Chasing "Normal"

Have you ever seen the movie "Chasing Amy"?  The main character, Holden (who is heterosexual) falls in love with Alyssa (who is homosexual, at least at the time), and they begin a romance.  Holden later discovers that he is not the first man Alyssa has ever been sexually involved with, and that her past is littered with some fairly raunchy experimentation.  Angrily, he ends the relationship with her.  Later he is counseled by a friend with the following story and advice: the friend had a love interest named Amy, whom he broke up with after discovering unflattering personal details about, but once he realized that everyone makes mistakes and he was truly in love with her, she had moved on and he was left out in the cold; from that point on, he could never forget her or forgive himself for his impetuous mistake, and in a sense he'd been "chasing Amy" ever since in his heart.  To save himself the grief, Holden should hold on to what he has, or else he'll be "chasing Amy" (or Alyssa, in this case) for the remainder of his days.

"Chasing Amy" is the obsessive, never-ending pursuit of that thing you lost or almost had or wished you'd had, that you presently think you can't live (or at least can't find fulfillment in living) without.  Usually "Amy" is no longer accessible or achievable, but "substitute Amy's" are usually the target of our passions, pursuits, goals, and the unspoken purpose of our style of relating to others. 

I have my own "Amy" I've been chasing most of my life, at least ever since I was aware enough of what I wanted but didn't have and thought I couldn't live without:  I'm chasing "normal."  Normal to me has always been to have a steady job with no more than two to three different employers for your entire work career, and to always have been steadily working up in terms of responsibility and authority; to buy a house shortly after marriage, and continually move up the "housing ladder" by expanding the size and square footage of home as income swells; to have a plenteous supply of adoring friends and well-wishers (so that that final grand sized home is filled to capacity with celebrants at your retirement party); to live happy, healthy lives all the way to the grave, with only momentary inconvenient pauses for bouts of ill health, anomalies at most; to pay each and every bill on time or ahead of time, to have a credit report that sings your utmost praises, and a bank account to add further credence to such lauding; and whatever "et cetera" you may want to add to the list of things that your American Dream defines as "normal".

I'm confronted daily with the fact I'm nowhere near "normal" by my own standard!  I have a host of varying and interesting jobs on my resume, each one contributing in its own way to who I am today in my eclectic conglomeration of knowledge, skill, ability and professionalism;  but it's far from the perfect linearly upward ascent I'd always thought of as "normal."  Professionally, I like who I am and how my experiences have given me much to think about as I apply my craft in the marketplace, but at age 46 it's getting harder and harder to sell that vision in an interview situation.   I owned a home from 1993 to 2004, but I've been an apartment dweller with my family ever since leaving the Toledo home to go to graduate school, and we've been longing to get back into a house ever since.  Lack of home ownership is certainly not for the lack of trying, but the opportunities have been elusive in the last few years, and we've (meaning me, my wife and two sons) been slammed with numerous disappointments and heartbreaks as several opportunities fell through for houses we thought we'd be able to buy.  My wife suffers from a debilitating medical condition that is genetic in origin, and thus not treatable or curable.  This has totally changed our habits of recreating, socializing and even worshiping. 

The question that confronts me these days is whether "chasing normal" is truly going to get me nearer to that happy state of normalcy (as I've defined it) or is it going to make me more miserable in the pursuit, and less content in the having, if I ever get there at all?  I suspect the latter.  Chasing "normal" also undermines one of my fundamental beliefs as a Christian: God uses all things to bring glory to Himself, and for my greater good. Whatever mistakes I've made in my career and relationships are unfortunate, but redeemable; whatever hellish circumstances I'm going through at the moment are tragic and something to be grieved for being far less than the Garden of Eden I was originally designed for (imago dei), but they're also useful in the Master's hand and redeemable for the greater glory of God and good for me and those I influence.

What I chase is ultimately what I worship, and I'm built to worship...built to "chase."  I wasn't built to "chase normal" in the way I've been taught and molded (and, in reality, chose) to define normal; I've been made to follow in the steps of the Old Testament love poem, "Song of Solomon", shouting to God Himself,

"Draw me after You, and let us run together...(I) will rejoice in You and be glad!"
- Song of Solomon 1:4

What are blogs for?

It used to be that if anyone wanted attention or acclaim for their skills at communicating thought with prose, he wrote a book.  Not everyone's writing is necessarily appreciated in his own time, so some have gone to lengths to personally fund the publishing of their own written work, in the hopes that the investment will lead to exposure, and exposure to readership, and readership to word-of-mouth recommendations, which will lead to more book sales, more exposure, etc.   Henry David Thoreau comes to mind when I think about that strategy.  His work was by and large ignored by readers of his day, and his published works were financed out of his own coffers, and he died with most of them still unsold.  Today a Thoreau first printing of Walden sells for around $40K at some rare book stores or at Christies auction, but what good does that do him now?

Today, we can muse about our thoughts and achieve world-wide distribution with no effort more tedious than a keystroke!  Blogging!  The poor man's way to fame (if he can promote himself enough) and fortune (if he can get enough of a following, followed by enough advertising space sold on his blog).  Blogging is the "YouTube" of the literary world, in which no publisher can poo-poo your work and deny you access to their presses.

Blogging...another form of exhibitionism?  Are there some who use blogging to reveal their thoughts and musings, in the hope that someone gives a damn?  I was reading the blog of a prominent Christian psychologist recently, and there was a response posting by a counselor, who listed his own blogsite along with his post (a form of piggybacking for promotion).  So, out of curiosity, I went to this other fellow's blogsite, and perused at a skimming pace some of his work.  It stuck out to me that at the bottom of each and every one of his posts was "Comments: 0"  He had numerous posts; it was obvious he was passionate and informed about what he wrote about, but no one else seemed inspired or moved sufficiently by his writing to even have a thought to post as a comment...and I hurt for him.  He was pouring out his mind and soul in prose, and seemingly having no impact on his reading audience (assuming he has one) whatsoever.

Men who prowl the streets in nothing more than trench coats, who leap out of dark alleys to frighten unsuspecting victims with a quick flash from an open trench coat before they flee back into the anonymity of the darkness, all seem to express later in therapy that they want one thing: a shocked look, provoked by the sight of their naked male form.  They want impact, and knowing no more well-socialized means of achieving impact, they settle for an anti-social, but proven effective, means of "taking" impact from someone they may assume otherwise would look right past them on the street if they were fully clothed.

Blogging for some (maybe even for me?) can be an attempt to impact the world from behind the safety of the screen and keyboard...our own dark alley into which we can escape and remain safely distant from those we hope will be impacted by our writing, our quick parting of our literary trench coats so that you can see the form of our thoughts and feelings.  Deep inside of us, God put a longing for impact, to do the things or be the persons who are responded to by others in ways that evidence that we've mattered for good.  If not for good, we've learned to settle for....something less noble, if not necessarily describable with precision.  Perhaps the predatory exhibitionist most deeply wants to use the strength of his masculinity to do good in the lives of others, who warmly welcome his entry into their lives and celebrate his having been present and potent for good to them.  When what he longs for most isn't offered, or opportunities seem few and far between, or to have this impact seems too remote, he settles for at least some impact over none at all.  He forces his masculinity, or at least the only prominent evidence he can summon, upon an unsuspecting victim, and demands evidence that he's had impact: a shocked look, a scream, even a pointing finger and an look of disgust is evidence that he's been successful at provocation.

But what about the counselor who pours out his thoughts and research and deepest musings onto his blog, and no one reads, writes or responds?  I suspect that receiving this kind of response over a lengthy period of time would become a bit depressing.  Is he really having no impact whatsoever on others because no one responds to his blog?  Or has he constricted the forms of impact he might have to merely via the Internet, and abandoned the other more natural forms of human intercourse (no pun intended) in favor of lurking in the shadows of his electronic alley? 

We blog for impact, but if this is the sole source of satisfying impact we expect to have, the more desperate we will become for exposure and reassurance that this strategy will work.  Woe to those who despair over their blogging having no impact...woe even more to those who succeed at it and achieve their wildest dreams of followership, accolades and praise, and even financial success from blogging; because then, who needs the real world and faulty human relationships any longer when the cyber world is paying off so nicely?

Sad goodbye's

I'm in a rather contemplative mood tonight. I got word yesterday that the wife of one of my professors (whom I consider a friend at this point) was killed in a car accident yesterday morning. My professor/friend is a pastor of a vibrant church, and has two children in college. He's only a few years older than I am, a rugged outdoors man who thrives in the Pocono Mountains as a hiker and canoe-ist (canoe-er? whatever....). In the blink of an eye, half of his soul was ripped away...last night for the first time in years, this poor man went to bed without his soul mate beside him. What's that like?

I tried to imagine what that anguish must be like, and I just couldn't do it...not that I couldn't be creative enough, I just couldn't bring myself to dip my emotional ladle into a well of sorrow that deep right now. It terrifies me to think of what that would be like. Heck, every once in awhile Shari and I have our "tiff's" and arguments and disagreements, and for brief moments of stupidity I entertain the thought of how much better off I'd be if I were single again. Sanity returns quickly for me, fortunately, and I realize that no matter how much I may be disappointed in my lovely wife right at that moment over that precise issue, my life has been all the better for being joined with her, and those brief moments of discontent don't warrant throwing all that history and future potential away.

But to lay there in bed at night, and to try to imagine what it would be like to have that spot on the other side of the bed empty, vacant, unoccupied...Shari never to be there any more...it's too grievous for me to even fathom! I'm sure it was for my friend, as well...but now he's hit square in the soul with that situation. Like the biblical figure Job, he must cry out, "that which I feared the most has come upon me!" Tonight, and every night after this, he is going to be overwhelmingly aware of the fact that part of his soul is no longer there to be with him, for him to enjoy, for him to drink deeply of. I grieve with him. I've been blue all day with him...I'm in mourning for him, though he's not aware of it, to the best of my knowledge. We haven't spoken yet.

My friend is a professional counselor. He specializes in counseling burnt out pastors and missionaries, those who have given their lives to what they've understood to be God's will and God's work, and yet have, for whatever their private reasons, become troubled, disappointed souls. That has to be a tough job. People who "work for God" have an expectation that the work should pay dividends and feel fulfilling, and that God should be about the business of clearing away obstacles to personal fulfillment and ministry success, for those who have given themselves to His service. Sometimes God doesn't capitulate. Sometimes the reward for a lifetime of difficult service in a thankless mission field is a near-penniless retirement, complete lack of appreciation from former supporters, and complete anonymity and no recognition, at least not in this lifetime. Bitterness toward God is epidemic amongst pastors and missionaries who've been waiting for God to cut them some slack, and He hasn't. In spite of the fact that Jesus predicted that those who follow in His steps would see persecution, and that their reward for overcoming was to be delivered in a future kingdom, the realities of joining with Him in a battle that is against unseen enemies for the salvation of mostly uninterested and unwilling people eventually weigh down even the most confident and fervent faith.

Now my faithful friend, pastor and counselor...now has opportunity to confront his own situation in which God must seem to have fallen asleep at the wheel, and let him down. God could very well have prevented that car accident, or at least prevented his wife's death. While we're so very circumspect to blame God for "causing" the incident, we must in all integrity admit that He could have prevented it, and chose to not do so. My friend's wife is dead, and his soul is ripped apart, because of an act of omission on the part of God...pure and simple. My friend likely had very good dreams of moving into the future of his ministry and his marriage with his wonderful wife, and blissfully going into old age and retirement with her at his side.

Sometimes God allows legitimate, good dreams to shatter...to make room for better dreams, His dreams. Sometimes the cost of knowing God's best dreams is to have our souls torn asunder while looking straight in the face of the horror of watching our favorite dreams crash before us, and knowing the helplessness of our not being God, of being unable do anything to stop the horror from happening. Sometimes God allows the horror that we've feared most to come upon us, and sometimes He feels like He's nowhere to be found, either for the purpose of comforting us, or to take the brunt of our bitter screams.

My friend has faith...he takes God at His word, even in the face of circumstances that completely contradict it. He believes God keeps His word, even when circumstances defy it from coming to pass. He will cling to God, and consider it an honor to exercise faith, and be willing to pay a high price in terms of personal suffering, to be counted as worthy to live the life of faith. He won't feel like it, but he will. He will dig deep, and find the strength in the very center of his soul to passionately pursue God, in the very midst of his heartache...and eventually he will find Him. And eventually, the price my friend has to pay now in order to know God better will be reckoned as worth it...not now, maybe not for awhile. But he will know God better at some point through this, and will be able to both grieve the loss of his wife deeply and simultaneously praise Him for allowing the very good dream to shatter and be replaced by a higher dream. Not now, not for awhile...but some time yet to come.

Only those who know God intimately can simultaneously grieve the loss of a good dream, and rejoice in the hope of knowing a better dream as a result of the loss. Those who do not know God can only grieve, or rage over, the loss of their dreams. They have no other hope.

My friend has hope....

First entry...worst entry.

I love to run...and sometimes I run too much, over do it and injur myself. "Sometimes" is too lenient...I do it practically twice a year or so. And when I don't run for awhile, I lose all the conditioning effects that I worked so hard to acquire, so that by the time I start over, I'm practically out of shape and a "beginner" all over again.

I like to keep a running log, to track my frequency, distance, time, etc., of my runs. I have a catch phrase that I usually put on the very first log entry of a new running "streak"....it goes "first run...worst run." That's because the first run back after a lengthy layoff is usually the hardest, most disappointing run of the "streak" that is yet to come. I feel like crap through most of the run, and hurt like heck for the next few days afterward. It takes me about 6 weeks of consistant running before I begin to feel like "myself" again, and can glide along at a "reasonable" or "respectable" pace over an extended distance.

I've been a "runner" even when I'm not running, for over 20 years. I had a wonderful track and cross country coach in high school who showed us not only how to run competitively, but how to love running for the sake of running. He actually ran with us (as opposed to the previous cross country coach who used to ride his Honda motorcycle beside us) while we trained, and put in the sweat with us on very long weekend runs. He took us out on weekend running retreats in the backroads of the country, where we slept in a rustic barn on the most uncomfortable cots I'd ever futilally tried to sleep on! He lived running, and thus so did we...and some of us still do. One of my former team mates recently qualified for Boston. Running is in my identity, even when it's not in my actual practice.

For years I've loved the quotation of the British missionary Eric Liddell, from the movie Chariots of Fire. Liddell's sister is chastising him for his seeming preoccupation with running, as he is an Olympic contender in the short sprint races. She thinks he needs to get his focus back on God, the mission field, and going to China. Running seems to her to be a frivolous interest at best, and an idol distracting her brother away from the "true work" for God in the mission field. Liddell answers her concerns with this: "I know He made me for a purpose...for China. But He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. To give it up would be to hold Him in contempt."

That's how I feel about running...I feel God's pleasure in me when I run, and to ever stop coming back after a leave of absence would be to deny God the pleasure of my running, to hold Him in contempt! What an incredible thought! I HAVE to run because it brings my Lord pleasure!?! We typically think that only our inconvenience or our suffering brings Him pleasure, and we base that on a warped, inaccurate inkling of what we think God is really like. There is nothing like the feeling of being set free to bring Him pleasure...there is no personal pleasure like it!

An acquaintaince of mine counsels sex addicts, typically men. One new client came into his office, and declared at the start of the session, "I've had sex with a hot babe, while high on drugs, on the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. If you can't offer me anything else that will give me that kind of rush, I'm not going to waste my time here with you!" His "pleasure" had the three most powerful componants that comprise lust: warped immitations of beauty, power and risk. Nothing but lust can compete with lust, and there's nothing akin to this warped idea of pleasure that can compete. But....if one can think outside the box of the warped mindset of lust, there is a richer, deeper, higher and more noble pleasure that lust has no capacity to touch...being in the center of God's will and flowing with His pleasure! (And that's exactly what my counselor acquaintance offered this man in response to his challenge!)

Perhaps this entry won't be my worst entry at all. Perhaps....someday I can honestly say, as Liddell...."when I blog, I feel His pleasure!" Time will tell.