what you really say.

1

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 7:22 AM Posted by i am guy

Truth holds a value forever deeper than words. 
Words are a vehicle that both carry and hold truth. 

It is quite simple.  When we do not tell the truth, we lie.  Truth is not a complexity that must be judged, evaluated or measured.  It plainly and very absolutely is what it is.  We lie when we do not speak truth.  No matter how convenient or polite or thoughtful it may be to not tell the truth, if it is anything other than what is real or honest, it will always be a lie.

“How do I look?”

Relationships can only really exist when they are held by truthfulness and honesty.  Without truth, relationships cannot evolve.  In fact, relationships that exist with holes maintained, not only remain immature and anemic, but dissolve and crumble.  Truth is an accurate measuring depth of health, direction and growth of every intimate relationship.  Without honesty and truth, all you have is a loosening association.

What you really say when you do not tell the truth is that I do not matter as much as you do.  No relationship can suffer such a blow, especially repeatedly.  Over time, it is small, convenient untruths, lies, that cause much more harm to relationships than isolated ones that are corrected.  A person who is repeatedly lied to will struggle with having to determine if what is being spoken is truth or not.  Distracted with having to validate and confirm truth, the relationship suffers.  When we lie and pass it for truth, we begin to redefine what truth actually means.  Truth and honesty become something a bit more ambiguous and reconfigurable when we need it to be.  What we really say is that we are very honest only when it is good for us to be.  Otherwise, in tough and straining situations, there is a good chance we are not telling the truth. 
At least not completely.

And what is truth if it is not true?   

Truth is better than gold to me.  Without it, there is nothing to hold two people together meaningfully.  With it, relationships are indescribably beautiful, immeasurably strong and forever valuable.

As best as I can and in all situations, I am striving to be honest consistently and thoroughly.  Truth is, I am only as good in relationships as what I really say.  If the cumulative total of your words is a trail of half truths and conveniently positioned words, then you will always lack deep connection.

Truth is a lesson that I am continually trying my best to stay fully committed to.  By doing so, I will be able to teach it accurately to my daughters.  That is my ultimate secondary goal.  One day, they will be committing themselves to relationships.  I want them to be identified as trustworthy.  In teaching them to be honest now, I will be giving them the gift and ability of being able to establish healthy, quality relationships that they are secure in, not always protecting, proving, reshaping and trying to hold together.

no. 3:.hope

1

Thursday, November 24, 2011 1:48 AM Posted by i am guy

Hope raises men from the ashes and the lonely depths of missteps and defeat.  Like a rope thrown out to a drifter overboard and under-lucked, pulled by waves in the direction of lost, hope is a way back. 

Hope is a voice calling amidst all that is perverse and befouled to a heart, mine, graffiti-ed with accusations against a Protector who did not defend me against all that opposed and did not answer when I called.  Left to politely violent, disruptive little violators of sleep and sanity, untrustworthy and unrelenting, damnable lies picking at the little that did remain like vultures craving the death of the defenseless, wounded carnage that was once a life together, now broken dreams undone.  That is how hope found me, shuffling around in the ashes of the life I once knew just the other day.  It was a sure voice guiding me back to life and safety.

I think of hope as a continual rescuing, a safe harbor always open and just within distance.

Hope is the deep breath taken when life gets a little heavier than normal, whatever it is that normal exactly means now.  Tomorrow and the life ahead is brighter, warmer and inviting because today, right in this moment when things do not always set easily and during those days inexplicably more difficult than others, hope has lifted me.  I have drowned a thousand times in seas too stormy to survive.  Each time, it is hope that has revived me when my grasp on life has loosened.

And what reason generates such a capable and certain hope?

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.  When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.  With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”  
 Psalm 91:1, 15-16, ESV

It is nothing and no other but He who provides such a surety of hope.  God of the beginning and of the end is plenty capable to sustain all that happens and goes awry in the middle.

I am deeply thankful for the hope that He has implanted and continues to nourish within my heart and in each day no matter the condition and circumstance.  Hope is a reality invading, overcoming and replacing all that seems forever foggy and dismal.  It is God’s reality of redemption and goodness that no matter how far-fetched and good it can seem at times faithfully lifts me up.


For your contemplation and thinking on this Thanksgiving day...

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
Psalm 95, ESV

no. 2:.love

0

Wednesday, November 23, 2011 8:32 AM Posted by i am guy


Love finds us.

A person can love all they want with fidelity and steadiness, and yet, still not sink into the full warmth of love’s embrace.  Like an actor playing a part for no one watching or a poet writing words that are not being read, love only leaving you and not returning lacks the fullness of its experience and intention.  I was loved once for no other reason than her choosing, and it unlocked places within my heart that I had never known were even there, or locked, for that matter.  Love finds us.

My face could not adjust from the smile stubbornly remaining.  My hands full of the weight of a life so perfectly given.  My heart leaped and collapsed and grew stronger and clearer the moment I held each of my new born daughters for the first time.  All three experiences were very different and unique, fitting for their beautiful arrivals into the world and our lives.  I loved them before I knew them.  And now, their lives respond to my love given.  Much like a well watered plant, they grow healthily.  Love finds us.

Love both given and received, by us and to us, is but a hint, a whisper telling and revealing the basis of life, humanity and all that we know: love.  Time begun.  Life created.  Sin interrupted.  Love redeeming.

I am thankful for having every reason to love, but for being loved also.

Love finds us.






Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. 
This is the true self.  Every other identity is illusion. 
~ Brennan Manning

no. 1:.death

3

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 12:25 AM Posted by i am guy

We all grow up.  Then we die.

Just as day overcomes the darkness of night only to fade leaving no sign, not even a glimmer, life miraculously is and then, it is no more.

That’s how I used to think about death and the space between now and then. 

I am a middle child who grew up as an oldest but seemingly never forgot that I was in the middle.  My older brother, who in his time stood taller than me and owned my affection, lived a relatively short life.  But that was so long ago.  A lifetime ago.  I was really young.  Five.  Much of the details about his illness escape me.  There is not a day, however, that I forget that he died.  I have three lasting memories about my brother, Colby: repeated trips to St. Jude’s in Memphis, playing with our Star Wars figurines in our bedroom closet and playing in the back yard on a wood stack.  That’s it. 

Well, I do have a final thought.  Standing next to the hearse as they put his body into it.  It was raining that day, or at least it felt like it.  I wanted only to escape that day and for things to be different.  My dad’s heavy, able hand resting on my chest as I stood as tall as I could in front of him.  I was five years old and did not fully understand why I was crying, but I do remember a deep loss settle within my heart, and a fear.

In the twenty eight years following, I found so much life.  Just as the warmth and beauty of a new day can cause you to forget haunting dreams that reside in the night, life and all of its goodness can effectively distance you from the crisis of tragedy and death.  All is mostly good during the day.  In fact, most is great.  Life was amazing for us.  Then unannounced and unwanted day slipped into night.  Death arrived, again.

Night returns.  The day fades no matter how certain things seem.

I can remember being in such a fog for most of the year following Marianne’s death.  A mother and a wife gone with no sign, no good reason and no meaningful explanation.  Just no more.

Death took so much for me.  Reason.  Faith.  Trust.  Hope.  Breath.

Inadvertently, and maybe even gracefully, death also took fear from me.  Death has become a friend teaching me value; what to hold tightly and what to let loose.  In a peculiar way, that is a little unsettling at times, I am thankful. 

For without night, there would be no hope or expectation in a new day.  Death reminds me that life is full and that I have much, so much, to be thankful for.

mountain biking, sex and the truth about love.

4

Saturday, November 19, 2011 12:07 AM Posted by i am guy

We were half way through the ride, my first time on a mountain bike in well over eight years.  At the top of a drop off apparently known as the ‘piss and scream’, I contemplated several things that contributed to my safety and well-being.  For starters, I had not been on a mountain bike trail in over eight years.  My sense of balance and instinct on my bike lacked a certain crispness and confidence necessary for sharp corners and fast transitioning terrain.  Of equal importance was the fact that my bike had not been tuned up or adjusted since the day I bought it, close to ten years earlier.  In the more challenging parts of the ten mile trail, I could tell that my bike was as out of shape as I was.  The brakes didn’t really bite or respond the way I needed them to, the gears kept skipping and my seat was positioned too high.  All of these issues caused me to lack confidence on the trail, but this drop off was one of the more challenging and intimidating parts of the trail.  Standing at the top, looking over my handle bars, the drop appeared to be only slightly more horizontal than a straight vertical drop.  I estimated it to be at least 20 foot change in elevation from top to bottom.  What made that part of the trail even more intimidating was the fact that as soon as you hit the bottom with ridiculous speed, you had to brake slightly to make the right 90 degree turn through two trees a tad bit wider than standard handle bar width.

In a moment of delirium and testosterone, I closed my eyes for a second, white-knuckled my handle bars and just went for it.  Honestly, I probably wasn’t experienced enough to attempt any technical parts of the trail especially this part.  I opened my eyes half way down in just enough time to adjust for the turn at the bottom, nicking my right elbow on one of the trees.  I did it.  I just went for it and gave it all of my effort in that moment.

The first few words that came out of my mouth in response to Elizabeth’s question, “Is S-E-X a bad thing?”, felt a lot like just going for it on the trail that day.  It was one of the most intimidating moments I have ever experienced as a dad.

Here’s a truth I learned: effort most often displaces experience.

I asked her what she knew and understood sex to be.

“Making out and sleeping in bed.”

That was plenty enough to tell me that the topic of sex was discussed in conversation with friends and classmates.  Right then and there, I knew that not only did I need to try to find an answer for her question, but more importantly I needed to set right the reality of what sex is all about.  It was a golden opportunity.

I could see her more fully attentive as I told her that sex was not a bad thing at all.  In fact, sex is a very good thing that is experienced between a man and a woman who make a promise and a commitment to be husband and wife forever.  “That’s what God intended sex to be.  Something very intimate shared between two people who blend their lives together, forever.  After all, where do you think you came from?”
 
“So, a husband and a wife sleep together and that’s sex?”
“Uh, well...yeah.”

I figured this is as much as she needs to know at this point.  The details can come as she gets a little older.

In that conversation, I realized something and became very resolute and passionate about it.  If I do not have this talk, then I will forfeit the opportunity to score truth in her life and establish a good foundation in my daughter’s heart.  If I don’t speak up, then someone else will.  The last thing I want is for someone else to speak into her life in this area. 

Dads, I believe completely that it is exactly us who should be the voice speaking to the truth of love and relationships in our daughters’ lives.  This includes the uncomfortable talk about S-E-X.  I have no choice in the matter, and neither do they.  My girls do not have their mom anymore.  They only have me.  And it’s a good thing because I am the most perfect person on this planet to be the one to establish how love is defined in their lives.  Dads, even though your situation may be different from mine, you should not abandon this talk to her mom.  A daughter needs their daddy more than ever as they grow older, not less.  Traditionally, the tendency is for the dad to become more distant as his little girl who liked to wrestle and follow him around begins to develop and mature into a young woman.  But this is when daughters need their daddy the most to love them, accept them and being just as involved helping them navigate through the changes, as they develop into young women.

You do not need to have all the answers.  You really do not even need to have a single discernible answer as much as you must have an open, accepting heart that is engaged in their lives as it changes.  And dads, think about it like this: if you do not establish your daughter’s definition and idea of love, someone else will.  The last person I want establishing love in any of my daughters’ lives and being the non-discriminant open arms to them is some sensationally and hormonally driven, pimple raging boy who is ‘there’ for them.

To this end, I’ll fore-go experience and give that conversation all the effort I’ve got to see that love is defined by my willingness to go wherever they need me to go in conversation and always expect my arms to be open to them as they find their way in life.  One emotional day, I will give each of my daughters away to a man each of their choosing.  I can do more than only hope he is good. 

By defining love and establishing the idea of sex as something really good and intimate shared between two people who commit their lives together, I can almost create the man that they will identify and notice in the future.  I do not want them falling into the arms of someone who happens to be available.  He will be the one.  And I will have done my job.

sex is good.

5

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 1:23 AM Posted by i am guy

No conversation ever intimidated and scared me as much as the thought of having a coherent dialogue with my daughters one day about sex.  My anticipation of that dreaded conversation some day in the future is one of imploding words and nervous sweating and dumb vocabulary.  Lots of uhhh’s, ummm’s and well, you see’s.  Being a daddy to three daughters, I simply always imagined me taking a backseat in this conversation.  I consigned that to an intimate conversation between mother and daughter. 

The classic image of father being the strong arms that work hard to hold and support the family, to be the strength in the background insuring that all would be okay and the benefactor to the family and all pursuits in life, was a predominate image in my perspective.  That is the way life was largely modeled to me.  Mom comforts and consoles.  Dad protects and develops character.

Now, learning how to be a single parent means learning how to parent all over again.  It means that I do not have the room to only be dad.  I have to be parent to my three little daughters.  This has been quite a learning curve by the way.  Most days, I am off to a good start if I leave the house fully matching.  My co-workers find it amusing that I wear plaid shirts virtually everyday.  It is a strategy more than a fashion statement. 

After all, doesn’t plaid go with everything?  

Although my company does not enforce a particularly specific dress code or require uniforms, I adhere to a steady fashion pattern of plaid and khaki.  The sheer brilliance of plaid is that somewhere in the pattern you’re bound to find a color that possesses matching quality.  You should know that I am only halfway kidding here.  Luckily, my girls understand basic color matching far better than I do.

New to the context of a single parent family, there is much that I am having to learn that goes far beyond learning how to cook, clean and somehow deal and empathize with the continual stream of emotions my daughters so intrinsically exude.  It is tiring, overwhelming and intimidating.  But honestly, I love it. 

More than the challenge, I love that my daughters seem to be okay with it and safe with me leading them.  Blindly most of the times, but nevertheless, leading them.

And so, Sunday evening whilst enjoying a cool evening and relaxing dinner on the patio of a restaurant chosen by my eldest, Elizabeth, I blindly fell into a trap, my most dreaded conversation. 

“Hey dad,...”
“Yeah?”
She slowly moved her food around pointlessly on her plate as if still contemplating her words and how she was going to use them.
“What’s up, sweetheart?  What were you going to say?” I asked only half dialed in to her  upcoming question. 

“Is S-E-X a bad thing?”
“Whhhat?”“You know S-E-X, is it bad?  What is it?” she said with a measured hush as she leaned in closer toward me.
"Uhhhh...well, you see...ummm..."

My first reaction was diversion.  Anything but engagement in this conversation with my nine year old daughter.  All of the classic images of a befuddled dad stuttering through terms, making up replacement words and creating softer realities that may or may not include a stork, filled my head instantly.  I was caught off guard with no prep time. 

For the first time, me as a dad was empowered by me as a parent and a conversation is what we had. 

We talked for nearly a half hour about sex.  She asked questions, shared things she’s heard from others and listened.  By no means is Elizabeth fully aware having a completely comprehensive knowledge about sex, but she understands the basics.  As much, I imagine, as a nine year old should know.  The biggest smile of the conversation was when I said, “Sex is a good thing.  A really good thing created by God.”  She didn’t ask much about that statement...just smiled.  By conversation’s end, Elizabeth quieted, smiled softly and said, “I think I get it.  Thanks, Dad.”  Then she got up and went to the restroom.  As I watched her walk away, I exhaled with full relief knowing that somehow and in some notable way to her, she got it and she got it from a conversation with me.

I don’t recall how many uhhh’s and ummm’s I used in our conversation, but when the dust settled, real words were shared between us, truth and purity was positioned strongly in her heart and something of lasting value was established that will carry Elizabeth for the rest of her life.

I’ll write more about that in the next post this week...

BULLS@#$!!!

2

Thursday, November 10, 2011 7:36 AM Posted by i am guy


Casually we drove into town talking about the day.  What they like and don’t like about school, the upcoming weekend and all of the plans that they hope to make, and always, I ask about their friends.  Who they hang out with remains pretty consistent.  Every once in a while, I hear a new name in their recall of the school day.  I like to know what their little school crew is all about because it tells me quite a bit about who my kids are at school and how they are shaping within their culture.  I look at our home as the lab and times with their friends and at school as trial runs.  So our conversations tell me as much about them and who they are surrounded with as they do about me as a parent.

This particular afternoon was no different.  We were phasing in a out of conversation about the day passed and random jokes. 

Without warning or even proper context, Emily shouted out in full giggle mode, “BULLS@#$!!” 

There was no forewarning or even reason for her to use this word.  Half of the car suddenly halted to a horrifying silence.  Me and Elizabeth, my oldest daughter, instantly looked at each other dazed and completely taken off guard.

Instinctively, I snapped at her over the giggles and chatter and song on the radio with full parental serious tone.  “Don’t you EVER say that!!!” 

Then Emily and Chloe, the other half of the car, stunned and a bit confused, instantly quieted to a silence found only by fear.  Emily’s face said it all.  She was embarrassed and guilty.  I could tell in her eyes she didn’t know quite why. 

She simply picked up a social cue from someone she observed using the same word and innocently, with her normal jovial-ness, decided to insert the expletive into our conversation.  Elizabeth knew that it was an inappropriate word, but neither of the girls were directly affected by what Emily said.  That is, until I exploded in response.  Then the girls were quiet and all a bit confused.

At best, it was an overreaction; worst, it was a shallow teaching.

As a parent, there is an irrefutable importance to the world that I set in place in my daughters’ lives, their definition of all things of lasting importance, perspective and the sense of right and wrong.  As crucial, is not allowing their environments to misshape and malign them.  Those conversations and interactions that they are involved in throughout the day gives constant opportunity to the values of others to affect my daughters’ shaping lives.  If I am not at least equally constant in modeling and teaching them, they will, in turn, be a result of all and any other influence but mine.

I think the tendency is to assume that things will naturally fall into place and kids will find their way.  This is definitely not so.  Kids learn what they are taught by who teaches them.

And so my teaching in the moment Emily somewhat innocently interjected, “BULLS@#$!!”, into our conversation was shallow in that I reacted to her from a level really beyond what she understood.  Her initial takeaway was that conversation with me is not entirely and always safe, that if she says the wrong thing out of context, she will be scolded and ashamed. 

I learned that knowledge should never be lorded over them, but rather, they should be invited to understand, not simply blindly obey rules beyond them.  That is shallow and incomplete parenting.  It took my overreaction and the ashamed look on her face to teach me this.  A simple, “Sweetie, that’s not an appropriate word,” would’ve sufficed.  

Thankfully that simple response from me came a bit later.  It put the pieces of her back together, the ones that I scattered with my instant overreaction and taught me how to parent more proactively and consistently. 

leaving and lying.

1

Sunday, November 6, 2011 1:58 PM Posted by i am guy

Sitting here at terminal D, which will end up being the wrong terminal by the way, I’m thinking about the morning that I just left behind.  A conversation of stern words and hard warnings, truth and lying and of course, tears all before 9am. 

Truth is a rather relative value these days.  One that is bent upon the teller’s perception of events and details or protection of reputation and freedom.  Under our roof, I try to keep things clear and simple: lie and loose freedom.  If the value of truth is allowed to be shaped and maligned by ambiguities or half truths, then the value is cheapened.  In turn, truth becomes something else besides what is actual and real.  What may be perceived as truth is, in fact, on some level a lie. 

Truth in any other form or spun in any other fashion is not the truth.  It is indeed a lie.

Through her tears, my strong words did little.  She cried which melts me, but she lied.  That infuriates me.  Honestly, there is little else that I despise more than lying or being misled.  As a parent, I demand honesty.  I’m not sure if demand is too strong of a word, but there has to be the highest value in relationships if they are to deepen and last.  We have to exist in honest relationship.  I have to teach them the value of honesty.  When my kids lie, it is a slap in my face.  At least, that’s how I take it. 

Why in the world would they imagine that they can get a lie past me? 
I get that they are children and that their concept of truth is not fully shaped, but when they lie, it reduces my automatic trust with them. 
If they lie at times, how often are they actually telling me the truth?

Now, I’m sitting here at terminal A after sprinting through the airport in classic dramatic movie speed and fashion and jumping the train that took me to what was my correct gate in the first place.  And now, I am eating lunch right next to my adjusted gate because I missed my flight.  As I was pushing through the crowds of people who apparently are not in any sort of hurry to get to their gate destination, I received a call from one of my team members.

“Hey, where are you?  We’re boarding the plane and they’re about to close the door.”
“Oh, I’m right around the corner.  Should be there in a minute," I said almost instinctively controlling my breathing as to not give away any hint that I might not be completely honest.
And by right around the corner, I meant three terminals and more than 15 minutes away.  I made it to the gate just in time.  The desk clerk noticed me approaching the gate desk with near attacking speed.

“Oh, you must be Guy,” she said unamused.
“Yeah, great!  Here’s my boarding pass.”
“Well sir, here’s your new boarding pass.  You now leave at 2:30pm.  Apparently, you weren’t right around the corner.” 
Again, she seemed unamused and uninterested in my sweaty smile begging to be allowed on the flight.   

So I’m sitting here eating lunch thinking about my stern words of warning I gave to my daughter about the dangerous effects of lying after I just rolled out a few lies of my own with little thought or concern about the simple, yet lasting value of truth.  While my lies did nothing tilt the world in a different direction or do any direct harm to anyone in particular, I chose to not tell the truth rather than automatically being honest.  What’s at stake is my reputation with my team and most importantly, the value of truth itself within my life. 

Just as I lectured my daughter about truth being the base of all that we do and all that we are and will be, I devalued truth for what I deemed as convenient.  It’s not worth it.  Lying never is worth it no matter how much easier it seems or how much we think it will protect us.

As soon as I touch ground, I need to make a call to a little girl who through tears told me how sorry she was that she lied to me.  I need to tell that little girl who I love so so much that her daddy lies too.  I can never expect to establish the actual value of truth if I will devalue it at a moment’s notice. 

I lie is a lie is what I preached to her.  That’s truth.  Absolutely.
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