A "random act of kindness" - it's a household phrase, one that most everyone's experienced: when a friend, or a stranger, goes out of their way to do something nice, just for the sake of being nice, without expectation of repayment or reward.
A week ago I was sitting in a small patient/family waiting room in the Northfield hospital, getting my bimonthly intravenous infusion of Remicaid (treatment for Crohn's disease). In the same waiting room sat several other patients, also there for treatment of an incurable disease: cancer. As I listened to their conversations and stories, I thought to myself that there must be some amazing, deep insight I could gain from it. Each of these individuals had an entire lifetime's worth of experiences more than I, and on top of that they were all battling something I can scarcely imagine having to face. There was so much life-knowledge in that room, and I wanted to share in it.
I've yet to really figure out what deep lesson, if any, God had in mind for me that day. What I did find, though, was an opportunity to reach out and touch a stranger's life.
During my 2 hour infusion there was a man who would come down the hallway into the room every now and then to talk on his phone. His mother was in the hospital for a heart condition, and it didn't sound like she was doing very well. At best she'd no longer be able to live on her own, but have to move into a nursing home.
After one of his phone calls, this man and I started talking; it turns out he'd been a financial advisor to my aunt's mother years ago while she was still living on her own, so he'd known part of that side of my family. It's a small world.
As I was packing up to leave a short while later, I felt a nudge–I knew God was calling me to do something. After leaving the hospital, I returned not more than half an hour later with a 'praying for you' card for the man and his family, and had one of the nurses deliver it down to him. And this got me thinking: why not do a couple more random acts of kindness in the coming days?
Inspired by Terry Esau's 30-day "Surprise Me, God" experiment, which I tried out last March, I decided to undertake my own little faith experiment: waking up each morning and asking God for the opportunity to bless someone's life with a random act of kindness, something out of my way, above and beyond what I would normally do. Originally I was going to do a year's worth... I quickly realized a shorter period of time would be more realistic.
Thus was born my 7 Days of Kindness. Each day I woke up, said the prayer, and, in an effort to bring just a little more good into the world, tried to go out of my way to do something nice each day. It's been a fun ride, and what's been most astonishing is how faithfully God provided me the opportunities I sought, almost always multiple times in a given day. After my first couple ideas ran out though, I actually had to rely on God, and He came through, usually via email... No, God didn't email me Himself (what would His email address be? Maybe IAm@God.net?), but I did get several emails in the past week about people who were facing difficult challenges in their lives. Through these unexpected stories, God gave me the opportunity not only to pray for them, but also to send them cards, letting them know someone cares. One of the people I've never even officially met.
Similar to the journal I kept of God's surprises last year, I also kept a list this time around of everything I did, not as something to admire in itself, but as a testament to just how many opportunities we're given each day to make someone else's life just a little bit brighter.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Still Here
It's been such a long time since I wrote anything here! Yikes!
First semester finals came and went, Christmas and New Years, too, now Interim has started, and most exciting, I have red hair! That's it for now, I'll write more later this month (in all my "free time").
First semester finals came and went, Christmas and New Years, too, now Interim has started, and most exciting, I have red hair! That's it for now, I'll write more later this month (in all my "free time").
Monday, November 19, 2007
Walking Slowly
Maybe it's because I'm sooo not in a hurry to get to class, maybe it's because I'm feeling lazy, but for whatever the reason, I've noticed of late that I've been walking rather slowly... meandering, if you will, around campus, rather than my normal hustle and bustle, speedy race to and from classes. I'm finally learning to take my time, to let other people pass me, and to just be patient as I admire the campus, the wildlife (ie, squirrels), the construction, the sky, everything around me. It's so weird for me to not be in a hurry, but I'm finding it quite relaxing.
Monday, November 05, 2007
My Night with Public Safety
Last Friday I had an amazing experience: I got to ride along with one of St Olaf's Public Safety officers for a couple hours!
Most people I've told that to look at me strangely and question my sanity. A few have seen it from my perspective, as something that was actually really fun, and at the same time also educational.
How did this come about, you might wonder? A week and a half ago, while I was working SafeRide, I was sitting in Fireside and a Public Safety officer came through to lock up. I explained I was still on duty, and we talked for a while, me asking questions about what his job is like, etc. I also asked if they ever let students ride with–I have no good or legitimate reason to do so other than pure interest in the experience, but I thought, hey, why not at least ask? Turns out that they do on occasion let students tag along! And even better, this friendly officer said he'd be willing to let me come with some time, I just needed to arrange it with Fred Behr, the director of Public Safety.
So last week I went in to talk with Fred, expecting that I'd need to come up with some really good official reason for wanting to ride along. As it turns out, I'd no sooner stepped into his office after Donna [Hunter, the "Parking Office lady" whom I go in to chat with every now and then] introduced me before he simply asked "when do you want to do it?" No hard questions, no complicated reason needed (though I'm sure it helped that I'd been introduced as one of their SafeDrivers), just the question of when and with who.
And thus, I got to ride with Officer Murphy last Friday, help lock up Buntrock, Dittman, and Speech-Theatre, tag along as he responded to a call in Ytterboe which I'm not sure I'm allowed to discuss, and ride around the campus in the jeep, in the process learning a lot more about what their department does to keep us safe, as well as how to focus on being more alert about my surroundings and such. To the average St Olaf student it may sound quite mundane, but in all seriousness I have to say that was one of the most fun nights I've had in a long time!
Most people I've told that to look at me strangely and question my sanity. A few have seen it from my perspective, as something that was actually really fun, and at the same time also educational.
How did this come about, you might wonder? A week and a half ago, while I was working SafeRide, I was sitting in Fireside and a Public Safety officer came through to lock up. I explained I was still on duty, and we talked for a while, me asking questions about what his job is like, etc. I also asked if they ever let students ride with–I have no good or legitimate reason to do so other than pure interest in the experience, but I thought, hey, why not at least ask? Turns out that they do on occasion let students tag along! And even better, this friendly officer said he'd be willing to let me come with some time, I just needed to arrange it with Fred Behr, the director of Public Safety.
So last week I went in to talk with Fred, expecting that I'd need to come up with some really good official reason for wanting to ride along. As it turns out, I'd no sooner stepped into his office after Donna [Hunter, the "Parking Office lady" whom I go in to chat with every now and then] introduced me before he simply asked "when do you want to do it?" No hard questions, no complicated reason needed (though I'm sure it helped that I'd been introduced as one of their SafeDrivers), just the question of when and with who.
And thus, I got to ride with Officer Murphy last Friday, help lock up Buntrock, Dittman, and Speech-Theatre, tag along as he responded to a call in Ytterboe which I'm not sure I'm allowed to discuss, and ride around the campus in the jeep, in the process learning a lot more about what their department does to keep us safe, as well as how to focus on being more alert about my surroundings and such. To the average St Olaf student it may sound quite mundane, but in all seriousness I have to say that was one of the most fun nights I've had in a long time!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Katherine
It may seem morbid to some, but I made a decision a couple years ago to keep track of death dates of people I've known. In fact, I consider this to be one of my most solemn "duties", if you will, putting one into my computer's calendar, recording the person's name, year of death, and setting the event to repeat itself in the calendar every year so that I never forget.
Two and a half years ago I did this for my friend Andrew. We probably hadn't talked since our trips to Europe as part of the People To People Student Ambassador program a couple years previous, but his death still hit me hard–he was only two or three years older than me.
Tonight, I placed a new name forever in my calendar. She was killed this past week, not of old age, not from an accident, not a heart attack or anything; she was murdered.
I don't have any words, really, so I'm just going to ramble.
Katherine was a junior when I started at St Olaf as a freshman, and she was one of the four actors in 'Perpetua', the first (and only) play I worked on in the theatre department. She was always a fun person to be around, every memory I have of her she had a smile on her face. She was one of the only upperclassmen I knew my first year, and she helped welcome me into the St Olaf community, not in some cheesy "welcome to St Olaf" way, but by actually stopping to say "hi" to me when we'd cross paths between classes or wherever. She never stopped doing that, even after Perpetua had finished. We weren't ever 'bestest buds' or anything, but I definitely consider KO to have been a friend.
I tracked it down: the last time I saw Katherine was on March 10th, 2007 (Day 11 of my "Surprise Me" experiment).
-----
The night I first found out about Andrew's death, one of my friends told me something I found unsettling at the time, but have since learned to be pretty much a true assessment of life: she said "you're entering a time in your life filled with weddings and funerals". That hadn't really been the case for me before, but since that time I've lost count of the funerals I've been to or (considered going to, but couldn't make it), and this summer alone I went to four weddings. Weddings I can handle–those are happy–funerals I wasn't prepared to deal with. I guess I'm still not.
When someone dies of old age, or even just at an old age (from cancer or disease), that I can deal with, I can accept that, especially when you can see it coming and sort of brace yourself for the inevitable. When someone dies in their old age, the funeral is still a time of sadness, but it's also a time of celebration of a life full of years, and the incredible impact those years have had on friends and family. It's sad, but it's happy, too.
When someone is cut down in the midst of their life, that makes me angry and sad and so many emotions that I can't make sense of. Katherine was 24, just two years older than me. How do we even begin to deal with that? I'm the one who likes studying theodicy, right? The conclusions I've drawn from that study yield me no comfort. When I go to this funeral, there may be a celebration of 24 amazing years of an amazing person's life, but for me those emotions will be outweighed by the need to mourn such a premature, pointless, unnecessary death.
Someone reminded me earlier tonight that "Christians never see each other for the last time". My current theological struggles aside, I'll take that as true. That does nothing to address the issue that there is no good reason that I, in any earthly knowledge, can see for Katherine's murder. There is no good reason she should have died so early in her life. This, for me, will be a funeral of sadness.
It's a bitter reminder of how unfair life is, how unpredictable, and how scary. It scares me to think that I might wake up tomorrow, like Katherine did one day last week, and be killed, just like that, out of the blue. I'm not going to stop living my life and hide in fear, but I need to be honest, I'm still scared.
Katherine and Andrew, both, have reminded me how precious every day is. You are both missed, my long lost friends~
Two and a half years ago I did this for my friend Andrew. We probably hadn't talked since our trips to Europe as part of the People To People Student Ambassador program a couple years previous, but his death still hit me hard–he was only two or three years older than me.
Tonight, I placed a new name forever in my calendar. She was killed this past week, not of old age, not from an accident, not a heart attack or anything; she was murdered.
I don't have any words, really, so I'm just going to ramble.
Katherine was a junior when I started at St Olaf as a freshman, and she was one of the four actors in 'Perpetua', the first (and only) play I worked on in the theatre department. She was always a fun person to be around, every memory I have of her she had a smile on her face. She was one of the only upperclassmen I knew my first year, and she helped welcome me into the St Olaf community, not in some cheesy "welcome to St Olaf" way, but by actually stopping to say "hi" to me when we'd cross paths between classes or wherever. She never stopped doing that, even after Perpetua had finished. We weren't ever 'bestest buds' or anything, but I definitely consider KO to have been a friend.
I tracked it down: the last time I saw Katherine was on March 10th, 2007 (Day 11 of my "Surprise Me" experiment).
-----
The night I first found out about Andrew's death, one of my friends told me something I found unsettling at the time, but have since learned to be pretty much a true assessment of life: she said "you're entering a time in your life filled with weddings and funerals". That hadn't really been the case for me before, but since that time I've lost count of the funerals I've been to or (considered going to, but couldn't make it), and this summer alone I went to four weddings. Weddings I can handle–those are happy–funerals I wasn't prepared to deal with. I guess I'm still not.
When someone dies of old age, or even just at an old age (from cancer or disease), that I can deal with, I can accept that, especially when you can see it coming and sort of brace yourself for the inevitable. When someone dies in their old age, the funeral is still a time of sadness, but it's also a time of celebration of a life full of years, and the incredible impact those years have had on friends and family. It's sad, but it's happy, too.
When someone is cut down in the midst of their life, that makes me angry and sad and so many emotions that I can't make sense of. Katherine was 24, just two years older than me. How do we even begin to deal with that? I'm the one who likes studying theodicy, right? The conclusions I've drawn from that study yield me no comfort. When I go to this funeral, there may be a celebration of 24 amazing years of an amazing person's life, but for me those emotions will be outweighed by the need to mourn such a premature, pointless, unnecessary death.
Someone reminded me earlier tonight that "Christians never see each other for the last time". My current theological struggles aside, I'll take that as true. That does nothing to address the issue that there is no good reason that I, in any earthly knowledge, can see for Katherine's murder. There is no good reason she should have died so early in her life. This, for me, will be a funeral of sadness.
It's a bitter reminder of how unfair life is, how unpredictable, and how scary. It scares me to think that I might wake up tomorrow, like Katherine did one day last week, and be killed, just like that, out of the blue. I'm not going to stop living my life and hide in fear, but I need to be honest, I'm still scared.
Katherine and Andrew, both, have reminded me how precious every day is. You are both missed, my long lost friends~
Friday, August 31, 2007
FaceBook and Virginia Tech
The more I take notice, the more I'm convinced that Thomas Friedman may be right: the barriers to communication are being flattened, and quickly.
I made these voice notes one bright and sunny day in the middle of this past April; the day now permanently seared into my memory as the Virginia Tech tragedy. We live in a changed world, but the point of this journal entry is not to comment on the murderer or the tragedy itself, but rather on how people responded, both during and after.
On April 16th I sat on a couch in the Pause (a student recreation area at St Olaf), eyes glued to the TV as CNN covered the breaking news out of Virginia. As part of their coverage they interviewed several students from VTech, most of whom provided the typical, not-so-great-quality of responses one would expect from inexperienced college kids doing their first news interview. But one of the interviewees really grabbed me–she was calm, incredibly well-spoken, and the insider's story she had to tell was eye-opening. Maddie level-headedly recounted to the anchor her experience of the building being locked down, and she and her classmates being confined in a computer / publications classroom. Rather than sit by idly, they took that opportunity, in true journalistic style, to start reporting, gathering information as best they could, and writing about the events even as they were still unfolding. With the phones non-functional, they were still able to keep in communication with friends in other buildings through means like instant messaging and FaceBook, gathering any relevant details, but more importantly to make sure they were unharmed.
Hearing that is when I realized: FaceBook has changed the way people respond to tragedy. In the days to follow, many VTech students chose to honor their fallen classmates by changing their profile pictures to a specially designed VTech ribbon of mourning, and countless groups were created in the global network (meaning open for anyone anywhere to join) as a way for others outside the community to show their support.
As her interview was finishing up, I found Maddie on FaceBook and sent her a message, just something simple along the lines of "You did a really great interview on CNN; you and the VTech community are in my prayers". FaceBook has changed what it means to be a college student–it's connected us to each other, bridging the boundaries between schools. That's not a bad thing. And in this particular instance, FB gave us all the chance to show our support, to send messages of encouragement and hope, to reach out to our fellow classmates several states away. Even though it was so many states away, this tragedy, I think, touched all of us (meaning college students)–the victims were our peers; the campus, just like any other, just like mine.
Within a day or two VTech had created an entirely new section of their website whose sole purpose was to provide continuous updates on the status of the campus. Seeing this I must morbidly admit I spent a few minutes thinking about how we'd do something similar at MA should the need ever arise. In any event, I was impressed to see how quickly, and how lovingly, the web folks responded.
Thomas Friedman is really on to something. The face of communication was completely changed this time around. Videos taken on cell phones on campus in Virginia were being streamed all the way to the TV set I was watching in Northfield, Minnesota not more than half an hour after the fact. People interviewed out of VTech were just a FaceBook message away. And, in general, the Internet, for all the problems it may be causing in the world, flattened the barriers to communication, not only so that students could contact friends and family to reassure them they're okay, but also so that other students across the nation, and other people around the world, could come together as a united family to offer prayers and support.
I made these voice notes one bright and sunny day in the middle of this past April; the day now permanently seared into my memory as the Virginia Tech tragedy. We live in a changed world, but the point of this journal entry is not to comment on the murderer or the tragedy itself, but rather on how people responded, both during and after.
On April 16th I sat on a couch in the Pause (a student recreation area at St Olaf), eyes glued to the TV as CNN covered the breaking news out of Virginia. As part of their coverage they interviewed several students from VTech, most of whom provided the typical, not-so-great-quality of responses one would expect from inexperienced college kids doing their first news interview. But one of the interviewees really grabbed me–she was calm, incredibly well-spoken, and the insider's story she had to tell was eye-opening. Maddie level-headedly recounted to the anchor her experience of the building being locked down, and she and her classmates being confined in a computer / publications classroom. Rather than sit by idly, they took that opportunity, in true journalistic style, to start reporting, gathering information as best they could, and writing about the events even as they were still unfolding. With the phones non-functional, they were still able to keep in communication with friends in other buildings through means like instant messaging and FaceBook, gathering any relevant details, but more importantly to make sure they were unharmed.
Hearing that is when I realized: FaceBook has changed the way people respond to tragedy. In the days to follow, many VTech students chose to honor their fallen classmates by changing their profile pictures to a specially designed VTech ribbon of mourning, and countless groups were created in the global network (meaning open for anyone anywhere to join) as a way for others outside the community to show their support.
As her interview was finishing up, I found Maddie on FaceBook and sent her a message, just something simple along the lines of "You did a really great interview on CNN; you and the VTech community are in my prayers". FaceBook has changed what it means to be a college student–it's connected us to each other, bridging the boundaries between schools. That's not a bad thing. And in this particular instance, FB gave us all the chance to show our support, to send messages of encouragement and hope, to reach out to our fellow classmates several states away. Even though it was so many states away, this tragedy, I think, touched all of us (meaning college students)–the victims were our peers; the campus, just like any other, just like mine.
Within a day or two VTech had created an entirely new section of their website whose sole purpose was to provide continuous updates on the status of the campus. Seeing this I must morbidly admit I spent a few minutes thinking about how we'd do something similar at MA should the need ever arise. In any event, I was impressed to see how quickly, and how lovingly, the web folks responded.
Thomas Friedman is really on to something. The face of communication was completely changed this time around. Videos taken on cell phones on campus in Virginia were being streamed all the way to the TV set I was watching in Northfield, Minnesota not more than half an hour after the fact. People interviewed out of VTech were just a FaceBook message away. And, in general, the Internet, for all the problems it may be causing in the world, flattened the barriers to communication, not only so that students could contact friends and family to reassure them they're okay, but also so that other students across the nation, and other people around the world, could come together as a united family to offer prayers and support.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
WWDC07 & San Francisco
This past June I was privileged to attend Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference in San Francisco, which for someone like me, being the Apple lover I am, was really really neat. With an entry ticket price of $1600, there's no way I could normally afford to attend, but on a whim, several months prior, I'd filled out an application to receive a student developer scholarship to attend, and by some small miracle I was actually granted one, meaning the ticket was covered, all I needed to do was get there.
I didn't take nearly enough voice notes to make a very detailed journal, but suffice it to say the week was enjoyable. It would have been much more so had I actually known anyone, but regardless, it was an entirely new (and cool) experience to be walking the hallways and see other developers wearing polo shirts with the logos of software packages that I use. Wow! These are the people who actually make the programs I use in my day to day life. Pretty neat. (Putting in an in-person feature request to the Panic folks who developed Coda was definitely a highlight of the week for me).
With that summary, I digress to the actual voice notes I did take, both about WWDC itself, and about my explorations around the nearby streets of San Francisco.
- WWDC truly is an international event and community. My first day I sat for lunch with someone from England, and that evening met someone at my hotel from France. Roaming the hallways I saw any number of people with power adapters and converters for their laptops' power adapters, allowing them to plug into American outlets in the same way that I've had to use electrical adapters when I've traveled overseas. And there were Asians everywhere, and they were all really smart.
- Walking the streets of San Francisco the day before the conference was an entirely new experience for me: I'd never been that close to so many homeless people and beggars walking around on the street. Reading their signs was a might bit depressing, though the one that read "I need a girlfriend" I just found to be terribly hilarious. Conversely, the sadest sign I saw offered "Will take verbal abuse for spare change". During the conference days themselves, there was a beggar with a very clever line sitting not too far from the Moscone entrance: as we (the attendees) walked past he would call out "My name is [so-and-so] and I'll be your pan-handler for the next 5 feet"–he had a fairly sharp sense of humor about him.
- San Francisco has an overabundance of banks and cell phone store: without fail I passed at least one or two per block as I walked around. Scary.
- The Golden Gate bridge was too far away to walk to from where my hotel was, and I didn't feel like braving a trolley to get there, but I did manage to find my way to a peer overlooking water, which was beautiful. All in all, despite the somewhat cultural shock of seeing the inner city, walking around the city for those several hours was definitely fun, and relaxing.
I didn't take nearly enough voice notes to make a very detailed journal, but suffice it to say the week was enjoyable. It would have been much more so had I actually known anyone, but regardless, it was an entirely new (and cool) experience to be walking the hallways and see other developers wearing polo shirts with the logos of software packages that I use. Wow! These are the people who actually make the programs I use in my day to day life. Pretty neat. (Putting in an in-person feature request to the Panic folks who developed Coda was definitely a highlight of the week for me).
With that summary, I digress to the actual voice notes I did take, both about WWDC itself, and about my explorations around the nearby streets of San Francisco.
- WWDC truly is an international event and community. My first day I sat for lunch with someone from England, and that evening met someone at my hotel from France. Roaming the hallways I saw any number of people with power adapters and converters for their laptops' power adapters, allowing them to plug into American outlets in the same way that I've had to use electrical adapters when I've traveled overseas. And there were Asians everywhere, and they were all really smart.
- Walking the streets of San Francisco the day before the conference was an entirely new experience for me: I'd never been that close to so many homeless people and beggars walking around on the street. Reading their signs was a might bit depressing, though the one that read "I need a girlfriend" I just found to be terribly hilarious. Conversely, the sadest sign I saw offered "Will take verbal abuse for spare change". During the conference days themselves, there was a beggar with a very clever line sitting not too far from the Moscone entrance: as we (the attendees) walked past he would call out "My name is [so-and-so] and I'll be your pan-handler for the next 5 feet"–he had a fairly sharp sense of humor about him.
- San Francisco has an overabundance of banks and cell phone store: without fail I passed at least one or two per block as I walked around. Scary.
- The Golden Gate bridge was too far away to walk to from where my hotel was, and I didn't feel like braving a trolley to get there, but I did manage to find my way to a peer overlooking water, which was beautiful. All in all, despite the somewhat cultural shock of seeing the inner city, walking around the city for those several hours was definitely fun, and relaxing.
Walking Her Home
Excepting the times when I find myself in an emotionally vulnerable place, very few songs can touch me deeply enough so as to make me cry. Some may make my eyes water a little bit, like Mark Schultz's "I have been there", Third Day's "Cry out to Jesus", or the Newsboys's "Something Beautiful", but very rarely will a song actually make me teary.
The other day, or, at least, what was "the other day" back when I made this voice note on February 20th, 2007, I caught the last part of a new song by Mark Schultz on the radio: "Walking her home". As I listened I recalled hearing a preview of this song at Mark's concert a couple years back, before the song was fully written. When I got home that day I looked to see if, per chance, this song was on the Broken and Beautiful CD I'd just purchased, and lo and behold it was.
And so I listened to the whole thing, and as I listened, I cried. I cried not of sadness, but of heartstrings–this song, much like the third verse of "I have been there", reminded me so much of my Grandma and Grandpa, their life story, their life together, and Grandma's passing a year and a half ago. It was as if Mark took their story and wove it into song, and it was beautiful:
Looking back
He sees it all
It was her first date the night he came to call
Her dad said, "Son,
Have her home on time
And promise me youll never leave her side."
He took her to a show in town
And he was ten feet off the ground
(Chorus)
He was walking her home
And holding her hand
Oh the way she smiled it stole the breath right out of him
Down that old road
With the stars up above
He remembers where he was the night he fell in love
He was walking her home
Ten more years and a waiting room
At half past one
And the doctor said, "Come in and meet your son"
His knees went weak
When he saw his wife
She was smiling as she said, "He's got your eyes"
And as she slept he held her tight
His mind went back to that first night
(Chorus)
He was walking her home
And holding her hand
Oh the way she smiled it stole the breath right out of him
Down that old road
With the stars up above
He remembers where he was the night he fell in love
He was walking her home
He walked her through the best days of her life
Sixty years together and he never left her side
A nursing home
At eighty-five
And the doctor said it could be her last night
And the nurse said "Oh,
Should we tell him now?
Or should he wait until the morning to find out?"
But when they checked her room that night
He was laying by her side
Oh he was walking her home
And holding her hand
Oh the way she smiled when he said this is not the end
And just for a while they were eighteen
And she was still more beautiful to him than anything
He was walking her home
He was walking her home
Looking back
He sees it all
It was her first date the night he came to call
The other day, or, at least, what was "the other day" back when I made this voice note on February 20th, 2007, I caught the last part of a new song by Mark Schultz on the radio: "Walking her home". As I listened I recalled hearing a preview of this song at Mark's concert a couple years back, before the song was fully written. When I got home that day I looked to see if, per chance, this song was on the Broken and Beautiful CD I'd just purchased, and lo and behold it was.
And so I listened to the whole thing, and as I listened, I cried. I cried not of sadness, but of heartstrings–this song, much like the third verse of "I have been there", reminded me so much of my Grandma and Grandpa, their life story, their life together, and Grandma's passing a year and a half ago. It was as if Mark took their story and wove it into song, and it was beautiful:
Looking back
He sees it all
It was her first date the night he came to call
Her dad said, "Son,
Have her home on time
And promise me youll never leave her side."
He took her to a show in town
And he was ten feet off the ground
(Chorus)
He was walking her home
And holding her hand
Oh the way she smiled it stole the breath right out of him
Down that old road
With the stars up above
He remembers where he was the night he fell in love
He was walking her home
Ten more years and a waiting room
At half past one
And the doctor said, "Come in and meet your son"
His knees went weak
When he saw his wife
She was smiling as she said, "He's got your eyes"
And as she slept he held her tight
His mind went back to that first night
(Chorus)
He was walking her home
And holding her hand
Oh the way she smiled it stole the breath right out of him
Down that old road
With the stars up above
He remembers where he was the night he fell in love
He was walking her home
He walked her through the best days of her life
Sixty years together and he never left her side
A nursing home
At eighty-five
And the doctor said it could be her last night
And the nurse said "Oh,
Should we tell him now?
Or should he wait until the morning to find out?"
But when they checked her room that night
He was laying by her side
Oh he was walking her home
And holding her hand
Oh the way she smiled when he said this is not the end
And just for a while they were eighteen
And she was still more beautiful to him than anything
He was walking her home
He was walking her home
Looking back
He sees it all
It was her first date the night he came to call
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Just Meaningless. Or is it?
I've paid some great amount of attention recently to my own speech patterns and language choices: what words I use, how often I use them, etc, and I've frequently noticed that the word "just" has really just crept into my vocabulary just a bit, and I just use it a little too often. That's just what I think, anyway, and so it seems like it has become just meaningless. But has it really?
My rather public affair with the word "just" first saw light perhaps two years ago while assisting in a teacher workshop. I was helping one of the teachers do something, saying "just click here and just do that" when she [more or less] jokingly pointed out to me that, yes, for me it may be "just" do this and that, but for her it wasn't always that obvious. To clarify, she wasn't getting upset, but it was a revelation to me nonetheless that I do tend to diminutise tasks that I consider trivially or, at least, relatively, easy; If something's simple to me, I consciously or unconsciously assume it must also be simple for everyone else. And so I command someone "just click here and change this setting", because of course I've done it a hundred times, but I'm working hard to remember that doesn't mean the other person has any clue whatsoever.
In addition to the outward expressions of affection for "just", I've discovered it and I have a secret relationship in my prayer life, as well: "Just" has crept into my prayer vernacular and takes every opportunity it can to jump out and assert itself. But I realised something, and now I've concluded that I think it's okay for "just" to be so closely bonded with my prayers: overused as it may be, it may never be meaningless in a prayer setting. In the same sense that I use "just" out loud when discussing something I think is simple, any situation I could possibly be praying about must be so simple, so absolutely trivial to God, that to say "just" remains perfectly applicable.
This came to my mind some number of weeks ago when I first made the voice note that spawned this journal entry: I heard a siren, and I've gotten into the habit that, when I hear a siren, I always say a little prayer for the people in need and for the emergency crew helping them: "Lord, I just pray that you would be in that situation, that you would just be with them".
You may have noticed two sneaky little "just"s lurking in there: The first is used in the sense that it's so simple for me to pray–10 seconds and I'm done. Quick, easy, simple, painless. That's one of the amazing things about believing in a personal Deity and having a direct line of communication. The second "just" in there, I believe, is valid because it is a reminder of the fact that this situation I'm praying about remains something so incomprehensibly small for a God of the universe, and yet I believe that God still cares. God's just awesome like that–another use of "just", this time to exemplify something far above and beyond the ordinary.
My rather public affair with the word "just" first saw light perhaps two years ago while assisting in a teacher workshop. I was helping one of the teachers do something, saying "just click here and just do that" when she [more or less] jokingly pointed out to me that, yes, for me it may be "just" do this and that, but for her it wasn't always that obvious. To clarify, she wasn't getting upset, but it was a revelation to me nonetheless that I do tend to diminutise tasks that I consider trivially or, at least, relatively, easy; If something's simple to me, I consciously or unconsciously assume it must also be simple for everyone else. And so I command someone "just click here and change this setting", because of course I've done it a hundred times, but I'm working hard to remember that doesn't mean the other person has any clue whatsoever.
In addition to the outward expressions of affection for "just", I've discovered it and I have a secret relationship in my prayer life, as well: "Just" has crept into my prayer vernacular and takes every opportunity it can to jump out and assert itself. But I realised something, and now I've concluded that I think it's okay for "just" to be so closely bonded with my prayers: overused as it may be, it may never be meaningless in a prayer setting. In the same sense that I use "just" out loud when discussing something I think is simple, any situation I could possibly be praying about must be so simple, so absolutely trivial to God, that to say "just" remains perfectly applicable.
This came to my mind some number of weeks ago when I first made the voice note that spawned this journal entry: I heard a siren, and I've gotten into the habit that, when I hear a siren, I always say a little prayer for the people in need and for the emergency crew helping them: "Lord, I just pray that you would be in that situation, that you would just be with them".
You may have noticed two sneaky little "just"s lurking in there: The first is used in the sense that it's so simple for me to pray–10 seconds and I'm done. Quick, easy, simple, painless. That's one of the amazing things about believing in a personal Deity and having a direct line of communication. The second "just" in there, I believe, is valid because it is a reminder of the fact that this situation I'm praying about remains something so incomprehensibly small for a God of the universe, and yet I believe that God still cares. God's just awesome like that–another use of "just", this time to exemplify something far above and beyond the ordinary.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
A Very Quick Rant About "Harry Putter"
I recorded this voice note on the road a couple days ago (I like to write things while I drive). Let me just say, it's so true:
I absolutely cannot believe how stupid some people are. Okay, to be nice maybe I should say "dense" instead. Let's stick with that: "dense". Why are they dense? I'll tell them about this movie I'm working on, "Harry Putter and the Chamber Pot of Secrets", and they'll just sort of stare at me blankly. The ensuing conversation looks something like this:
Dense Person [assuming I must be talking about Potter and not Putter]: "I don't read the books, I haven't seen the movies, I don't know anything about that".
Me: "Well, you don't need to, see, it's a parody: 'Putter', and 'chamber pot', see chamber pots are funny".
D [clearly not bothering to understand/process anything I just said]: "Oh, good for you"
M: "No! You're not getting it! Ahh!"
I generally skip saying the last line out loud, I just think it really really hard in the hopes that my mind will be powerful enough to break through the dense person's apparent complete block of mental activity and inspire their brain to start working again. This has yet to be successful.
I absolutely cannot believe how stupid some people are. Okay, to be nice maybe I should say "dense" instead. Let's stick with that: "dense". Why are they dense? I'll tell them about this movie I'm working on, "Harry Putter and the Chamber Pot of Secrets", and they'll just sort of stare at me blankly. The ensuing conversation looks something like this:
Dense Person [assuming I must be talking about Potter and not Putter]: "I don't read the books, I haven't seen the movies, I don't know anything about that".
Me: "Well, you don't need to, see, it's a parody: 'Putter', and 'chamber pot', see chamber pots are funny".
D [clearly not bothering to understand/process anything I just said]: "Oh, good for you"
M: "No! You're not getting it! Ahh!"
I generally skip saying the last line out loud, I just think it really really hard in the hopes that my mind will be powerful enough to break through the dense person's apparent complete block of mental activity and inspire their brain to start working again. This has yet to be successful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)