Indiana: A Thank You Note

I've lived in the state of Indiana for the last 2.5 years and learned a lot.  That last statement was really, really understated, but if I stated it fully, you wouldn't want to read this.  I want you to read this, so here are just five things I learned while living my life in a community (made of people) called Huntington.

#1 - I can't be anything good by myself.  

I don't want this to take a depressing turn right away, but this is the most foundational thing I learned while in Huntington.  I want to be the best version of myself as I can be, but by myself I only try and try and try and get nowhere.  This is because I am wrong about most things.  The only reason that it's ok that I am wrong is because I have had a lot of people around me and have showed me what right looks like.  I've learned that not a lot of right comes from inside myself, so I have to look around.  In Huntington, there were little pieces of right all over and all around me.

#2 - I am the problem.

Being surrounded by other people is both the best and the worst because other people are both amazing and awful.  The closer I got with the people around me, the more I wanted to run away from them, until I realized that my natural setting is to think other people whomp.  Slowly (and still slowly) I discovered that if I toned down my own whompiness, other people tended to whomp a lot less.  I say this not to be self-depreciating, but only to cancel out my own tendency to blame everything else on everyone but me.   

#3 - When life is awful - I am not the solution.

Life has the tendency to totally suck and see #2.  If I am the problem, then I can't be the solution.  For a long time I wasn't really willing to be open about myself because I still wanted to believe I could be my own solution.  I found that I didn't really believe (and still don't sometimes, by accident) #1 and #2.  Once I realized these tenets, however, I still didn't reach out.  That is because I was often afraid (and still am, by accident [and sometimes on purpose]).

#4 - There is nothing to be afraid of.

Almost everyone I've encountered is not out to help me or harm me.  Everyone seems to just be out to live their story the best way they know how.  I've learned that when I share my life with someone else, they start to see me as a resource for bettering their story, and they offer to be a resource to me.

#5 - People don't want problems.

This last thing is more related to counseling than to anything else, but it has huge implications.  When I learned this, I learned that while I do hurtful things, and the people around me do hurtful things, it's only because we are trying to do what's best.  Everyone hurts and everyone hurts others.  I learned to accept this in Indiana.  I learned that people can be really, really good.  And I've learned that the hurt of some people's stories goes much deeper than I had ever thought was possible.  I think most of all though, I learned to open up.  

Indiana has far fewer hills and valleys than Pennsylvania does.  There's a lot of space.  Space was what I found I needed.  That's why I'm saying "thank you".  And when I come back there will be laughter and there will be tears but I've learned that both of those are just another way to say "thank you."  So when you see me, just say "you're welcome," because I've learned that's all I ever wanted anyway.    

Making Maps

Soccer is war; the field is Normandy, fresh for the storming.  I was a soldier there, storming the ramparts and bringing victory to the allies.  As a twelve year old, I had seen my share of combat; every other Saturday new villains appeared and the fighting began all over again.  Further, I had done drills to sharpen my skill in our weapons of choice; a foot and a ball.  Things were riding on our battles.  Heavy things.  Important things.

Pictured above: Jimmy;
Age 11; Midfielder.

That's what we believed anyway.  Soccer is something we, as twelve year olds, needed to understand.  Battle was how we were told to understand it.  Combat.  Serious stuff.  

Stuff is serious in battle because there are grave repercussions for losing.  In a war, everything is on the line because we understand war as a fight for your life.  When soccer is a war; soccer is a fight for your life, which makes things difficult when soccer isn't your life.  So, seeing as how I made a pretty terrible soldier, I quit.

If you need to get somewhere, you look at a map because you trust that piece of paper you're holding to be a pretty accurate representation of that somewhere you're going.  But anyone who used Mapquest before five years ago can tell you that not all maps are created equally.  Some maps are more accurate than others...for some people.

Poems are famous for using maps and getting the girl.  I speak for all men when I tell you that we sometimes have trouble expressing our feelings.  So we use a map to get the girl.  

"I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea, 

And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships; 

But the loveliest things of beauty God ever has showed to me 

Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips."

The best maps we use are the maps that best explain the world.  Some people think soccer is best explained as a war and some people think the girl they're smitten with is the loveliest thing God has shown them.  Even if you disagree, the world is a complex place.  What kind of meaning will you make?

Professionally Speaking

I like to dance but I am strictly recreational.  However, I do consider myself to be professionally recreational, which just means I have confidence in my inability to do the true art form of dance any justice.  It was only just a while ago that I decided to go professionally recreational.  But the important thing was that it was a choice.

One of my only moves:
"the elbow drop."

A professional is someone who does something for gain and when I dance I gain something.  In the past, I always wanted to sustain when I danced.  I wanted to sustain my image, my pride, my dignity.  But to be a professional, you have to give something up.  In order for life to come, it must first be given up.  That's a hard teaching but anything worthy is hard.

Only a professional dancer can profess dance because that person is giving something up to gain.  The difference between a professional and an amateur is that a professional makes his trades his life for his work while an amateur works his life for a trade.  Professionals are different because they chose to go on when what they do doesn't make sense anymore.

If you're ready to gain life then you're ready to give it up.  If you profess something, what is it that you're giving up to get it?  

Irrationally Rational

It would be nice if everyone simply acted solely on rationality, but people can't really be rational when they're angry enough to kill.

I don't see that as a problem though.  There are those that say rationality is the ideal; if we could all be perfectly rational, we'd all be fine.  That might be true, but we'd also be terribly boring.  We act in ways that don't always make sense, and sometimes we even know that we're not making sense, and that's ok.

The deepest and most life giving parts of your story are deep and life giving because of something that you felt in that moment.  The worst and lowest points in your story are the worst and the lowest because you felt worse than low.  There was more than emotion in that moment, but to put yourself back in that time; to flip the page back and scan across those words of joy or words of pain, you have to immerse yourself in that joy and in that pain all over again.

This remembering is an emotionally hard thing to do.  Hard things are the most worthy things though.  In relationships they move us the farthest. This is true for God too.

In the one hundred and sixth Psalm, the author recounts how God heard the cries of those He loved.  This caused God to remember the agreement He had made with them, and instead of destroying His people, God shows mercy.  God is moved.  Man moves with Him. 

Humanity can get very frustrated with the fact that we are made in the image of an irrationally rational God.  It's that very frustration that proves our emotional nature.  We're predictable sometimes, but our deepest places aren't places of calculated thought.  No, we are beautifully flim flammy.  Our deepest places are merely tear ducts full of salty joy and pain.