Defrost Me

Hello imaginary reader!

It's nearly February and for the most part the weather has been unusually mild thus far. One snow, a couple short stretches of bitter cold, but all in all - not bad. Just today I was out in a sweatshirt with my 1.5 year old kicking around his mini soccer ball. Spring like! Yay.

A few years ago my wife and I bought a van. It was a total God-send. We had a newborn baby, my wife was staying home, I was commuting 30 minutes and it just made no sense to leave her car-less. Driving me to work everyday felt too much like middle school when I constantly had to bum rides from my Mom - usually when I missed the bus by 3 minutes.

The Van has been great. We had 1000 bucks. We asked a mechanic friend to be on the lookout for something coming in that looked good and was in good shape. He said that never happens, but ok.

I kid you not - 2 day later an old lady shows up with a 1990 Voyager: 91,000 miles, in great shape, No mechanical problems...etc. She says to our friend "Do you know anyone who wants to buy my van? I just drive it to church on Sundays and I'd like to get around $1000 dollars for it." Main reason she's selling; "it's a little to high for me to get into very well anymore."

We picked it up that night.

The lady was sweet and thrilled that we were so excited about it. We were grateful that barely prayed prayers had been answered. Suddenly and weirdly cool.

The one drawback is this: The van has no heat. On particularly cold days it's brutal. I've been an unhappy combination of too poor/too cheap to get it fixed. I drive that one in the winter. The fam won't get near it.

I'm quite a sight on the highways. Really. I look like Kenny from SouthPark. (please don't watch that show) I look like I'm trekking to the north pole, with just my eyes showing from an enormous puffy coat.

Several of my senses become muted, or mooted. (not a word) I'm practically deaf. Less protected portions of my body become uncomfortably numb. I have zero peripheral vision. Sometimes I just pull my hood back a little to see if I'm about to cut someone off. On really cold days I don't. (sorry)

But - it's Pennsylvania. It will not always be cold. I'm grateful for the van, but I don't treat it so well. Not like our Jetta, which we paid nearly new prices for. So, I do wonder if there is some kind of inverted principle at work here.

Jesus once told a story to illustrate love and gratitude. Who loves more? Someone forgiven a little bit, or someone forgiven enormously? Great story, but convicting.

I can't help but wonder if I would take better care of the gift-van if I had paid 10,000 for it rather than 1000. This makes me worry about my own gratitude level. The van was quite a gift, but I don't always see it this way. I often think - well, we don't need to do XX for the van - we only paid 1000 for it.

Why is it that I still remain most concerned about the things that have the most benefit to me? It's as if my response is dictated by my perception of return and investment. How much do I do that with my relationships? My parents? My wife? My kid? What about systems that I've benefited from? Schools, teachers, pastors? What about God?

I am pretty sure that I am called to a different economy. It's hard, but its true. I'm called the be other centered. To be compassionate with friends and enemies. To care for others in need. Help the orphans, the widows. To be a giver, not a taker.

If I'm too wrapped up in what I can afford, or what is helping me - I'll miss the point. I'll miss the sweetest portions of life. I want to live as a grateful person. A giver. That's hard sometimes.

Right not my son treats every little gift we give him as if we have given him the whole world. We hand him a wooden spoon to play with, and he's THRILLED. He wears those expressions right there for us to see, and that response thrills us. We love giving him good gifts because he really appreciates it. He beams and it is our delight and joy.

For me as an 'adult' I forget that - on both ends.

On the receiving end - I can be genuinely glad, grateful and overjoyed that people and God give me gift of all kinds. How cool it is to be a recipient of someone else's good will and kindness.

On the giving end - I want to have that effect on people. Bring them joy and gladness. Be the giver of good will and kindness.

It seems to me that if I do one well, I'll be likely to do both pretty well. One feeds the other.

So, me, quit playing down the gifts. Get excited and grateful over how good people are to you. Let that spark your desire to do things to make others glad. Even if I don't get the heat the van fixed, I need to make sure my little heart is the one body part that doesn't become cold.

The Age of Hyperbole

This is probably the greatest blog entry ever.

Or...at least I could claim that it's true.

Have you noticed that kind of phrase on TV and in advertisements? These days we are in the Age of Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say during a football game, or basketball game (...insert sport here) something to the effect of "This freshmen, or rookie.. blah blah... is probably one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century." or "this play will go down as one of the most remarkable ones in history."

Or TV commercials. Gosh. If you can remove yourself from their carefully crafted spell, they're really quite ridiculous. The greatest sale ever, the opportunity of a lifetime, it vastly improves the quality of my life. (How a garlic chopper improves the basic quality of life for someone, I have no idea. Heck, if that's true hand them out to the poor. Ship them to 3rd world countries. Except, garlic chopper are made in 3rd world countries?...Umm...) On and on.

So what. This isn't a big deal, it's just stressing the point they're trying to make, right? No harm done.

Well - maybe. But when it gets to the point that everyone is trying to accentuate their position by exaggeration, won't we lose our grip on truthfulness? Take for example the phenomenon of "shock." on TV. You know what I mean. Some network promises that this next episode will be so shocking...you know the speil.

The thing is, that as more and more people try to draw you in with shock, you, the sap headed viewer become decreasingly sensitive to that shock. So they have to do something more shocking. Which you will later, probably become desensitized to. But then everyone tries to use it to draw you in.

When I think of this one, I think of the whole lesbian/gay thing on TV. At first, just having a gay character was a shock. Fast forward and we have gay kissing on some shows (gross) and, not just a token gay character, but shows built around homosexuality. This is not good for anyone, not good at all. (I hear that it is now illegal and discriminatory to make negative comments about homosexuals or homosexuality in Canada. So, cousins in the great white north, you're welcome to come after me - but as of recently you'll have to have a passport to get across the line. Deal with it, A.)

Beyond big picture moral stuff, think of the effect on communication. Consider the resume. It is now so endemic that people exaggerate on their experience, abilities and character, that certain aspects of resumes have become unhelpful. If you can make you're burger joint experience sound profoundly remarkable, what am I to think? What's really real. Who's really the person I want? A truthful and helpful resume would probably get the shaft. So hyperbole becomes a requirement if you want to have a chance.

So - in my mind, I think the age of hyperbole is a bit annoying, if not harmful. Why can't we just speak plainly and truthfully about things. Call things what they really are. When does true truth get a shot? That seems more helpful to me. But, you might say, it's human nature to exaggerate, and try to make things we're invested in - especially ourselves - seem better than they are.

Sure, I would say, but it sounds more like a problem with humanity in general than with this particular time in history. These days we're just more slick at bending things. We're all shaders of truth.

Straight shooters might just call it lying. Isn't that shocking?

Minor Addictions, Major Profits

I have been embittered by reality.

Not long ago I met with a friend from high school. We hadn't seen each other for quite some time, so there was a good deal of life to catch up on. I enjoyed meeting her husband who is a pretty cool guy. Good time with us all together.

An interesting factoid came up during our conversation that has been bugging me ever since. He has ruined my enjoyment of gourmet coffee drinks. He used to work as a barrista at Starbucks, and he let me in on a little secret.

I'm not much for coffee, but I am minorly addicted to caffeine. (Maybe it's major?) Since I don't like coffee for the most part I have to use other vehicles for getting that drug into my system. But - the one drink I actually do like (quite a bit I'm afraid) at Starbucks is their Fappuccino.

I mentioned the above facts to my new friend, which prompted him to spring the secret on me. "Hey - take a guess what a medium Frappuccino costs Starbucks"

Here we enter into a pre-existing point of bitterness for me. I already resent paying what I considered to be a ridiculous price for something I see them putting mostly ice into! But I'm dumb enough to pay it.

My best jaded guess was around a buck. I thought "Hey, they charge around 3 or 4 bucks, and that seemed like a pretty hefty profit margin."

Apparently I am insufficiently crass. I guessed way too high. According to my friend, the medium Frapp costs this exorbitant bean company just 25 cents. This includes the cup, the straw and the works. 25 cents! Do the math. If I buy a $0.25 drink and pay $4. That means, for frapps, that for every $1 they put out, they will get $16 back. A profit of 15 times the cost! Wow.

Now, I'm even more bitter when the Starbucks urge strikes. In fact, I find it hard to justify giving them that much of my money and have stopped to get a drink less frequently. (I have NEVER bought food there. Cookies are like, $20 each) Now it feels like I'm making a corporate donation when I but something there.

There are at least 3 things that this drives me to conclude.

1. I have a greater appreciation for the bartering system in other countries. Perhaps in China I could go to a starbucks, have them tell me the total, laugh, then start trying to work the price down. I bet that I could get them down to a reasonable level - perhaps getting 2 Frapps for the price I normally pay for one. I could try this here, but I think they would be the ones laughing.
(I guess they're already laughing now...all the way to the bank!)

2. Caffeine is an addictive substance. This I already knew, but the reality that millions of Americans will go out of their way on a daily basis to shell out an extraordinary amount of cash for an inexpensive beverage points to some kind of addictive substance. Who, unmedicated and sober, would knowingly cough that much moolah up for a cup of chocolate, bean water and ice? Chemical dependence is no joke.

subpoint 2.5 - this is why caffeine-free coke sucks.

3. I have grown in assertiveness. I am normally pretty understating and relaxed about other people's mistakes - perhaps a little too much empathy, not enough antipathy. The one good thing about this new eye-opening knowledge is that when the Starbucks barristas and barristos and barristoids mess something up, you better believe that I'm going to make them replace it, or make it right. I better get their best stuff when I make my $3.75 donation.