Random Observations

So yeah, life is crazy. I get that. Bouncing along from one thorny situation to another troublesome kettle of fish. Trying not to worry so much and to live in more abandonment and trust. Yet still, seeing that deep down there continues to be lurking worries. What about retirement? Will it ever actually be possible to live without working? Without at least having to be a KMart greeter? What about health care costs and insurance? Vehicle costs to keep mobile? On and endlessly on it can go. Now don't get me wrong here...I'm not just settling for letting life's little details just have there way with me. I fight against it, I resist. I look to faith in God and daily set my self to trusting in him and him alone . But still, the categories of potential anxiety sources seem never far off. They never seem to quite totally Shut Down. More times than not, they seem at best to go into Sleep mode

But that's not what I want to write about.... No, along this journey of life I sometimes notice things that pass by, very subtly, almost subliminally. The speed of my treadmill doesn't really allow for significant pondering of these fleeting observations. It reminds me of when I run with the "it takes a village" dog. She has her nose to the street, noticing every little piece of flotsam and jetsam passing by, so curious, so intent on not missing a thing. Nothing casual in her gazing...she's as serious as a heart attack. Sometimes she wants to stop and do some further investigating but alas, for her, the tyranny of my dedication to completing the run prevents her from doing what she would do if on her own. Today's blog is meant to double back and at least acknowledge some of those things that pass under my nose as I run along the Skinnerian maze of life, hoping, I guess, to find the ultimate little biscuit in hopes it just might drop into my little cup.

• Caribou coffee shops: What a concept this place is for me. On one hand, it can simply be a place to run into and get an expensive cup of coffee. (Speaking of price, I must say that I get all kinds of pleasure seeing places like McDonald's, Dunkin Doughnuts and even my local Freedom convenience store find a way to put out a decent cup of coffee for around a buck.) Nonetheless, Caribou is what we're talking about here bub...stay on topic. So when they designed these places, did some architect or marketing guru think "Heh, I know. Let's make it really loud in our stores. Full of lots of clunking and clanking and hissing. And let's have the person who calls out to let you know when your drinks are ready be as loud as a Lake Superior foghorn. "Double frappe mocha decaf, extra foam, moosed, " Judges award 9.8 for decibels and the Richter scales are at least slightly tipped. Sheeesh, trying to sit inside one of these by yourself, seeking to be reflective or to just quiet the mind, is a real exercise in entering into an almost zen-like sound filtration mode, mentally holding the cacophony at bay. Maybe they really don't want people just hanging out at their shops. Like McDonald's, with their intentionally designed uncomfortable seating. Lingerers need not apply. But no, that doesn't make sense, they actually have big stuffed one-person chairs as if they are actually inviting you to stay and practice your zen for the day. Oh well, it all works much better when with a group of people and have your group's conversation to focus on. Still love their French roast with 1 ice cube to tone down their efforts to mimic the same temps as the surface of the sun. No judgements, bless you Caribou.
  
  
• Why do I like the things that I do? Like flashlights. It's not that I own that many but nust say that I sure do love them. All sizes, with swivel heads, l.e.d.s, high tech looking, little baby ones, headlights to the ones cops carry that double as a weapon. And jackets, I could never have too many. Want one for every iteration of weather. And who knew it, I love colored glass. Don't collect it but love to look at little, brightly colored glass figures and artsy pieces like the ones that show up at Uptown art fair. And sounds...I'm mesmerized by wind chimes. Wouldn't mind one hanging on all 40 trees in the backyard. All sizes from the high-pitched triangle sounding ones to the 5' long tubes that send out sounds that submarines can hear one mile deep. And glass exhaust pipes on trucks....that low, rumbling sound that makes even a cruddy looking truck sound like the very depth of power. I marvel at what I like...it seems so random and not connected to anything else. Kind of frivolous stuff but vaguely interesting to me as I wonder where it all comes from.
  
  
• And then there is the wearing of one's favorite team jersey. It seems cute to me when I see a little girl or guy wearing a purple #4 Favre jersey. But on a dumpy looking 50-some year old, complete with an expression that seems to scream out, "I support this team with my last breath and it's just a burden I bear for the team." Every fiber of me wants to shout out "As if!" As if your wearing of that jersey is doing anything beyond merely making you look pathetic. I'm sorry. I am to be judged for my judgement but it has to be said. There is a time and a place for this...like at the Metrodome on game day perhaps. But in Walmart on a Tuesday afternoon? The concept just plain ol' misses me. It's my blog and I get to say such things that by being said actually rival the stupidity of what I am observing in others. OK, I'll call this one a draw.

Maybe three is enough for now. I have more and I will return another day when it seems like it would be fun to give er' another go. But for now, there is a Super Bowl that our team was supposed to be in but instead CHOKED. Maybe if I, in my 6th decade would have worn a Vikings jersey to Target on a Thursday morning I could have tipped the scales of the NFL gods....we'll never actually know now will we? Santiago out!

Wash, rinse, repeat.

So it is again that time of the year when, at least for all of us in sales-related occupations, all the numbers flip back to zero. Twelve months of brand new, quota-achieving challenges lay ahead, with the invisible twists and turns still yet to be revealed.

In looking back to last year's January post, I see I was aiming for more joy and abandonment. The whole joy thing is elusive for me...I unfortunately have it linked with giddiness and that is neither an accurate nor particularly helpful linkage.

The abandonment part was at least partially achieved. One sign is that in 2009 I actually stopped fretting over balancing the ol' check book to the penny. Yes sir, I had months when I was up to $20 off and I just abandoned the search for the difference, accepted it and adjusted my balance accordingly. For those who roll through life more casually, I'm sure this hardly rates as a "sign" of abandonment to you. Sorry, but for me it represents a significant change for this guy who has pursued even nickel differences for the last 40 years. And there have been other signs of loosening my excessive grip on things...that is good. Santiago can be such a tyrant and so driven in certain areas and seeing him soften a bit is encouraging.

So not just a new year but a new decade! Although we sometimes seem to attribute an inflated importance to the passage of time, it's also not good to let it just slip away by total default. For me, intentionality, which I am not sure is even a legitimate word, feels like something I should be about in the coming year.

One thing I want to be more deliberate about is a certain type of mental/spiritual hygiene. Hygiene is perhaps not the most alluring of concepts. It brings up connotations of excessive hand washing and germaphobia. Nonetheless, it seems something I need to be about. Why? Because to be frank, my 2009 goal of living with more joy and abandonment in my life really has something else fueling it from behind that is even more core, more vital....the strong desire to avoid pain. By pain I am meaning something more effusive than mere physical pain. It's the angsty, is that all there is, disappointed expectations, endless struggle, why does it always fall peanut butter side to the floor, more month than paycheck kind of thing. Someone said that pleasure 'whispers' but pain 'shouts'. It's not so much that I hunger for joy but that I loathe the inner pain. Of course I want more joy and abandonment because they connote a pain-freeness. In my 60's I'm aware of a certain tiredness with some aspects of life. I just want to be done with a number of things and chronic inner pain and turmoil are right up there at the top or the list.

So OK, what's the deal with the hygiene bit? Heh good, I'm glad you asked because I would like to attempt to articulate it as a means of seeing all this more clearly. (Aahh, the blog as a "thrashing room", a place where vague thoughts that only occasionally scamper across the radar are brought in to be wrestled with, shaped and bridled in an attempt to move them out of the shadows and into more known-ness).

I see the source of a good deal of the pain I experience in my journey as emanating from agreeing with things about myself that just aren't true in Christ. Now granted, all of what follows is based on my worldview which includes the core belief that I am a redeemed, restored, new creature in Christ. By virtue of his complete work for me on the cross, his resurrection and his ascension, the old has passed away, the new has come. He has offered me an easy yoke and a light burden. But concurrently with this truth is the fact that my life is also opposed. I have an enemy. It's this enemies' goal to keep me away from the truth and light of the kingdom of God in order to keep me blind to the fact that my cell door is open, I have been ransomed and released and the kingdom of darkness no longer has claim on my life.

But this fallen world, under the dominion of my enemy, has a different way of valuing me. It would have me view myself exclusively through the worldly filters that are placed before my eyes at virtually every step of the sojourn. Their are advertisements everywhere coaxing me to compare myself to the standards they offer. In the work-a-day-world I am aware of incessant promptings to compare myself against the achievements and progress of peers. Well-meaning people in my life sometimes say things that later I notice have morphed into arrows lodged in my gut. In my parenting, in my purchasing, in my planning and in every other 'p' thing there is a standard raised up by the system of this world, the matrix, that presents itself as the most 'logical', 'intuitive' (albeit twisted) choice every time.

I was born into this matrix. I am in it but not of it. Yet still, I must swim in it's pool every day as I conduct the various aspects of my life. It is impossible to do this without getting wet, even soaked, with the false valuations of modern day Babylon. The rulers and principalities of this world offer up a daily barrage of judgements, accusations and apparent final verdicts which more times than not feel like accurate assessments of my life.

What am I to do? My choice is to either 1.) try and ignore them (seemingly futile for anything more than a couple of hours), 2.) agree with them, or 3.) reject them. I propose that it's the agreements I make, most times unconsciously, that bring about the lion's share of the pain that I so want not to have.

Thus the 'hygiene'. If these agreements are mostly made without me noticing I have done so, then to free myself from their poison requires me to see they have occurred and get busy breaking each and every one of them. Other times, perhaps more and more often as I practice this 'hygiene', I am aware of the mental choice placed before me. I can see the prosecution's case against me, the proposition I am being asked to agree with (ie. "You never get this right", "Every thing you do is half-assed", "Quite fooling yourself, this is beyond you and your anemic capabilities"). The invitation and tidal pull is to just surrender to these verdicts on me and inevitably spiral downwards into the agonizing dejection and depression I seemed to have justifiably earned. Regardless of whether I catch it before or after the fact, each agreement with anything other than kingdom truth must be eradicated, washed away with the anti-deceitful/microbial soap of the Gospel truth. The faster this occurs, the less time walking along under the illusory spell of deceitful half-truths and the pain they inevitably produce.

So, how to keep clean amidst this hellish concoction of half-truths, and false light? Really, the classic disciplines are forever relevant for just such a purpose. Feeding on the Word, spending time in prayer to soak in fellowship with the Author of life, being in the company and fellowship of like-hearted co-travelers. All these are helpful, even crucial. But more recently, the most helpful of all is just keeping my mind and thinking right.

Here's an example: it's Sunday evening and it's common to get the Sunday night dreads...having to go back to work tomorrow and deal with all that is involved with making a living in a 100% commission gig. But it's not merely laziness or love of relaxation that stokes these smoldering fires into life. It's the gnawing dread and anxiety coming from my fear of failure, fear of not being successful, not measuring up, that cry out for my attention.

Boom! It's right there that the discipline needs to be applied. Stopping the process of giving such negative thoughts further time and energy and replacing them with the fact that I am going back to work with Jesus at my side. I am depending on him for my life, not my skill, not my cleverness. I am depending on him to come through for me and my family. It's not all resting on my shoulders. His love for me is not in doubt. His being 'all in' for me is not in question. I douse the flames of fear with the cool water of Kingdom truth. That is the hygiene I have learned is not just 'kind of a good idea'. It's a critical discipline of survival for a guy who finds himself behind enemy lines, opposed and walking through a fallen, rigged world.

Keep washing Santiago, keep washing.

The myth of Norman Rockwell

So here comes the Christmas holiday! Our house is specially blessed this year in that Inga and the kids are with us for a week....first time having all the grandkids for Christmas in 9 or 10 years. Skylar is 11, Keenan is 9 and Jordan is 7. Although it doesn't feel once-removed, I am technically the step-Dad and step-grandfather of these beautiful creations. However, I suppose it's that very fact that lends some objectivity to these next 7 days. With blood family there is a whole raft of emotional baggage and hot-buttons present...pretty tough to experience much objectivity there.

Anyhow, we're just 48 hours into out time together and I've noticed some storm clouds that have seemed to roll in. You see, concurrent with the Swope visit is the fact that about 12 are coming tonight for an hors-d'oeuvres-type of Christmas celebration, 18 are coming to our house for a full-blown dinner on Christmas Eve and 15 for Christmas dinner. Wow! That is alot of entertaining at a house where the Queen of the house (I love you to pieces Sandra!!) is the kind of woman who is a staunch member of the "all my ducks must be lined up in neat rows well in advance" party. Her world view, when she is the hostess, calls for near perfection, complete with a terrific presentation of whatever is being served in a house that is dusted, vacuumed and neat. Hey, I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with this. Yes, some people are more casual in their approach to such circumstances and breeze around as if they are benefiting from having had a goodly dose of Valium for breakfast. Perhaps it's a generational kind of thing. I know my Mom was very similiar to Sandi in her approach and I would even see her dusting the underside of vases in preparation.

Nonetheless, there is a perfect storm a brewing. The Swopes come from a decidely "use it, drop it" kind of strategy. The concepts of picking up and putting away are not part of their value system. So on one hand you have Sandi, well aware of how she raised her children and how they were forced to behave while under her tutelage. On the other hand you have her daughter who long ago freed herself of such priorities as neatness and who requires little or nothing from her children in this category.

So, here is the whirling dirvish Swope clan in the same house where lot's of company is coming where the less-than-casual Queen bee is in full-production mode yet also really wanting to enjoy her time with the kids! Yowser! I pray God's grace, God's adaptability and even his Kingdom teflon to lubriciously coat our family and the proceedings of these next days. For it's the thief's ever present strategy to steal, kill and destroy. How like him to want to come in and rob the joy of these days of shared moments. Jesus come...as we celebrate your invasion into this fallen earth I ask you to reign over all family sensitivities, all propensities for mis-understandings, hurt feelings and assorted irritations.

And so I rejoice at this opportunity to be together with family. Thank you for the messiness of it all. Thank you for the substantial healing you have brought to my heart. I notice it in the virtual absence of dread that has normally accompanied the holidays in the past many years. January 2 is no longer my holiday goal...that feeling is gone. Bless the Lord oh my soul! I flop back into your arms and just say thank you Father for blessing us with each other. I am seeing Jesus shining through the eyes of those around me as they deliver tangible pieces of his love for me. Man that feels wonderful! Thank you for transporting me into the sometimes elusive "Christmas spirit". Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

The magic of words

So I see it's been 10 months since my last visit to this blogging experiment. Really what leads me back today is just this latent desire to write and the pleasure of using words to express thoughts. I find hitting just the right combination of words that spot-on nail what I am attempting to articulate absolutely satisfying.

Really coming back today is prompted by my meeting with Mark and a passing comment I made about writing and his encouraging response. There have been a few others over the last year as well (thank you Rob, thank you Kevin). My dilemma is content. I don't want to simply prattle on in some self-absorbed treatise. And yet I'm not an expert in any particular area which is beckoning me to write on . And still there is this desire to express (suddenly I see movie clips in my head from Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Dreyfuss compelled to express Devil's Tower in whatever medium he could find, from mud to mash potatoes).

I do it in emails and email responses mainly. A couple of times there have been writings to accompany Sandi's art. Like little demitasse glasses of writing are these short pieces. But they often have contained some of the essence of what so intrigues me about writing. Namely, in the process of asking God what he would have me say, sort of abandoning my typing/writing fingers to him and having his words filter through the stained glass of my unique personality, I often end up writing words that are this weird combination of me and not me.

I confessed this to Mark at our coffee meeting. I say "confessed" because I have never really understood the feeling I often get when I go back and read my "own" words and find them ministering to me. Even to type it here seems unseemly, narcissistic even. But Mark's encouragement came in the form of assuring me that this experience has been cited by no less than C.S. Lewis and G.MacDonald, two men who I respect immensely.

Mark went on to describe that truth is truth, it is not owned by us, it is the very nature of God and given to us by him. But when we write, as Christians, seeking the guidance and blessing of our Father as to our words, we are in a position to express truth, uniquely filtered through our personality. Thus Jeremiah and Isaiah expressed the truth of God but not without their Jeremiah-ness and Isaiah-ness shining through as well. That so resonates with me. I so want to be about that. To find a way to more regularly be a sort of "river bank", (thanks Mark), that channels the revelatory water of truth mixed with my James-ness. Lord that, that is something in which I would be blessed to be fathered by you. Father me in this Lord....

The dilemma though still seems to be this content thing. I can be aware of a desire to write at certain times but it is shut down by "what to write about?". My current wiring has me as a guy who, if you put me in a room for an hour with a blank whiteboard, when you come back it will still be blank. I don't create so well ex nihilo. I do much better synthesizing pre-existing chunks of thought, rearranging, adding, deleting, further developing, responding, that sort of thing. Maybe I'm just an editor and should leave the heavy lifting of original writing to those more gifted and called? Other than my status as a child of God, do I even have a platform from which to write? Or is it all just a lot of self-deluded, self-absorbed drivel?

I guess at the very least I have this blog. It is a platform of sorts and there really are no outside expectations that it must measure up to. There is the bit about other's being able to comment but even that can be turned off as I understand it.
But what Lord would you have me write about? One subject, many little vignettes, just about my experience on this sojourn? I am willing, even desirous, but need your guidance.

Well good, this felt good. To get this up and out of me is either a start or perhaps just an end in itself...either way, this felt good. Thanks for dropping by again Santiago...don't be such a stranger.

Day of the Heart

Valentine's day....as a man, this Hallmark creation has always brought with it a bit of tension/apprehension for me. Somehow, at a very early age, I got the message (that I believe persists to this day) that this is mostly about men delivering a respectable showing of love and affection to their ladies and not vice versa. At least that is how Madison Avenue's messages have conditioned me.

It all started so innocently in grade school. Creating those decorated brown paper bags that hung from our desks. Then, on the big day, walking around and dropping in the Valentine "card", worth approximately 10 cents, into each of your fellow students bag. But ah yes, for me there was almost always one fair-headed maiden that was special and I poured over my selection of cards, purchased by my Mom at Kresges in St.Paul. I would look for one that had a certain punch to it, something that would somehow communicate my special feelings even though they would forever be left unspoken in actuality.

As years advanced, and having a girlfriend became a bigger deal, the not-so-subtly implied expectations of Valentine's Day did too. I would become aware of hearing vague hints of what so and so was planning to give his girlfriend. The first time I heard of a guy who was investing $10 into gifting his steady, I started to understand the incredible depths that one could go to "express" the otherwise silent pinings of the heart.

I wonder if other guys feel like me in this. That is that Valentine's Day raises virtually no expectations for the average guy in terms of receiving. The real "guy" expectations revolve around figuring out something to say, do or give that will meet what we imagine are the expectations of our better-halves. Next to her birthday and Christmas, Valentine's Day looms in 3rd place for a day when the invisible balance scales of relational life make an appearance. Our offering is weighed and ultimately deemed to be merely adequate, perhaps a home-run or, may you be spared this fate, badly found lacking in emotional depth, creativity and heartfeltness.

OK, OK I know. It's by now obvious that I have some performance anxiety around getting Valentine's day "right" (as I do for all gift-oriented days). But Valentine's day has this special twist...it's not necessarily about how much money was or was not spent, not about delivering results that are according to any necessarily traditional formulas....no it's about expressing the heart. It's an opportunity to somehow try to show what too much of my everyday life may not have been delivering. (Of course this is not all that different from any gift-giving event but please cut me some slack as this post is about VDay)

Sandi and I have been married now for 8 years. Let me just say unequivocally that our partnership was and is a God-thing, not expected, didn't see it coming, almost bailed before it could happen but am now so grateful that I didn't miss His lead on this blessing. Sandi really is a "low maintenance" kind of gal. Those seem like such crude words to describe any part of this beautiful woman of faith but it's true. So manning-up for gift time is really not a major challenge like it can be for guys with girls who have mountain high expectations. Nonetheless, I still have a huge desire to somehow express my love for her on such "gift" days in a manner that is intentional, that meets my own internal standard and avoids any hint of being merely an automatic pilot type of offering. It's just that I broke the freaking curve so early in our relationship.

We were married in 2001 in January so that first Valentine's Day for us was also my first post-marital debut as a gift giver. We had the blessing of an incredible honeymoon in Playa del Carmen. It was idyllic and I can only hope that some day we might get to do something together that even comes close. My pea brain was working overtime to come up with something that would fulfill my internal "apropos meter". It was my first appearance as a husband to Sandi and to her friends and family and I wanted to do this first Valentine's Day right!

Our initial dating was built around Caribou, specifically the one at 96 and Hogdson in Shoreview. We became aware of each other by some match-making efforts of my pastor's wife, Jill Herringshaw. It all started so innocently by phone and we probably talked together a dozen times before we ventured out to meet face-to-face. Caribou was to be that initial meeting place and it continued to be so for a couple of months....always sitting at the same table. We were married within about 9 months of that first coffee date. (Heh, when you're in your 50's you don't necessarily need years of courtship!) And now I'm needing a suitably good idea for this 1st Valentine's Day. It came as most of my really good ideas have since....it came from that still quiet, inner voice of God himself.
And he said, "Buy the table".
Obedience came next and, after some weeks of finagling with Caribou corporate, I got the go ahead to buy "our table" for $125. Yep, if they can retire some athlete's jersey well then, by cracky, this table of ours was going to be taken out of public service too.

February 14, 2001 arrived and Sandi and I headed off to Caribou to have coffee together before we went to work. "Our table" was all decked out in a huge red cellophane wrapper kind of in the shape of a gigantic Hershey's kiss. When Sandi asked "Where are we going to sit?", I simple said "At our table!" Sandi, being a polite and proper sort was having none of that...she said we couldn't because it was evidently being used for some sort of Valentine promotion or something. I, in my Italian-way, insisted and I finally got her to sit with me "at" our table although we had to hold our coffee cups as the tabletop was not available. While she was in no way comfortable sitting there (she hates anything that even comes remotely close to being or making a spectacle, which, by the way, I have learned to have fun with many times over the last 8 years!), she couldn't help peer inside the red cellophane wrapper. You see, the Caribou folks had been ever so kind and besides packaging this all up so perfectly they had also put some extra gifts inside. There were several pounds of coffee, a mug and a beautiful pink heart made of small, tight, pink rosebuds. And, of course, they had my Valentine card/envelope propped up inside addressed simply "Sandi" (which I had cleverly brought to them the night before).

So Sandi is sitting there, fidgeting in her seat, not liking all the people who keep looking over at us, feeling like we are in an inappropriate, unauthorized area. (The manager had told many of the customers, in a hushed voice naturally, of what this red table deal was all about so they kept looking at us, shooting these all-knowing smiles and head nods...poor Sandi, she must have felt like she was in a bad dream!) But intermittently, she can't help but try and look inside the red cello "kiss" to figure out what all those goodies were in there. Mind you, this was some thick cello and it wasn't easy to instantly see what was inide. Finally, after I was sure she was going to bolt for the door instead of staying where she didn't feel like she belonged, she noticed my card with the name "Sandi" written in my handwriting. All she said was "Wait a minute....what is going on here?"

Well, suffice it to say that after spending some considerable effort to convince her to reach under and get that card, she finally did so. The card pledged my love afresh but it also had some cryptic reference to the table now being ours Oh, she was blessed alright by it all, but the best part was at the end of our time. I hoisted the table onto my shoulder when leaving. Sandi just looked at me, surely thinking that I had already lost it and we had only been married 39 days!
I assured her it was all proper and Sandi and I and the table left Caribou with the judges awarding perfect 10's for my first Valentine (and with all the husbands in Caribou and any who may be reading this now scowling at me and virtually shouting at me with their eyes, "Curve breaker, fellowship of men betrayer!")

Today, that table sits in the corner of our dining room as a testament to how it all began. And I have yet to come up with anything that will beat that V Day gift. Note to self: when making an initial effort perhaps you should leave room for future improvement!

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Santiago out....

2009

It's that time again...when there is a sort of pause in the action as one just-completed year passes and a "brand new shiny one" (as Di would say) presents itself. Sitting here, wondering about my posture towards all this. After some 60+ years of sojourning this orb I have taken a range of positions...from blase' disregard of any particular new projects or directions to all out efforts to change things up and take a new lease on life.

For 2009, there are several things I'm aware of that are worthy of being intentional about. Probably foremost is my sincere desire to walk in more joy and abandonment. My many years of walking as a believer have not been ones where peace, joy and contentment would be the most accurate descriptors . I so want to emulate/appropriate Paul's testimony of being content in all circumstances. Really tired of experiencing life in a conditional mode....good things happening, ducks lining up nicely = I get to be joyful. Lousy things going on, insufficiencys, broken stuff and people = I don't get to be joyful. Want to break out of this formula....set this prisoner free Father.

Another thing is a felt need to change my attitude about the marathon of life. I believe it is indeed not a sprint but must be approached as a marathon, complete with pacing, needing endurance and requiring an intentional focus. Too much of my thinking/outlook has been circling around the feeling like I'm somewhere after mile 24 and really yearning for the finish line. Guessing that I need to do some recalibration and an internal reset appropriate for my true place in the race that is most likely more like mile 19 or 20. (Of course, this is where the "wall" can nastily show up....). Gird up those loins Hoppy, there's more to be done.

There's work stuff that is screaming for me to either get more thoroughly in or get the heck out. There's life realities that prevent any sort of "getting out". There's too much lingering resentment being offered to me as a fruit to eat and I have eaten it too much and too often. That agreement has got to go! On one hand, the natural energies have noticeably ebbed. On the other hand, the requirements of living well in the remaining days seem to have ramped up in difficulty. So, if doing life isn't getting any easier coupled with depleted levels of what I am calling natural juices, it seems the need to be intentional, to avoid the default settings has got to be my strategy.

Intentional is just a good word for me right now. Really doesn't come that easy for the recovering hedonist in me. Would love to roll more on cruise control. Sorry Santiago, that dog won't hunt.

So all this blabbering to say this: James, I'm calling you up and out. Your time to rest will come but not yet bro, not yet. Purpose and determination might sound exhausting but they are the shoes you need to be shod with. And an attitude of gratitude is yours to be had as you practice His presence. After all, the Lord is near. It's not as though there are no reasons to rejoice. So get your head back in the game, don't look for the easy ways out, expect the effort that is required and take in the sights and mini-vacations that may be offered along the way. And don't forget, this world is not your home, but there is a real beauty that is reported to have been prepared with my name on it....but not yet, not yet.

The Holidays

As I look back, it seems that perhaps a blog-o-month has become my stride. It's been almost a year and 20 postings ago that I launched 500' Flyby. Looking back at my original purposes for this blog, I see that "getting things up and out" was listed. That continues to seem an entirely valid reason and leads me to today's posting subject....The Holidays!

Right off the bat, as a warning/disclaimer, I can tell you that this may not be all that edifying to read....informative of some of my history that has produced it's share of gnarliness, pain and a wounded twistedness perhaps but edifying....not so much. For some years, the holiday season has been a difficult time to say the least. It took this negative turn for me commencing in 1990, when I became separated and ultimately divorced in 1992. This seemed to act as a small nuclear bomb in all that had formerly contributed to functional family dynamics. Now all the former patterns and arrangements that had proven to work so well over past holiday seasons seemed to instantly dissolve. They were no longer viable for a variety of reasons - all seemingly having to do with the breakup and loss of my former position as in-house father and husband.

The initial years of this were especially dark and, without wanting to sound too dramatic, very traumatizing to me. It's that trauma from years of struggling with this that rears its ugly head at this time of year seeking to claim me and scuttle all joy. God Bless Norman Rockwell and his lovely paintings of intact families. No problems ever seemed to crop up in Rockwell land. There they are, all around the holiday dinner table, both grandparents are present, Dad is at the head of the table carving the perfectly done bird, quarter-size snow flakes flutter down gently just outside the window. If that for a moment could be considered a "deliverable", it has stood in my mind for years as a picture of something that has been so outside my ability to offer.

Now that my girls are grown, much of the pressure of "Will you have the girls?" (Have no idea, their Mom hasn't committed), "What time can you all be over here?" (Don't even know for sure I'll have the girls with me at all) is mercifully gone. Yet now, I am a member of a blended family (please don't get me wrong, I am very thankful for this blessing). Regardless of all the good, there are now 2 sets of traditions, lots of sensitivity and expectations that are fueled by the history of what was... what things used to be. I confess, it all just overwhelms me in ways I find difficult to pinpoint or articulate but are painful nonetheless.

And then, couple into all of the above a general financial tightness (amidst all the frenzied, consumeristic urgings) and the inability to just throw money at all the sticky bits that refuse to flow and I have myself something that falls far short of my favorite time of the year. Bottom line, high expectations with weak ability to fulfill...a lousy formula in any country or time.

For any who may read this who absolutely adore the holiday season, my sympathies if you have allowed yourself to read all of this. It used to be mine too until my 40's when family circumstances took things in undesirable directions. I bless you in your joy at this time of year!

And so my dilemma, how not to be a 200+ pound wet blanket that shuffles along as a gloom monster hoping mainly for January 2 to get here quickly? How to be a blessing and a sharer of joy while simultaneously being in pain? I've been given lots of advice about all this....ranging from just change your attitude, count your blessings, look at the bright side, take it to the Cross, even the always helpful "just get over it". Really, I feel the need for a deeper healing and a redemptive touch somewhere way inside. I am the best around those to whom I have no obligations, who have no particular expectations. But to those I love the most, my family, I am an internal mess in this season, hoping to keep all my issues bottled up but feeling guilty as I see them too often percolating out and spilling forth a dark, bitter froth into their paths.

Since writing the above paragraphs I've let a day go by and have been trying to get my mind right about how to best live and walk beyond the events of the past. I dumped out some of the crap that I wrestle with and apologize for it's stench. But this just can't be allowed to be the last chapter. Lord, give my a grace note here.....

It seems to me that the world system has shanghaied the birth of Jesus and has sought to relentlessly transform the holidays for its own consumeristic purposes. Why do we so often hear the word "perfect" used in conjunction with the ingredients of the holidays? "This year, give her the perfect gift of love from Shane Jewelers". "Serve the perfect appetizers at you holiday parties by using Kraft products." "Perfectly capture this year's festivities on Canons new 850SX". We get a steady inoculation of perfection as the standard that you should strive for to make this year's holiday season the best ever!

Heh, here's the deal. I resent all the ways that I have bought into wanting to provide the perfect gift, the perfect get-together. It's as if I somehow unwittingly assented to view my life and how I 'do' the holiday through this lens of perfection. The world's system is anxious for me to buy into this, to strive, to mightily chase the perfect whatever for my loved ones. As long as they succeed in manipulating me to manically chase after this unachievable holy grail of perfection, the more likely I will maximize my spending by scurrying after the Norm Rockwell Hallmark version of what every good husband, parent and friend would wish to provide to those they love.

Of course the enemy just sits by and undoubtedly chuckles in all this striving and/or lamenting about not making the grade. One way or the other, the accuser just wants to take me out...the means don't matter. "Just get him pinned down under a blanket of crabbiness or depression....i'm not picky".

So, not sharing the internal struggles that accompany this time of the year for me would be less than transparent. But settling for all this and letting the kingdom of the world define my attitude is just not going to fly this year. Here I am, putting a stake in the ground, saying Yes, there have been painful experiences that brought a number of traumatic years and they are in part associated with the holidays. But No, these don't get to forever define me or how I have to be or feel during the holidays. I reject the myth of perfection the world offers up as an attainable goal.

The fact is that December 25-type Christmas is the creation of Madison Ave. My Saviour was born in a barn, in close proximity to animal shit, and He didn't have the benefit of well-baby visits to the local HMO. He has called me by name, He dares call me His friend, I am His workmanship, created for good works, I am a branch of the true vine. He came to redeem my life from the pit. And for that, I say praise you Jesus for calling me up and out of the kingdom of the world into your eternal Kingdom.

My answer to the wounds of the past are the present eternal truths and my position in the midst of them. I rip my eyes off the billboard pitches and onto Him. I shut my ears to the mad, fast-talking TV pitches and tune them into the still, small voice of He in whom I am hidden.

And to all who may happen by here....Merry Christmas! May the warm, accepting love and concern of Jesus for you and yours encourage your heart in these days.
Peacefully yours,
Santiago