mockery of what we know to be the family!”  At times, I share those fears, and there is reason to believe that those things could happen.  There are lawsuits and statutes and political concepts floating about on the left that I find deeply disturbing, but I can’t allow that fear to drive out the love to which I am called.  I must believe that God, not my political power, is what saves me, provides for me, and will ultimately transform the world.

Oh, I still plan to vote Republican, but I don’t believe that either they or the Democrats get it right.  It’s just that in my view of the world, the damage that the Republicans are likely to inflict is less than what the Democrats will do, and I know that many of you disagree with that.  I welcome that disagreement.  But among those of you who share my faith, I pray that those differences will not divide us, and that we will recognize that our chief allegiance is to our eternal King and High Priest with whom we are even now seated in the heavenlies, and that we are first and foremost members of a far greater kingdom than this temporary nation can ever hope to be.  As such, our hope does not ride on the winner of November’s election.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.   2 Corinthians 10:3, 4

 

Passions of the Fall

I try to maintain a healthy perspective on life and its various elements, thus the title of my blog. I try not to get worked up about things that aren’t significant.  But several times throughout this fall my calm reserve will go out the window as I watch my beloved Tennessee Volunteers play football.

I live in the Atlanta area now, but I attended high school in Chattanooga, and college in Bristol, Tennessee.  My small college hasn’t hosted a football team since the 1940’s, so the Volunteers earned  my football allegiance as a teenager, and I’ve been unwilling to give it up.  Reggie White, Peyton Manning, Al Wilson and their ilk are my football heroes. 

More than once my wife has had to admonish me for throwing pillows against he wall, or myself on the floor, during a close win (last year at Kentucky) or painful loss (Georgia, 2001).  The glow of 1998’s National Championship diminishes with each passing year, and it’s been an equally long time since the Vols’ last conference victory.  Still, I’m a man of commitment and conviction, so I’m in it for the long haul.  Heck, Notre Dame hasn’t won a bowl game in 14 years, but their fans don’t show any sign of quit.  Plus, Tennessee opens on Monday, and hope springs eternal.

My wife and I are actually flying out for the game, courtesy of my uncle who is a season ticket holder at UCLA.  The last time I watched Tennessee live was here in Atlanta as they lost the SEC Championship Game due to a couple of horrific interceptions thrown by Eric Ainge.  They lost to LSU, the eventual National Champions.  I’m eager for redemption.

It’s fun, for a few hours every Saturday in the fall, to get wrapped up in something that doesn’t really matter.  But at times in my life, football has mattered a little too much.  In a life full of stresses that actually affect me personally, I sometimes wonder why I elect to introduce a completely unnecessary stress into my life.  My football passions can get out of whack, I readily admit it, but I’ve matured a bit over the years and I’m able to contain my angst.  I can actually enjoy watching a game rather than endure it.  I’m (hopefully) beyond the point where I’ll turn a game off or walk out of the stadium in disgust.  The more detached I become from the result, the more I can enjoy it.

Tennessee football is not among the things that will remain.  And as much as you Golden Domers, Bulldogs, Trojans, etc. want to believe otherwise, neither will your programs.  But the way we treat our rivals and loved ones during the season is potentially significant.  That’s a good thing to remember as the annual passions of the fall are kindled again.

If anyone is interested, I set up a group for readers of this site.  Frankly, the readership of this site seems an unlikely group for a college pick em contest, but we’ll see how it goes.  Click on this link.  you’ll need to register for a Yahoo account if you don’t already have one, and the group number is 26076 and the password is StphenPeterson.  It’s free and easy to play, and experience teaches me that knowledge of football is more hindrance than help, so don’t be intimidated if you are a novice.  Enjoy.

Oh - and look for Toria and me on ESPN Monday night.  We’ll be the two orange clad fans amidst a sea of blue somewhere around the 40-yard line. 

 

Storms Come

We had odd weather yesterday here in Atlanta.  We were still feeling the effects of Tropical Storm Fay, and unlike most weather systems to which I am accustomed, this one came at us in several distinct waves.  The sky would be blue with white, puffy clouds, then within 20 minutes a blanket of gray would coat the sky and empty buckets of water against my window.  Twenty minutes later the skies would clear again.  Each time, the clear skies or storms were so pronounced as to seem permanent. They never were, of course, and never are.  What made this storm unique was the brevity of each cycle.

Life is like that.  Seemingly permanent conditions settle in, for good or for ill, only to change again.  We need it all, the sunshine and the storms.  The alternatives are drought or flood.  We can spend the moments of sunshine bemoaning the dry soil and the moments of rain fearing flooding in the streets, or we can receive their coming and going with gratitude.

Paul said, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. ” (Phil.  4:12, 13), and Jesus told us “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33)

Storms come and go, but he is the same yesterday, today and forever.  (Heb. 13:8)  Peace comes when we stop putting our hope in the ever changing things of this world, and invest our entire hope in his unchanging nature and enduring promises.

 

Speaking of Bucket Lists

Add this to the list of life’s sad ironies.  I haven’t read the book, but I can’t help but wonder if he made it through his own list, and I wonder if he discovered significance beyond experience along the way. 

 

Dave Freeman, co-author of “100 Things to Do Before You Die,” a travel guide and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, has died. He was 47.

Freeman died Aug. 17 after falling at his Venice home and hitting his head, his father, Roy Freeman, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday.

An advertising agency executive, Freeman co-wrote the 1999 book, which was subtitled “Travel Events You Just Can’t Miss,” with Neil Teplica. It was based on the Web site whatsgoingon.com, which the pair ran together from 1996 to 2001.

FOXNews.com - ‘100 Things to Do Before You Die’ Co-Author Dies at 47 - Celebrity Gossip | Entertainment News | Arts And Entertainment.

 

Peachtree City Triathlon Results

For anyone interesting in seeing what triathlon results look like, click this link.  I’ve got to say that the Peachtree City folks have their act together more than any other group I’ve experienced.  The results were up by the time I got home from the race.  I often have to wait for days.  The photos, however, still aren’t online.  That’s unusual in my experience.  Those are normally ready almost right away.

 

Welcome to Event Tech!.

 

Inaugural Voyage

As I wrote in my last post, last week I fulfilled a long time wish by purchasing a canoe.  I took it out with my daughter this afternoon, and it was all that I’d hoped.  The cane seat broke, the stem needs some repair work, and a torrential rain started while we were paddling, but nothing could dampen my enthusiasm.  Mary Kate is a great co-adventurer, and she didn’t complain once. 

The water was cold, clear and provided a wilderness respite in the midst of the busy city.

Shortly after we put in we hit some shoals and I had to navigate toward the downstream V’s. I was pleased with how quickly the old instincts returned.  I look forward to many journeys in our new, used canoe.

done

 

My Shrinking Bucket List

“Life is full and life is rich.”  That’s generally how I respond when an old acquaintance contacts me through Facebook, Linked In or in some other virtual community.  It’s difficult to sum up 15 or 20 years without typing several pages of text that no one wants to read, so I tell people that I’m happily married, that I have four young children, and that life is full and life is rich.  It really is.

I inherited a pessimistic outlook on life.  I’m convinced that it’s genetic.  Shortly after my oldest son learned to talk, he spilled a cup of water and said “Oh No!  I’ll never have water again!”  I didn’t teach him that, I promise.  But like him, I can blow the slightest adversity out of proportion and convince myself that all is certainly and permanently lost.  But now and then, God elevates me above my immediate circumstances and points out the rich and wonderful things in my life.  In those moments, I see that my cup runneth over.  I am a rich, rich man in all of the things that matter.  I am loved, I am in community, and I am assured of an abundant and eternal life.  As if that weren’t enough, God has covered the cake of my life with some wonderful frosting.  I am married to an absolutely gorgeous woman who is head over heals in love with me.  I have four healthy, smart kids who shower me with affection every time I walk in the door.  I have an interesting and lucrative career, a healthy body, an abundance of friends, and almost every weekend brings another memorable, photo-worthy experience.  In moments like this, with perspective like this, it’s hard to imagine why I ever feel anything other than euphoria.

But it’s all about perspective.  In the midst of a trial like a sick child, a marital spat, a career setback, an unexpected repair bill, a poor report card, or a Saturday afternoon loss by the Tennessee Volunteers, I see it all slipping away.  Suddenly, I stop walking on the water and start sinking into the depths.  You need look only a couple of posts back to see my darker side.  In those moments I need a lift from my Father in heaven, who extends his hand, lifts me from the mire and gently admonishes my lack of faith.

I don’t have a written bucket list, but I do have a running mental list of things that I want to see and do before my life on this earth ends.  Because of this rich life I’ve been given, the list is shrinking.  I wanted to graduate with honors from college - check, to graduate from a ranked law school - check, to be married to a beautiful woman - check, learn to play the guitar (half check), to have children - check, check, check and check, to become a partner in a major law firm, check.  As I age, my list changes and grows.  I’ve wanted to travel to the Islands - check, to run a triathlon - check, to run a half marathon - check.  

Just this week I was able to check one more idiosyncratic item from the list - I wanted to own a canoe - check.  That may seem a little odd, but one of my greatest outdoor experiences  was as a camp counselor at Camp Paddy Run in Winchester, Virginia.  In an otherwise ordinary summer, I spent one week escorting a group of high school kids for a week long float down the Potomac River through West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland.  We camped out on the banks of the river, and awoke to spectacular, quiet mornings as we silently floated through deep gorges while bald eagles soared above.  Ever since then I’ve wanted a canoe.  We live close to the tranquil Chattahoochee River, and for many miles of its bank there are parks and put-ins perfect for canoeing.  As much as I wanted one, I could never justify the purchase.   Finally, just this week, I saw an ad on e-bay for an Old Town 17′ canoe, completed with life jackets, paddles and seatbacks.  The seller was just 7 miles from my house, and I just had to check it out.  The seller nearly backed out because he was so attached to the canoe, but he’s getting divorced and has to sell it all.  I quickly strapped the canoe on top of the Pathfinder and took off before he changed his mind.  I can hardly wait to take it out.

Another item on my revised bucket list is finishing the Peachtree City Triathlon in under 1:20.  Today was my last chance to mark off that item for the next year.  As an interesting backstory to my triathlon adventures - my wife Toria has taken up the sport.  She was initially intimidated by everything about triathlons and had a pretty inauspicious start to her biking career (as related in an earlier post).  She finished her first triathlon two weeks ago and performed extremely well.  So well, in fact, that I felt the heat.  She finished with an average bike pace of 18.9 miles per hour, 13th out of some 132 in her age group and faster than I had ever ridden.  I was extremely proud of her, and extremely pressured to best her bike time.

(Toria’s the one on the right)

The Peachtree City Sprint Triathlon was the first one that I ever ran, and I told the story of that first race in an earlier (and if I may say so, amusing) post.  The first time I ran that race the distances were a little shorter than they are now, and  I finished in about 1:33.  Two years later the race organizers increased the distances to about a 600 yard swim, 14 miles bike and 5k (3.1 miles).  In my second effort, I greatly improved on my first time with a finish of 1:24:57 (another story told in a previous post).  But today I wanted to finish in under 1:20.  For the uninitiated, that’s still not an impressive time, but it would be an impressive improvement for me.

In the past, the Peachtree City race has been a time for my guy friends to gather for an overnight, but due to injury or scheduling conflicts, all of my race friends dropped out.  In lieu of the guys’ weekend, Toria and the kids picked me up at work yesterday afternoon, and we all drove down to Peachtree City together.  We carbo-loaded at Carrabas and tried to get our wound-up kids to fall asleep in our crowded hotel room.  I woke first, grabbed some muffins in the hotel lobby and rode my bike to the start. 

This was my 6th triathlon, so I bring a little experience to the table.  For one thing, I knew to stay in the porta-john until I was finished, regardless of how many people were waiting outside.  I carefully laid-out my gear in the transition area, and then I went to the porta-john again.  I wasn’t going to repeat last year’s fiasco.

Once the swim started, I still felt the slightly panicked disorientation that comes with swimming amidst hundreds of thrashing athletes struggling past the buoys, but within 100 yards I settled into my swim cadence with just a couple of interruptions as I was kicked in the face and had to adjust my goggles.   The lake was full of some sort of tentacle-like vegetation that grabbed at me with each stroke, but I powered through it and finished my swim a few seconds faster than last year. 

After a decent transition I moved to the bike.  The bike has traditionally been my worst discipline.  For reasons I still don’t completely understand, in past years the rest of the field has passed me like I was on a leisurely walk.  My desire to improve on that weakness was compounded by Toria’s excellent performance in her race.  I’m no chauvinist, but there’s not a guy in the world who relishes the thought of his wife besting him in any athletic endeavor.  For the first time in any race, I felt like my stroke had some power and I started passing people.  This was new to me.  I crouched into my aerobars (a new addition since my last race) and started to gobble up the riders in front of me.  I stayed with a pack of 5 or so riders with a similar pace.  They’d pass me on the uphill, and I’d retake them on the downhill or flat.  We engaged in some good-natured jabber, exhorting each other to press to the bike finish.  But the weather was working against me.  We’re feeling the effects of Tropical Storm Faye, and the wind was gusty with a light rain.  At times I could feel the wind slow my pace, but I was still performing better than prior years against the field.  In the end, my bike pace was .5 miles an hour faster than last year, only 76 seconds better than last year, but given the conditions, I was pleased.

Because of my extra effort on the bike, I was a little gassed for the first mile of the run.  After the first mile marker I picked up my pace, but I knew that I would have to press hard to make my sub 1:20 goal.  About 2.5 miles in I found myself running next to one of my cohorts from the bike leg.  She was 28 (everyone’s age is written on their calf), and I had served as her inspiration throughout the race.  Each time I passed her on the bike, she attacked almost immediately to re-take her position.  I’d finished ahead of her and beat her out of transition, but she sprinted ahead of me during the first mile.  I finally passed her again.  Predictably, she picked up her pace and pulled even.  We exchanged jibes, and I pulled ahead of her for the last time. 

I could hear the cheering crowds ahead.  I looked at my watch and saw 1:20.  My sub 1:20 would have to remain on the bucket list.  I finished in 1:21:27, a full 3:30 better than last year.  My run was slightly slower, but I more than made up for it in the bike and transitions.  Most important, I finished with an average bike mph of 18.9.  Maybe I can’t best my wife, but at least I can hang with her.  I placed 52nd of 113 in my age group and 270th of 928 overall.  It was my first top half finish in my age group.  Best of all, my fan club was waiting for me at the finish.

After the initial post-race congratulations, Toria informed me that Will was not feeling well.  We hurried back to the hotel so that I could shower and change.  As we got in the highway toward home, Will threw up in the car.  That’s one of those bumps in the road than can throw me on other days, but not today.

This afternoon I made a run to REI for some canoe equipment and took Mary Kate along, the faded “38″ still showing on my calf.  After my errand, I took her to a nearby coffee shop where we shared a cookie.  I asked her about school and she smiled at me with chocolate-stained teeth.  I had nothing to do other than look into the eyes of my beautiful daughter and give her my undivided attention.  It was one of the simpler and more unexceptional events of the day, but in that moment I found myself thinking, “this is as good as it gets.”  There are a few items still lingering on the bucket list, but my life will be full if they go unfulfilled.  Life is rich, and life is full, and I pray that I’ll have the eyes to keep seeing it that way.

 

Carpe Diem

We members of Generation X lack a legitimate source of generational angst.  “The Greatest Generation,” from which our grandparents came, survived the depression and won WWII. Our parents, for good or for ill, gave us Woodstock, Vietnam protests and a post-Watergate hangover.  Then we came along - born between 1965 and 1980, we were born into an era of nearly unparalleled peace and prosperity.  With apologies to those who suffered loss in the Grenada invasion or the Marine barracks bombing in 1983, the U.S.A. avoided anything resembling a war from its withdrawal from Vietnam until the brief Gulf War of 1991, and even that conflict was surprisingly modest in its domestic impact.  Then we enjoyed another 10-year gap before the current conflict began. 

Once we Gen X’rs were old enough to start paying attention to what was going on economically, the nation had shaken its post-Vietnam malaise, ushered the Great Communicator into office and entered an era of robust growth and prosperity.  No one was going off to war, and almost no one was standing in a soup line.  We were double blessed.

So, for those of us coming of age in the 1980’s, there was no shared enemy against which to rebel or crisis to endure.  While peace and prosperity are wonderful, they can create times that are historically uninteresting and artistically uninspired.  We were a generation of flint that lacked the steel to create a spark.  Then Hollywood stepped into the gap.   During the 80’s we were treated to a series of movies that finally gave us the angst we so needed - The Outsiders, The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, Pretty in Pink, and many others that were dedicated to the notion that even when we had peace, roofs over our head and plenty of food to eat - life was still just so darn hard.  Many of the movies featured a lower-middle class kid (kids driving used cars) striving to enter the world of the upper-middle class (kids driving new cars).  In some form or fashion, all the movies were about stuff and status - who had it, who didn’t, and how kids from the separated classes could somehow meet and occasionally mate.  Each movie’s protagonist seized the brass ring, overcame the hurdles and won the pretty girl through charm, wit or athleticism despite their lack of Izod shirts or a BMW.   Hollywood capitalized on the notion that all of us wanted to be Alex P. Keaton - brilliant, handsome and destined for greatness and wealth, and exploited the fact that most of us knew we fell short.

My closest friends and I made fun of those movies.  We were among that annoying set of kids in high school that thinks it is culturally above whatever everybody else likes - and in our case that included John Cuzak and Molly Ringwald.  Still, those movies act as a cultural bookmark for me.  When I sit on the couch, surfing channels during a lazy Saturday afternoon and land on a John Hughes movie, I tend to stay there long enough to watch a memorable scene or hear a quotable phrase.  Despite their nostalgic merit, I still chuckle at their manufactured angst. 

Finally, in 1989, a popular movie came along that my snobbish friends and I could get behind - Dead Poets Society.  Robin Williams (who we knew as the funny alien from the post-jump-the-shark Happy Days and its improbable spin off Mork & Mindy) played Professor Keating.  Keating was a prep school English teacher in 1959.  Among his rich (and angst-ridden) students were Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke.  Leonard played the part of Neil Perry, the son of a controlling, hard-hearted man who could never understand his son’s artistic side and prohibited him from working on the school paper, acting or anything other than excelling in school and preparing for a life of high income.  Hawke played Todd Anderson, Perry’s roommate and the under-performing younger brother of a former valedictorian.

The compelling component of the movie for me was Williams’ character.  In his opening lecture, he has a student read a section of a textbook in which the author reduces poetry analysis to a mathematical formula.  Professor Keating then irreverently instructs his students to rip the essay our of their books, and the boys enjoy their first intoxicating taste of freedom.

In one of the most memorable and quoted scenes in the movie, he tells the boys “Carpe Diem boys. Seize the day.  Make your lives extraordinary!”  He marches the boys to a glass case that houses old pictures of students from the school.  “Worm meat” he says of the students in the photos.  He mimics their imaginary whisper - “Seize the day.”  The implication in his teaching is that the anticipated pursuits of these New England blue bloods (personified by Neil Perry’s cruel father) are vapid, fleeting and hollow.  Wealth is nothing, beauty is everything and life is enjoyed best when everything is risked.  It’s a powerful idea, and of course by the end of the movie someone is dead.

The movie was released between my sophomore and junior years of college, and just before the next generation - Generation Y, the Millenials, the Echo Boomers, or whatever they want to be called (generally, those born between 1980 and 1994) - was old enough to start watching movies.  The theme played right into the growing sentiment among many of my peers that we didn’t want to spend our lives toiling in an empty 9 to 5 job.  We wanted to be engaged in something significant and true, pure and noble, something extraordinary. 

I think of where we all are now.  Among us I count an engineer, a doctor, a couple of pastors, a lawyer, some IT professionals, and blah, blah it goes on.  Sooner or later we all had to earn, and  eventually we all did, some later than sooner and some more than others, but eventually we all did the expected things - college, career, marriage, kids.  Did we sell out or grow up?

In my high school we had our own version of Professor Keating (didn’t we all?).  He pushed us to live outside of the world’s expectations, to embrace beautiful things, and to live examined lives.  Like all Professor Keatings the world over, he had to deal with parents’ objections to his book choices and the subversive thoughts with which he filled us for 50 minutes each day.  We students passionately rallied around him and he’s still there today, veteran of a hundred culture wars.  He was our hero.

Despite my admiration for him, I recognized that he viewed me with suspicion.  I was a little too concrete, too eager to interpret poetry rather than enjoy it, and too pragmatic about life’s demands.  I visited the school some 6 years after graduation while I was on a job interview in the city.  For most of the faculty I was a returning hero - a summa cum laude graduate of my college and current student at a top law school.  When “Mr. Keating” saw me he viewed my suit disapprovingly and asked if I had a fancy car in the parking lot.  I sensed his disappointment.  He thought I was a sellout, and I’m sure he’s not alone.  I work as a lawyer in a downtown office, commute to the suburbs, drive an SUV and increased my carbon footprint with four children.  But for reasons I’ll explain, I think he was wrong.

My reflections today are, in part, a reaction to the ethos I see developing among the generation that’s followed us.  To them, work is evil unless it’s fun.  As soon as it’s not fun, they ditch it and move on to something else.  They want to work less, have more and play all day.  They are Professor Keating’s progeny, and they view the rest of us as foolish sellouts.  If their Professor Keating made them read “1984″, they might even refer to us as unenlightened proles.  I felt like that once, but I grew out of it by the time I was 21.  This group seems stuck there, and rest of our society is bending over backward to keep them happy.

I watch these kids driving around in their new Cooper Minis and riding their tricked-out bikes, heading to a lake house that someone else paid for early on a Thursday afternoon, and wondering why the rest of the world is stupid enough to work all day and drive home in a banged up car.  I watch them and think to myself, “who paid for all of their stuff?”   

Professor Keating wasn’t the first to suggest that our our lives often fall short of their beautiful potential.   Plato reports that Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living”  (one of the many quotes that my personal Professor Keating had me memorize).  Jesus said that we were all slaves to our earthly desires, and urged us to “know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  It’s not that I reject Professor Keating’s exhortation, and certainly not Christ’s, but I think the truth lies somewhere between Alex P. Keaton’s relentless drive for success and the modern twenty-something’s expectation that they need only pursue fun and the rest will take care of itself.

At the risk of sounding immodest, I do seize the day, or at least some days.  I look back over this year and think of the time I’ve taken with my family at the expense of billable hours, the time I’ve spent in prayer, study and meditation, teaching, playing the guitar, playing with my kids, loving my wife, relishing God’s creation and serving others.   I believe that having a job and doing it well, at the occasional expense of personal desires, is a heroic thing.  I’m called to work, we all are.  I’ve laid down a part of my life to serve my family, benefit the community and  employ some of the talents that I’ve been given.  I think that working is significant, and I think that it is noble.  Pursuing a personal passion while your family starves, or expecting others who work hard to support your selfish pursuits, is not noble.  As a counterpoint, we can fail by allowing work to consume us and define us.  Once we stop appreciating beauty, and stop pursuing truth, we start dying a slow death of the soul. 

Neil Perry of the Dead Poets Society wasn’t able to simultaneously pursue his passion as an actor and vocation as a student, so he killed himself.   When I was young and first watched the movie I saw him as a tragic hero.  With 20 years of additional perspective, I see only a tragic loss.  If he’d been more patient, more balanced and more loved, he would have had a lifetime in which to pursue his passions, and figure out whether he was talented enough to make a living at acting, or whether it would remain a passionate hobby.  He didn’t seize the day, he surrendered it, and the world was a poorer place.  As this newest generation of workers experiences its first difficult days, I pray that they make wise choices and benefit from the perspective that deprivation can bring.

There are a lot of us creatives out there who feel somewhat miscast in our professions.   Most of us lack the talent to make a living at acting, writing, or other artistic pursuits, so we try to find a paying job that partially matches our interests, and we look for opportunities to engage in purely creative pursuits on our own time.  That’s how the world goes around.  I just hope that the next generation figures that out before we much-maligned Boomers and Gen X’rs are too old to keep turning the wheels.  As for the Gen X’rs long-missing source of generational angst - like of Gen Y’s maturity, it may be coming, just much delayed.