Violation

Two weeks ago, we got served.  After being in our neighborhood for nearly five years, we received our second grievance during such time.  Our neighborhood has an association with rules and regulations which, if not obeyed, will result in such grievances being filed.  Both times we've received our notifications, it was for the same thing, weeds and lack of mulch.

The first time we got our notification, we had been in our house for less than a year.  My wife had just given birth to our second child and I had started seminary three months earlier.  Thankfully, some friends from church had come over to put an, "It's a boy!" balloon on our mailbox, clueing in everyone around us that we had a few things happening in our lives at the time.

Last year, in the midst of everything happening with my mom, the weeds began to pile up again.  A true friend from church came over and donated her time to rid our landscaped area of the weeds that had overcome it.  I was so grateful.  There was no way that I was going to find time to weed and mulch in the midst of all of that.  I wasn't even able to cut my lawn and was also grateful when someone donated some grass cutting to us until the end of the summer.

The funny thing is, I now have a reputation in my church for the weeds in my landscape beds.  Justified or not, I find great humor in it.  I am sure that there are people who don't find it as funny, but the way that I have always looked at it is that if I have the choice between weeding and making things pretty or spending time with my family doing something a little more meaningful, I'll choose my family every time.  The nice thing is that my kids are getting old enough now where they can actually be one in the same, the weeding and mulching can be a great bonding experience for our family.

And that's just what it was the other day.  I had mulch delivered, expecting a fairly decent week weather-wise.  I was greatly disappointed when the weather hardly cooperated, raining just about every day from the point that the mulch was delivered until it was actually laid.  As I continued looking at my windows at the rain, I tried to estimate the extra weight of the mulch as it became more and more saturated.

I finally realized that my time window was running out and I planned on getting home from work a little early so as to jump into the project.  My neighbors had some wheel barrows that they told me I could borrow, so I went over there to grab them and their boys started getting their stuff already to come help me.  They brought the wheel barrows and pitchforks to move the mulch, they started diligently to work as I began the arduous task of moving 8 yards of mulch.

The boys recruited another neighborhood girl and my youngest son and made an assembly line of sorts.  The system was pretty efficient, other than the fact that I was the only one actually spreading the mulch.  Before I knew it, the skies began to darken and the rain came.  At first, it was slow, but eventually, the skies opened up and I thought someone was standing above me with buckets of water, just pouring them over my head.

In a matter of hours, we have moved at least five of the eight yards.  Everyone began to retire for the evening and I wonder whether or not I would even be able to move the next day.  It's been a while since I had exerted myself to that extent.  I knew I still had two to three yards to move, but I was pretty proud of what I had accomplished.

As I thought about the whole situation, I was struck by a few different things.  First of all, someone had driven by my house, at some point, and noticed the weeds.  It annoyed them enough that they wanted something done about it, but they bypassed relationship to go for the "quick fix."  Instead of ringing our doorbell to see if everything was all right, they did the easy thing: they made a phone call and complained.  I guess ringing the doorbell would have taken too much time and it might have required them to actually give of themselves.  They might have had to pretend that they cared.

On the flipside of that was my neighbors.  They offered their help to us simply because they cared.  They weren't looking for anything, they hadn't complained about the weeds, if they had, they most likely would have called or rang the doorbell.  They just wanted to help out and lend a hand however they could.

Life moves too fast not to slow down and take notice of things once in a while.  Next time you see something and want to complain, maybe you should take the time to ask what else is going on beneath the surface.  If you take the time, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.  You might find that you have a lot to offer someone who has little.  You might find that someone just needed someone else to talk to.  You might find that taking the time leads to a long-lasting friendship and someone who has your back.  It's easy to look at the surface and make our own presumptions.  We could all stand to take the time to dig a little deeper to find out what's below the surface.  Who knows, we just might learn something and our lives might just be a little more relationally rich than they were before.

In My Place

As I get older and grow in my faith, I see my sensitivity growing a little bit more each day.  Dogmatism is something that I have fought since I was in college.  While there are certainly times when dogmatism may be warranted, it’s such a dangerous thing to enter into relationships with others, especially those who might disagree with our worldview and ideology.  Over time, I have learned that it’s incredibly important to step back from a situation to objectively (as much as is possible) assess that situation.

One of the first times that I noticed this need was right after college.  I was hanging out with some friends that I had met through a church group and there was one guy who had a tendency to be a little unhinged at times.  He was a little wild, a little renegade, and it made some people uncomfortable.  Some of my friends were quick to write him off, but inside of me, there was a nagging feeling that there was a lot more to this guy than what I could see on the surface.

As I engaged in some deeper conversations with this guy, I could see some of his past hurt coming out.  It seemed to me that some of the actions that people were critical of were a result of some of that past hurt, but nobody had really dug deep enough to discover that.  I was humbled and ashamed that I had started to write the guy off just like everyone else.  I secretly vowed that I would do my best to take a step back as often as necessary to do my best to understand people.

Years later, I am certainly not perfect at it.  I probably fail to do it as often as I succeed, but I’m trying.  My wife has the gift of empathy, which I actually told her the other day to let go of when dealing with a specific situation.  But she can probably tell me more often than not that I need to embrace a little bit more empathy.

Everyone has a story and it’s rare that those stories don’t impact the way people act and react in life situations.  I can’t tell you the number of times that I encountered a strong reaction from someone that was tied to some life situation that the person was in the midst of or had just encountered.  The wisdom comes in taking that step back to be able to ask the right questions.  When I’ve done it, I’ve not been disappointed.  Those stories frame the reaction and help me to better understand that a person doesn’t have it out for me and that they aren’t trying to disrespect me, they just have a lot going on in their life and they need help and support to guide and lead them through it.

Like I said, this is not an easy thing, at least it hasn’t been easy for me.  I am always hungry for action and it can get me into trouble at times.  The need to stop, ask, listen, and assess is so prevalent because most people just don’t air their feelings out.  There is an irony in the fact that in an attempt to hide feelings, people actually begin to allow those feelings to guide and direct the way they act, often unintentionally.

A friend has reminded me many times that all of us who preach basically have one sermon that we will preach our entire lives.  There is one thing that we are passionate about that will come through in every sermon, every conversation, and every blog post in our lives.  Mine is about relationships and the need for them in our lives.  When people know who we are and know what’s going on in our lives, they’re so much more apt to extend grace to us.  If we choose to live shallowly throughout all of our relationships in life, we shouldn’t be surprised when people take us at face value every time.  While face value can be a good and safe way to live, it rarely tells us the truth about people.

Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.”  I have seen this play out over and over again.  May we live as people of understanding, being willing to dig deeper below the surface to see the purposes of those with whom we are in relationship.  It’s not always easy and safe, but the results are priceless. 

Reflections in the Silence

A close friend of my wife and mine commented recently that she was concerned about me based upon my lack of responsiveness in social media settings. I chuckled to myself over the fact that I had obviously set some of precedence for my activity in social media settings. Then I assured this friend that I was okay, just fully weighed down with responsibilities and activities. I assured her that there was nothing to worry about.

In fact, what has appeared as silence to those who have not heard from me is actually just temperance and self-control. I have started and scrapped a number of blog posts that would probably have landed me in hot water with someone. I took the opportunity to actually write them out because I knew that part of the purpose was for my own well-being, venting to no one in particular about certain things that have been happening in my life.

As I have grown older, I have learned more about the value of words. Talk is cheap and words get thrown around too easily. I have learned the importance of listening and the greater importance of keeping my mouth shut when opening it achieves nothing of value.

I still believe that it's important to speak up when I have something to say, especially when I choose to stand up for something, there are certain contexts that are better than others for that. Certain issues are way too volatile to actually think that opening up about them in public forums on social media will be interpreted correctly and without misunderstanding. Each and every one of us interprets things from our own context with our own lens and regardless how clear the communication, there is always potential for misunderstanding and social media doesn't allow for a simple and easy way to work through those misunderstandings in a very conducive way.

I had an experience a few weeks ago where I sent out an email to a friend. While I did my best to express positive things within the context of that email, I realized that the issue that was being raised was far too important to have assumed that a simple email would effectively communicate my intentions. This led to a misunderstanding and some hurt, which led to a meeting, which led to a great time of conversation and "airing out" of some issues. If I had only requested a meeting in the beginning, I could have saved some hurt and misunderstanding as well as all of the steps in between.

Communication is a challenge. We need to not only understand the various means and methods of communication, but we also need to understand how certain people respond to these certain means and methods. There are some people that I can write very direct emails to without any kind of pleasantries or greetings whatsoever without fear of offense. There are others who take that as me being short and impatient, and if I really stop and think about it, it probably is me being short and impatient.

Communication takes time. We can get things done without communication, but our effectiveness will be reduced because of the lack of relationships that are being fostered. If people think that we are simply goal-focused and don't care about relationships, their attitude towards us will be fairly evident and our impact on them will be evident as well. We may get things done, but how much respect will we get from people.

So, in the past few days, I've been reevaluating things a little bit. I've had to schedule some appointments with people to make right things that I've neglected. I need to focus more on relationships than I've been doing. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes me away from getting things done that some might see as "more important," but in the end, I think everyone will be better for it.

The piles of stuff will still be on my desk tomorrow and probably the day after that, but I'm not always sure that the people who I lead will be there. I'd rather have piles on my desk knowing that my relationships are good than to have an empty desk with uncertainty in my relationships.

So if I seem silent, chances are, there's a good reason for it. Silence has actually saved me time and time again, I think we could all do with a little bit more of it in our lives. Try it, you might like it, and if you're lucky, you'll learn something in the process.

Friends

I meet with a group of guys on Thursday mornings at Panera and we have been going through a book called “The Disciplines of a Godly Man.” The latest chapter was on friends and used the example of Jonathan and David. My mom always used to tell me the story of Jonathan and David from the Bible and tell me that that was where my name came from. She even had a little 45 record with a song called “Jonathan” on it that she would play for me growing up.

As we talked about friends this morning, I really got to thinking about all of the friends that I have in my life. I have been blessed with some great friends who I have known for years. There have also been some others who have felt like old friends even after only a few months or years together. These kinds of friends are invaluable and I can’t even begin to say what they mean to me.

When I was younger and more stupid than I am today, back in my 20s, I actually had the notion that I would stop making friends. I argued that Jesus hung out with 12 friends and only considered 3 of them to be really close. If he could do it, so could I. Of course, it’s never a good thing to justify your stupidity with the Bible…but people do it every day, unfortunately. I announced to my friends that they were among the elite because I would no longer be taking applications for friendship in the “Jon Club.”

Looking back at it, I’m pretty ashamed that I would even have thought those kinds of things. Some of the greatest and most reliable friends that I have were made after my declaration. Thank God that I didn’t follow through with my “brilliant” idea.

As I thought about close friends this morning, there were 5 people that came to my mind. All of them have been there for me in crucial times in my life. Some have rescued me from situations that I had gotten myself into. Some stuck of for me when others were coming down on me. Some were shoulders to cry on. Some offered incredible wisdom, advice, and support in the midst of some very difficult situations in my life. For these 5 men, I am grateful.

I am a fairly introspective person, so ponderings like this can be dangerous for me. As I began to think about these 5 friends, I began to wonder if I have been there for them in the ways that they have been there for me. I would like to think that I have, but I’m not sure.

The thing about good friends is that they don’t keep score. Really true friends are not ones who keep a tally sheet to make sure that they have been getting as much as they have been giving. While they don’t act as doormats, they certainly don’t nitpick about whether they’re being cared for unless there really is an issue.

Good friends are the kinds that you can go for longer periods without talking to and the next time you talk, it feels like no time has passed since the last time. While I regret that I can’t talk to my close friends as often as I would like, I appreciate the fact that they aren’t “high maintenance.”

As much as I keep telling myself that it’s a stage of life, this busy season that I am tangled in, I have to be careful not to use that as an excuse. As rare as friends like these are, friendships are like anything else that grows, they need cultivation, love, and care. While life has a way of getting busy, for everyone, it’s important to take time to appreciate the ones that mean so much to us. Most of us can probably name a few of them.

I’m gonna do my best to let these friends know how much they mean to me. Maybe today is the day that you take the time to remember who it is in your life that you appreciate the most, and let them know. True friendships don’t form in a day, but once they’re formed, they last a lifetime. Who are you thankful for today?