Do-Gooder

I think in most circumstances of life there is a "do-gooder" around, you know...doing good. I remember my middle school French class where a kid raised his hand to tell our spacey teacher that the answers to a test we were about to take were on a poster on the wall -- to the chagrin and collective moans of the class. Right now I work with a do-gooder, and I've noticed a couple results from working in proximity to him.

Being a skateboarder, there comes a tendency to break rules. I mean, I was born with a guilty conscious, so this doesn't go too far for me, but if there is a rule I think is dumb or unnecessary, I will likely break it. But when I'm working with this guy at work, he calls me out on it. When it is late and we are about to finish work and most of my coworkers are flying through their tasks to get home sooner, he takes his time and does the same good job no matter what. And what I am noticing is that, when he is around, I try to act more like him. And what is even more interesting is that after a few times of this, when he is not around, I am more apt to do the same thing. Acting right is contagious if you respect the do-gooder in your life, which leads me to believe it can be a powerful role to play.

Like I mentioned, I was born with a guilty conscious, and so for much of my life I have been the do-gooder. For example, I spent most of my life never saying curse words, mostly because of this verse:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)

I figured that if the world (or the culture I am in right now) sees certain words as "unwholesome," then I should refrain. But as the years went by, I found that friends would clean up their language around me, or stop themselves from saying certain words, even though I never made a comment towards their own language. In a way that was good, but bothered me that they were hiding a part of themselves from me, or wearing a mask of sorts. I want people to feel that they can be honest around me, and so, in an effort to be more relatable, I started letting a curse word slip here or there. Whether or not this was the right choice, I still can't say, but it's what I did. But then when I was describing this transformation to an old friend, he said he always appreciated that I acted and spoke a little different than everyone else, and commented that it made him want to be better himself. But is that what we are supposed to be doing in this life? Making people want to be better, to clean up their acts?

The "sinners" of Jesus' day liked hanging out with him, which often baffles me. The most spiritual people I know usually don't relate well to the rough-necks and vagabonds of our current culture, so I have to wonder what Jesus was like that made drunkards and prostitutes want to be around him. Maybe he made them want to be better, but I would like to think they wanted to be near him because he made their souls come alive. But they must have felt comfortable enough around him to be themselves, right? Otherwise, I don't think they would have flocked to him as they did. But he was also perfect, and so there must have been an obvious contrast between his life and theirs.

This concept has been on my mind for the past several years, and I can't say I have come to any conclusion as of yet. I will say that you should do the right thing always, and that this can be infectious, as the example of the do-gooder proves. But there has to be some aspect of love amongst the non-do-gooders that eliminates judgement that we need to include in our behavior. Where the line between these two is, I am not sure, but if we can find it, we can be that much closer to bringing Heaven down to earth.

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The Spoon You Have

My daughter has an annoying habit of switching spoons with her sister whenever you give her a meal. It's harmless really, so I let it go on. But it has turned into an almost mealy routine (is "mealy" a word? Every meal). Today, her sister was still sleeping so we ate breakfast together and she asked to switch spoons with me. I wouldn't let her, mostly because my spoon was too big for her mouth and I didn't want her little plastic one, but also because I think it could be the beginnings of a contentment problem.

Call me an extremist, but I guess I'm always thinking things are a bigger deal than they really are (just ask my wife). But the idea that whatever I give her is not enough tells me that this could be an issue later on. I know this because I have the same problem, struggling with contentment even in the best of circumstances.

"Use the spoon you have," I told her, to her dismay. She tried to talk me out of it, but I was resolute. Then she asked for a fork to eat her cereal, which I denied. Next, she started using her spoon upside down (or "upseedown" as they call it) to eat her cereal. I do applaud creative use of whatever you are given, so this was allowed. But the whole thing has me thinking about how to raise kids who are happy with what they have. That feels lofty even just writing it...

They often say things like, "I wish I was ______." Fill in the blank with whatever we are watching or near others doing: riding a horse, eating pizza, wearing a Disney princess dress. I always reply with, "Be happy where you are, doing what you're doing." Sometimes it is even more involved, delving into the realm of identity or personal effects: "I wish I was five years old," or "I wish I had curly hair." And I say, "Be happy at the age you are," or "God gave you straight hair, enjoy it." I guess we're fighting against human nature here, so maybe I shouldn't get so down about it. But really I think I just want to be proactive about instilling contentment in my children, because I don't want them to struggle with the same things I do.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:1-3)

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Relapse

If you are an avid reader of this blog (hi, Mom), then you may be tired of reading about poison ivy. Well, I'm tried of writing about it; but this rash has really defined my last couple of months in a terrible way, and I typically write about whatever I'm going through as a way of processing, so here's one more for you (hopefully the last).

The ivy was all but gone. I had begun to wash the clothes I wore and the blanket I used during the peak of it all (a friend suggested washing these separately and in warm water). I felt like the worst was over and I thought I was in the clear. I even returned for a yard work session and made my way out unscathed. Of course I was extra cautious, and wore dish gloves underneath my work gloves, with long sleeves. But the following week during another yard work day, I was a little more brazen and skipped the dish glove step, exposing my vulnerable wrists in a blatant disregard for the recent past. And of course, the night after all the work, I tossed and turned as the slow itch showed up again, as if someone was holding a lighter an inch away from my arms all night long.

I woke up the next day determined not to go through the same painful, irritable cycle I had just traversed a couple weeks prior, so I took drastic measures. My dad had suggested using Clorox bleach on fresh poison ivy, which I had initially rejected because it just sounds bad for you. He swore it worked, and his mountain-man of a father was the one who had shared this tip, so I gave it a try. Of course I combined this was my previous routine of cleaning the rash, Benadryl, calamine lotion, anti-biotic ointment and some prescription-strength cream Waverly got when she had some serious diaper rash. By that evening the healing process had accelerated so much farther than it had before, and though it is still incredibly annoying and irritating -- like little ants crawling over an isolated patch of my wrists all day -- I have hope that it will not spread like the last one and certainly won't last as long.

This is the less-severe of the two arms. It's a fist because I'm angry...

And so as I internalized all of what has been going on, I had a few thoughts. First, something gnawing at your arm will indeed make you irritable, and so my outbursts towards my children were likely mostly due to the rash. On the way out today I found myself similarly short with the kids, confirming my suspicion I wrote about previously.

Second, similar to my thoughts on leprosy before, it brought to mind people who are actually going through major health crisis, such as cancer, who often have old problems come back. Of course, I am in no way saying my poison ivy is anywhere near what they go through, but it does create a little more empathy in me, as that sinking feeling when something you thought you were done with starts to rear its ugly head again -- my heart goes out to them and I pray for strength and resolution in the face of a difficult road already traveled.

Third -- and again, another unequal comparison -- I thought about people who relapse from mental illnesses and addictions. This could be anything major to a minor itch, like eating chocolate every night and wanting to stop. Maybe you cut it out for a week but then find yourself so tempted you fall back into it. I can say that this second go-around with the ivy has been better, as I know more of what to do, and I can imagine it's the same with true relapse. I write that as an encouragement of sorts -- if you do find yourself repeating mistakes, take courage. Each time the recovery can be shorter and eventually it will stop.

So there is more to be learned from this stupid rash. Why it exists, I do not know; but one thing I can take away from it all is that in every bit of pain there is a little bit of redemption. Mine is a stronger resolution, more empathy and better knowledge. Whether or not these little take aways are just something we conjure up to make our struggles seem better, I also do not know; but I will hang on to the thought, if for nothing else, to make the annoyance and the pain all seem more worthwhile.

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Patience

Patience is one of those virtues that is really stretched by parenting. Or maybe "built" is a better word than stretched. Today I was simply putting some temporary tattoos on the girls' arms. They earned them through chores and potty -- we use either tattoos or candy as incentive usually. I have yet to research if these things are actually putting harmful chemicals and colors into our kids' epidermises, so if you know something I don't, please let me know! Either way, it's a fun thing and the girls love it.

If you have ever dabbled in the art of temporary tattooing, however, you know you have to wait about thirty seconds for the tattoo to stick. And today, I found it fairly difficult to wait...for thirty seconds! I mean, come on! That's a ridiculously short amount of time to get bored while waiting! But it happened, and it struck me at how common this lack of patience really is.

It is no secret that our culture is very much an on-demand society. We have the world in our palms and can access it whenever we want. So when a slimy little second of pause comes up to interrupt our busy days, what else would we do but fill it with something? And after all this time spent filling time (usually with meaningless phone checking), I think we have gotten used to not having to wait. And that, my friends, is not good for our souls.

We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience. And patience produces character, and character produces hope. And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. He gave us his love through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

I think we need to practice the discipline of letting ourselves wait. It seems silly with something small like applying temporary tattoos, but it is in these little moments that such efforts lead to growth. Without trying on a daily level, it is easy to let something like our ability to wait slip away, as it likely already has for most of us. But setting aside this restlessness in silence and abiding in the moment will make our lives that much richer, build our character, and I would argue bring us closer to God.

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Gradual

A follow up on last week's post...I think the idea of change happening slow, sometimes for the worse and without us even knowing it, is so prevalent. But why does it happen this way? How come we are just living our lives, caught up in the day to day, and then we wake up to find ourselves forty pounds heavier? Or maybe it isn't even a health thing, but rather a relational or emotional rut has formed without us knowing it.

I used to work in the multi-family housing industry, and so I often showed apartments to folks getting a divorce. You wouldn't believe the things these men and women said about their soon-to-be ex-spouses (sometimes in front of their children), and I often wanted to ask them what happened in the course of the last ten-to-twenty years that would cause so much disdain. Think about it: they go from devoting their lives to each other in love to spitefully spouting words I won't use out loud to a total stranger. I have to conclude that this is a gradual slope, which makes it that much more important to guard against such a thing.
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Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)

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One way that sin "easily entangles" is that we don't even realize it is happening! This gradual slope of loss is a tricky tactic of our enemy, and so requires us to be alert and vigilant in our day-to-day lives. This is difficult of course, with routine dominating most of our activities. But think of the consequences if we do not take a self-evaluation from time to time, to see how we are doing spiritually, relationally, emotionally and physically.

Note also the use of "perseverance" in that verse above. This is a lifelong practice that requires a steadfast endurance that itself takes practice. But where does such a thing as perseverance come from except repeated failure, and God's grace?
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Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

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So I encourage you to take daily, weekly or maybe monthly evaluations of your life. Ask God to show you any habits you may be caught in that are detrimental. Ask your trusted friends the same questions. Bring it all before God and make any changes you can. Don't let the slippery slope of gradual loss bring you to a valley you never wanted to enter, when tiny changes you can make now could be much easier than climbing out after you've fallen.

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