To Tell the Truth

My favorite party game is based upon a television game show, To Tell the Truth, which originally ran from 1956 to 1968. In the party game version, guests write down a list of things which no one else in the room knows about them. It could be a childhood event, a brush with fame, or an interesting fact, but the best items are always those which lend themselves to a funny story.

Once the guests have written their list, the game’s host gathers the lists and reads them privately. The host calls 3 “contestants” to the front, and one item from ONE contestant’s list is read aloud. The person whose item is read must tell the truth. The other 2 contestants must lie (or act if that makes you feel better.) The job of the 2 “actors” is to get people to believe the fact is true of them. The person who is telling the truth is trying to convince the crowd that the fact is NOT true of them. The crowd asks questions of the contestants and the host eventually calls for a vote as to whom was most convincing. Then the true person whose story is being told stands up.

You learn a lot about people playing this game. Not only is it thoroughly entertaining to ascertain how well your friends lie, and whether or not they have a “tell,” but it’s equally revealing to see what types of questions people ask. One of my favorite parts is the stories which are told after each round, first by the person who wrote the fact—-and then by others who jump in with similar experiences.

Thanks to Christmas parties, a recent birthday party, and a classroom full of 10-year olds ready to play any game I present to them, I’ve played this game a lot in the past few months. It’s made me aware of how seldom I tell my best life stories, and how many stories we all have in us.

And it’s made me start to reminisce through all the wonderful events and details of my life. So often I focus on the negative things I’m experiencing, rather than being grateful for all of the truly amazing experiences I’ve had on earth. Even the tough times look golden once a few years have gone by and once you can see the meaning in what you walked through.

While it’s popular in some circles to bemoan social media and the inherent angst and addiction which can accompany it, Facebook and Instagram’s outstanding contribution is that it has become this living, public photo album where we can share some of the greatest moments of our lives with those we value but whom can’t be there in person. And we get to share small moments that move us. And we get to share bursts of insight and silliness that make us human. We get an audience for the small revelations of every day life and the making it public invites the community we’ve chosen to live alongside and laugh and cry with us. I can’t count this as a bad thing.

There’s a driving need in all of us to be known and to share who we are with others. I think one of the greatest gifts we can bestow on others is to honor one another by listening. I think one of the greatest ways to serve another is to sit with a friend over a cup of coffee and ask them the types of questions that will draw out their story and stories. And to then listen with a full heart that reflects back their value and worth.

To be noticed, to be known puts a spark back in people’s eyes. It’s like an IV of hope that can sustain another’s dreams when they are all but dead. It’s something we have all experienced and it’s something we can all do.

Here’s to our next cup of coffee and the friends who join us.

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Photo by Mikail Duran on Unsplash

That 2nd Commandment (Love thy Neighbor)

The first boy I gave my heart to ended up going to jail as a convicted rapist. By the time I heard this news I wasn’t surprised, but when we met he was this newly saved radical Jesus person who was somehow interested in me.

He remains one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met, highly intelligent, somewhat rogue and we talked about things I’d never been exposed to at the tender age of 13. He also had a dark side which I also grew to know over the years. There was a Charles Manson like hypnotic annointing on him and he had an ability to get women like no one else I’ve met since. And suffice it to say, that in many ways he was evil.

I think it’s likely that my experience with him gave me a lifelong interest in abnormal psychology. It’s also given me compassion for those whom others reject.

When I heard about the uni-bomber, while many mourned the victims, I worried about him. When I hear about terrorists, I wonder about their ideology which makes them willing to die for their beliefs. There’s a certain radicalism that I can’t help but admire there.

When I volunteered for a few years with a nonprofit that combatted sex trafficking, I wondered who was ministering to the traffickers. Who was caring for their souls, who often had just as tragic of stories as their victims. Who was loving them?

Maybe like me you’ve read Love Does by Bob Goff. Or Everybody Always. Amazing books by an amazing man and an accomplished storyteller. He tells this story in Everybody Always about a boy named Charlie whose body parts were harvested by a witch doctor for ritual sacrifice. Charlie was left for dead but lived and Bob helped prosecute his villain—the first witch doctor ever brought to justice in Uganda. The locals were too afraid of the witch doctors to take action. Charlie and Bob changed this. Pretty incredible.

But you know what’s more incredible? And which makes me know that Bob Goff is the real deal and that when he titles a book EVERYBODY ALWAYS he actually means it?

Check this out: https://lovedoes.org/witchdoctorschoolindex/

His organization now runs a school to help witch doctors gain an education so that they are able to change professions. He helped condemn a witch doctor for his crimes, then turned around and opened a school to rescue others. Who does that?

If the gospel is true, it works for the abused child and the pedophile. It works for the the slain and the murderer. It works for the gang member, the con man, and those who take advantage of the elderly. It works for Skinheads, and it works for you and I.

I’m having a tough time learning to love just the ordinary people in my life. But I have aspirations and dreams of learning to love the really wretched.

When I heard about my friend in jail, I tried really hard to track him down, find where he was serving his time, and go and visit him. But he has a very common first and last name and he wasn’t so easy to find. When we were young, he was convinced that he was an apostate. I wanted to go and tell him that Jesus still loved him.

Maybe Jesus has already found him again. I hope so.

Who are you loving today?

The Truth about New Yorkers

One summer during high school I worked at a little tourist store.  We got visitors from all over the world, but I could always tell when someone from New York walked in.  Without fail, they were loud and assertive and took over the whole atmosphere of the small shop.  Once, upon learning that we didn't have changing rooms, a lady whipped off her shirt, replacing it with one of our T-shirts in one deft move.  I looked at her wryly and remarked, "You're from New York, aren't you?"

I was right.  So when I eventually made "the City" my home I knew what I was getting myself into.  I fully expected New Yorkers to be loud, rude, and confrontational.  And they did not disappoint.  The night I drove my Ford Escort into the city to make New York my home, my friend Jill and I ended up staying at a midtown youth hostel.  On the ground floor there was a deli and I went down to grab a bite to eat.  The menu had a large sandwich section.  In small print, the sandwich section listed items which could be added for a small sub-charge.  Tomatoes were on the list.

Cue the drama.  The cashier tried to charge me extra for tomato on a BLT because of said fine print.  But I was ready for her and didn't back down.  First day and already having to assert myself.  My brothers would tell you that I have never had an issue asserting myself.  To which I would reply, "Yes, because you taught me well!"

As I lived in New York and began to assimilate to the culture--I realized that what others outside interpreted to be rude or assertive or confrontational or abrupt had a logic to it once you lived in a large metropolis.  It was ALL ABOUT TIME.

In New York City you spend so much of your time commuting.  To get anywhere and I mean anywhere, it takes at least an hour.  Most people spent at least 2 hours a day commuting. More if they had friends they wanted to see. One particularly tough winter during blizzard season, I spent 5 hours roundtrip getting to work and back on a daily basis.  5 hours.

Because of the commute factor, everything was about saving time.  Need a newspaper?  Walk into the local bodega, grab a newspaper, walk to the front of the line, put your change down and walk out.  PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE.  Everyone knew how much the paper cost.  No need to wait.  Drop and go.

In a conversation?  Talk fast, get to the point, dispense with the niceties, SAY IT ALREADY. Everyone got it and everyone did it.  Have a beef with someone?  Ain't no one got time for that.  Say your peace, emote at top volume (being passive aggressive or beating around the bush is a precious waste of time!)--get to it so the other party could yell back in real time and then life could go on with no wasted moments.

I remember being back home in Sitka by the Sea, walking down our one and only main street.  People I DID NOT KNOW (and keep in mind a one minute walk took 15-20 minutes because you knew 95% of the people you saw) would dare to look me in the eye and then---GET THIS---smile!  In my head I'm thinking---'Don't they know how rude they're being?  Don't they get how long it takes to stop, look them in the eye and smile back?????!!!?  They are so rude!'

Once you lived with the same time constraints as everyone in the city, what once seemed rude or abrupt you understood to be expedient, thoughtful even.

What I also learned, is that while many New Yorkers seemed tough as nails on the outside (especially the women)--once they knew you were ahright? They would give their right arm for you.

Nothing showed me this clearer than an incident with one of my student's moms.  She was there every afternoon to pick up her daughter.  And complain.  Every day there was something to point out that I was doing wrong.  I was new to teaching, new to the Bronx, and convinced that kindness would conquer all.  I would smile, gently reassure her on whatever the issue of the day was and then slink away wishing she would leave me alone.  

One day her complaint was about popcorn.  I shouldn't give students popcorn.  Her daughter might choke.  Hadn't I thought this through?  Popcorn was the enemy.  I taught 2nd grade.  And I'd had enough.  I looked at her with attitude and belted out, "They are seven.  They are not going to choke.  It will be fine."  You might have thought I parted the Red Sea.  All it took was one act of assertion and everything changed.  From that moment on, she was my biggest fan.  In fact, she began bringing me food on a regular basis and by the end of the year had even cooked lunch for the entire class.  

I might have considered this an aberration, but one of my pastors also told me that the tide shifted in our friendship after I stood up for myself the first time.  There was a certain law of the jungle there that you had to bare your teeth and show yourself unafraid before you'd be accepted into the tribe, but once you did?  They would give you the shirt off their back.

Everything about life in New York is hard.  So once you proved that you had grit and backbone, people had your back.  One of my favorite examples of kindness shown was on a day I was driving home in hazardous snow conditions.  I was on the East Side, getting ready to cross the Queensborough Bridge when my car died and would not restart.  I was on a busy street and there was nothing I could do.  I didn't own a cell phone, so I sat in my car as traffic honked and diverted around me.  I figured a policeman would show up and help me eventually.  

After a few honks, folks around me realized I was in trouble.  Before I knew it, men came running from everywhere, about 6 of them and they asked how they could help.  They pushed my car to a safe place and called a tow truck for me.  One of them had rushed down from a skyscraper when he realized I was stuck.  He gave me his business card and told me I could call upon him if I ever needed help again (Who does this?) New Yorkers do.  That's who.

Another time? A policeman in an unmarked car pulled me over for making an illegal turn.  But as he was writing the ticket, he told me that he had a quota of tickets to fill and that I should show up and contest the ticket.  That he would be sure it didn't stick.  I showed up, nervous as all get out.  He gave no indication whatsoever of remembering me.  When it was my turn, we both stepped up to the judge's window (which was like a bank teller's window).  The police officer told the judge that he had left the summons book with my ticket at home by mistake, and just like that the ticket was thrown out.  A New Yorker helping another New Yorker out.  Just because.

I have lots of New York stories like these which only goes to show that it's easy to misjudge an entire culture if you haven't experienced the culture from the inside.  

Isn't it true that it's also just so easy to judge another person too?  There are so many factors that go into making up who each one of us is.  The way we view time, conflict, and relationships.  How much physical space we need between us to feel safe or to feel connected.  How we value relationships and whether independence or interdependence matters more. 

Some of us look people in the eye to show respect.  Some of us do not give direct eye contact as a show of deference to authority.  Think about that.  COMPLETELY OPPOSITE ACTIONS WITH THE SAME HEART BEHIND BOTH.  No wonder we misjudge one another so easily and so often.

And the list goes on and on.

Martin Luther said it best.  "We are all mere beggars showing other beggars where to find bread."   We're all doing the best we can with what we've been given.  Isn't it time to give one another a break and assume positive intent?

Someday if I'm stuck in the snow, I'd like to think you'd stop and take the time to get me to safety and call a tow truck.  I would hope you would believe the same about me if it happened to you.

And whatever you've read about New Yorkers? The truth is that they are some of the kindest, most genuine, fiercest people you will ever meet.

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Photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash

Uncovered Wisdom

During my second year of teaching, I had 2 boys who kept getting into scuffles.  I asked their mothers to come in, so we could all sit down and resolve matters.  As the moms sat quietly I worked with the boys.  We talked about their anger, problem-solved, and came to a resolution.  I walked out optimistic and feeling accomplished.  

It was one of those teacher-movie moments.  You've seen those teacher movies, right?  Young, naive teacher.  Ghetto.  In one year, said teacher fights against the establishment, employs some new method NO ONE has ever thought of before, saves every child he/she meets, but for some noble reason only stays in the profession a year and rides off into the sunset to a career of writing about education or consulting----because you know, of that one amazing year of success.  In the ghetto.

It was that kind of shining moment I was sure.

The first two years of my career I taught at PS 27x in District 7.  District 7 was the acknowledged worst district in the South Bronx.  Jonathan Kozol, famed education analyst wrote a book about the neighborhood where I taught: "Fort Apache."  He established it as the neighborhood having the highest crime rate in the country and being the absolute poorest congressional district in the US.  I found out several years after leaving PS 27 that it was where they sent students that got kicked out of other elementary schools in the district.  Quite possibly we were the worst school in the worst district of all of New York City.

On the day after my brilliant mediation, my 2 students got into a fistfight yet again.  I took them out to meet their mothers, sure that their parents would set them straight and that we would get past the initial foolishness and onto learning.  It was me who was to learn.

Rather than correcting their respective sons, the two moms got into a fistfight right in front of me!  Mr. Torres, a veteran 4th-grade teacher ran over and got between them, calming them down and sending them home.  The next day he had to do it again!

I learned a few things that day.  

I was young, naive, and green.  I was not going to swoop in and cure all of society's evils.  I couldn't even get two seven-year olds to stop whaling on each other.

Youth bring passion and fresh eyes.  But age and experience bring wisdom, relationship and perhaps most importantly, context.  Those who have gone before know what has been tried before and what the outcome has been.  I tried to bring about resolution.  To my students' and their mom's credit, they let me try.  Mr. Torres stepped in with a reputation already established which gave weight and credibility.  His experience accomplished far more than my beginner's enthusiasm.

I don't much like those inspiring teacher movies.  Anyone can be a hero if they only stay for one year.  The real heroes of the South Bronx? Are the teachers who stayed year after year after year.  Don't get me wrong.  Many of them were colorful characters, and not every one was politically correct or educationally correct by today's standards of teaching practice.  But in a school where there was more wrong than right and teaching conditions were deplorable, the mere fact that they showed up year after year was a lifetime's worth of "acts of service" love.  Those teachers were demonstrations to a generation of kids and families that there are adults worth trusting in and people who could be counted on.

I've been thinking lately about how much I misjudged older generations in my youth.  I didn't know when I was young that the generation right above me didn't have it all figured out yet.  I didn't know that the generation above them probably barely thought of themselves as adults.

I mistook worry and anxiety as control and meanness.  I mistook cautiousness because of life experience (Life experience=getting the snot kicked out of you) to be lack of passion or purpose.  I thought the generations above me had settled and that it was up to my generation to go after what really mattered in life.

As I've gotten older and traveled thru my 30's and 40's, and experienced more in life(Experience=getting the snot kicked out of you), I regret not gleaning more wisdom from those who had traveled the path ahead of me.  I realize now that in each stage of life, I likely went thru the exact stages of some of the adults I had previously judged and fared similarly.  Had I gleaned instead of judged, how much better could my experience have been?

I worry that in American society we no longer value age and wisdom.  I worry that in our desire to be relevant and attractive as the church that we are letting go of placing value on experience that is tried and true.  

My heroes are the saints who have walked with God for years and years and years and stayed faithful to God, the church, and covenant relationships.  It's those who have been stabbed in the back but who keep opening up their heart.  Those who have been mistreated, but still go forth boldly to pour themselves out again.  It's those who when they are struck on one cheek, gracefully and with full knowledge, turn the other.  

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Photo by Carli Jeen on Unsplash

The Power of Community

My life has been marked by exposure to great communities of people.  There's almost nothing I love more in life than the feeling of being unified with a group of like-minded people, even if our common goal is something insignificant, like the pursuit of coffee in the morning.

When I was in junior high, we had a pastor who transformed our church by his love and teaching on worship.  Pastor Bo was a gifted musician, and some of my favorite times were when he took to the piano and led us in songs of high praise.  I came to love the presence of God during those years and I have memories of our youth group snuggled together sitting in the dark worshiping God with everything in us.  We were a tight group, drawn together by songs of the King.

In high school, one of the local youth pastors gathered a city-wide ecumenical youth group together.  With some incredible worship and the help of the Holy Spirit,  a ragtag army of radical Jesus-chasers was formed, and I spent my last 3 years of high school hanging out with this strange mix of popular kids, leaders, newly saved druggies, outcasts, and nerds who were learning to follow Jesus.  We could not have been more different truly, but somehow being wrecked by God was all the glue we needed to keep the fellowship going.

Because of my time in these God-chasing communities of my youth I entered adulthood having communed with God at a deep level.  I knew what it was like to hear His voice and I knew what it was like to fast for a week with my friends fasting beside me.  I had asked the Holy Spirit to teach me how to pray and HE DID.  These experiences came from being around others and likely would not have happened without their direct influence.

While I have no doubt that God is big enough to have "grown me up" on His own, I think he rarely chooses to develop His people in isolation.  

In the sport of Crossfit, everyone does the same workout called a WOD which stands for Workout Of the Day.  You are competing against yourself to do your best time, and your best reps, but doing it with people around forces you to work a little harder, push a little longer and ultimately perform better than you would if you were at home by yourself doing the same workout. 

Being in community does the same thing for us spiritually.  We spur one another on to good works.  We check each other when our egos get too big, or our victim mentalities overtake our better sense.  And when the weight we are trying to lift is too heavy, our brothers and sisters can spot us and lift the weight off of us until we can bear it on our own.

I tend to idealize community.  I know it.  Because living life in community honestly is tough work.  Living in community and staying put when others leave, or (sometimes even worse) STAY! is tough.  We hurt each other often as much as we help each other.  For each member who feels smack dab in the middle of the group and loved and nestled in, there's someone else feeling on the fringes and left out.  There are varying levels of influence and status and ever shifting loyalties.  Relationships--true ones anyway---are messy.  So a whole network of relationships are messy too.

But man when those Kum Bah Yah moments come; in moments of celebration, in moments of awe and wonder; when the larger family is gathered around the table and all the hearts in the room beat as one? WHAT IS BETTER THAN THAT?

I can't think of much else.

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Photo by James Baldwin on Unsplash

Mr. Burns

Today I live in Vancouver, Washington.  This is not by accident.  Every summer for 15 years in a row, my family journeyed from Sitka, Alaska to Vancouver, Washington--taking the ferry to Prince Rupert, and then continuing on by station wagon for over 1,000 miles.  My grandparents on my mom's side lived in Vancouver, and our yearly treks and visits there was the stuff of anticipation, tradition, and warm family memories.  We stayed in the same hotel in Prince Rupert every year which was right across from a playground and which had a big Indian in front of it.  We always ate at the Imperial Palace and I waited all year to order my favorite treat in the world, a Marshmallow Sundae.  I was convinced that this Chinese restaurant was the only place in the world where such a wondrous thing could be found because I never did manage to find it anywhere else.

My grandparents' home was almost magical to me and summers there were bursting with things we didn't experience at home in Alaska.  In those days, shipping to Alaska was tough and we grew up drinking milk that you add to add water to which was grainy and coarse. When milk is a luxury, there were just certain items that we only tasted once a year, like cantaloupe.  To this day, I can't eat it without thinking of my grandma and how she would cut each slice into bite-sized chunks for me to eat off of the strip.  My grandma's basement was a treasure hunt; it was filled with boxes of wonderful things, and we were indulged and free to open them to our heart's content.  My brothers and I poured over old books---trying our hand at math problems from ancient textbooks, and my mom would read us poems from old poetry books.  I came to love "Lil' Orphan Annie" and "The Raggedy Man" this way.  My grandparent's yard was really our summer living room.  My grandpa made us kids our own mini-table out of a spool and chairs out of smaller spools, all painted and topped with wallpaper.  He made us a limbo pole which could be raised and lowered and we played limbo as a family for hours.  We had races, we played in the sprinkler---even taking things to the compost heap was magical because it was novel.

Besides my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins---we also had ongoing relationships with neighbor kids and neighbor adults.  My brothers and I spent many nights playing cribbage and rummy with an elderly couple across the street named Stub & Helen.  And once a summer, Helen would walk me over to visit with dear old Mr. Burns.

Going to visit Mr. Burns was one of the highlights of my year.  Mr. Burns was ancient and wise and kind.  He may have been the nicest adult I had ever known.  Mr. Burns would always walk me to his backyard where he had a pond with a fountain and all kinds of goldfish.  We would look at them and talk.  Mr. Burns would show me magic tricks and Mr. Burns would ask me all about myself.  He spoke slowly and thoughtfully, and he made me feel like the whole world had stopped.  When I stepped into his world, everything became about me.  For an hour once a year, it was like all the light in the room found me and hovered overhead warming me.  I never felt so interesting, or so important or so good as when I was with Mr. Burns.  

It's funny how things strike us as a child.  The delights of summer were many--hours of ice skating, exploring bookstores at the mall on my own, ice cream trucks, swimming in my cousins' pool, and on and on.  Yet one of the most significant and noteworthy is the hour I spent once a year with a senior citizen.  I felt cherished and happy down to my toes in his presence.  

We never know how our lives affect the lives of the children we spend time with.  We could be their beacon of hope in a world filled with pain.  Or we might be the person who feels MOST interested in them by virtue of only seeing them once in a great while, but by being fully present when we do.

I believe every emotionally-healthy adult should be intentional about loving specific children around them (in addition to their own).  It takes so little to make an impact which can cause ripples of blessing for a lifetime.  Whose child are you sowing into?  When's the last time you bragged on a child to their parents or had a conversation with a child that lasted longer than 5 minutes where you did all the listening? 

 Mr. Burns made me feel seen.  Oh that our children would have many like him in their lives.

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Photo by Shirley Truitt