How Do People In Your Life Express Themselves?

I’m reading a nonfiction book called Homer’s Odyssey. It’s about a woman named Gwen Cooper who adopted an eyeless stray cat nobody else wanted. It’s a beautiful love story.

When Cooper adopted Homer, she was single, living with a friend, working at a nonprofit, never had more than fifty dollars in the bank at the end of the month – and she had two other cats. She had a lot of perfectly good reasons to pass on Homer. And she almost did. Before meeting him for the first time, she makes this observation:

“I should note that, prior to this, I had never taken an I’ll meet him and we’ll see attitude when it came to pet adoption. It never occurred to me to meet the pet in question first, to see if he was ‘special’ or whether there was some sort of unique bond between us. My philosophy when it came to pets was much like that of having children: You got what you got, and you loved them unconditionally regardless of whatever their personalities or flaws turned out to be.”

As a result, she says she felt dishonest driving to the vet’s office that day. But she couldn’t help but wonder how a cat without any eyes could convey expression. Homer answered that question for her.

As she interacted with him, he responded to her voice and cuddled against her shoulder. Then she realized something. “It isn’t the eyes that tell you how someone is feeling or what they’re thinking. It’s the muscles around the eyes, which pull the corners up or push them down, crinkle them at the edges to convey amusement or narrow them into slits indicating anger ... And I could tell, from the shape the muscles were taking, that if he’d had eyelids they would have been half closed in an expression ... of utter contentment.”

Homer found a home that day.

A few years ago, I adopted a cat named Latte. She can be wild as all get out sometimes and I wondered early on if I made a mistake in choosing her. Reading between the lines, the woman at the shelter told me Latte had already been returned once and I got the feeling that she was close to becoming unadoptable, which meant certain death. Maybe that’s what made her so adoptable in my eyes. Well, that, and the snow job she put on the day we met. She was the picture of tranquility.

I only learned about her wild side after we got home. But she has a loving side as well. Right away, she developed a habit of curling up in my lap while I’m watching TV at night. She rubs her head against my cheek as we drift off to sleep. She begs for attention whenever I get home. And she loves to be around people so much that she prefers not to eat unless someone is in the room with her. That means her food and water bowls are next to my recliner in the living room.

Cooper’s philosophy about pets, and children, rings true to me. You got what you got, and you love them unconditionally.

In fact, I think her philosophy applies to all personal relationships.

No doubt, that’s easier said than done. But maybe our relationships would be a little stronger if we took the time to find each other’s way of expressing ourselves and then met each other there. Some speak with their eyes (or eye muscles). Some speak through their passion for music, art or literature. And others speak by the choices they make.

How do people in your life express themselves?

From One Generation to the Next

I flipped open a used copy of Mark Levin’s book, Ameritopia, at Half Price Books last night to read the table of contents, and a handwritten note fell out. You can see a picture of it on the right. You may need to click on the photo to make it big enough to read.

The note is from a mother who is writing to her daughter, Holly. Holly’s mother gave her the book because she feels a duty to our ancestors who fought in the American Revolution. She wants Holly to learn about and understand what is going on in the world right now in light of what the founding fathers taught.

You can feel the mother’s passion, but apparently she didn’t get through to Holly with her gift, given that Holly sold the book to a used bookstore, note and all, for a dollar or two. It makes me wonder if Holly even opened the book. If she had, why would she leave her mother’s note inside?

And check out the date on the note: October 29, 2013. Mom got the year wrong. She must have meant to write October 29, 2012 (the book came out in 2012, so it couldn’t have been any other year). If she gave her the book at the end of October – just a little over a month ago, then Holly’s reaction appears to have been a visceral one.

Maybe she is tired of Mom harping on her about why she should care about the founding principles of our nation and she got rid of the book as quickly as she received it. Or tragically, maybe Holly died recently and her possessions, including this book, were dispersed.

I don’t know how the book ended up at Half Price Books, but the note inside makes me feel squeamish. The tone has a hint of condescension and none of us respond well to that. Teaching foundational principles about government, or anything else, has less to do with teaching them, and more to do with showing them.

Think about the best teachers you’ve had in your lifetime. Before you allowed them to shape you, they had to earn the right to do so. In high school, I had an English teacher named Mr. Martin who inspired me to write – partially because of his passion for the written word and partially because he wrote (you can read more about my experience with him here).

He didn’t tell us to write, or try to explain the importance of writing. Instead, we traveled to exciting worlds created by authors and he read some of his own writing to us. Eventually, he started a journal called “Fine Lines” and encouraged us to submit to it. By igniting a passion for the written word inside me, he earned the right to teach me how to write.

Ironically, the introduction of the book Holly’s mother gave her includes this quote from Ronald Reagan: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on to them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

My heart aches for Holly’s mother because her note implies that she didn’t hand on the principles of freedom to Holly as Holly was growing up. Or maybe she did, but Holly just was not open to learning them. Maybe Holly’s mother was late to the party, only coming to an understanding later in life and now she feels desperate to pass along what she has learned. I don’t know. But this post isn’t really about Holly and her mother, nor is it intended to be critical of either of them.

Instead, it prompts this question: how do we pass along the type of freedom Reagan spoke about – one that the founders used to refer to as responsible freedom, rather than one that is self-focused – to the next generation? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Practically speaking, I think we do so by talking about the issues of the day over dinner with our kids. We use our freedom to help others in our communities and we involve our children. We look for teaching moments in pop culture, rather than simply consuming or avoiding it. We get involved and stay involved in the political process, without assassinating the character of our political opponents.

What else?

Thankful

I know this is a little late, given that Thanksgiving was last week. But we always need reminders to be thankful. My pastor showed this video during worship a couple of days ago.



Sure puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

The Experience of Christmas

Many of you picked up a copy of my Christmas devotional book, “The Experience of Christmas” when Barbour Publishing released it in 2006. I’m extremely grateful for that.

Recently, I attained the rights to the book. I redesigned a cover for it and for the first time, it is available on the Kindle.

Here’s a little about the book:

This unique family devotional highlights key aspects of Christmas often overlooked in our holiday busyness – the fulfilled prophecies, the names of the Messiah, the symbols and traditions, the worship of the Child, and more. 

Specially designed for families with children of all ages, “The Experience of Christmas” provides food for thought, prayer and discussion starters, and ideas for meaningful family activities. Don’t just “do” Christmas this year ... experience it!

I wrote this book hoping families would use it around the dinner table during the month of December. I’ve been thrilled to hear from families who have done so. If you are looking for a family devotional book to work through this Christmas, I hope you’ll consider downloading a copy.

And if you end up doing so, would you consider leaving a review on Amazon.com? Thanks!

You Don't Really Own Any E-books

When you click the "Buy Now" button,
you aren't really buying an e-book.

I met a friend from church on Wednesday for lunch and I gave him a copy of one of my favorite books. Not long ago, I purchased the e-book version of the same book for my Kindle, so I felt free to pass my hard copy along. But as I drove away after lunch, a couple of questions popped into my mind.

What happens if I just want to give somebody an e-book I purchased? The technology should allow me to transfer an e-book from my Kindle to somebody else’s e-reader. So far, that is not an option. And what happens to my e-books after I die? Is it possible to pass them along to somebody?

I did some research regarding both questions and I didn’t like what I found.

The AARP did a story recently called, appropriately, “What Happens to Your E-books When You Die?” In part, the article says, “What many people don’t realize is that with most digital content, you don’t actually own the content when you buy it. Instead, your purchase simply gives you a license to use the books or music.”

The article references Amazon’s license agreement for the Kindle, which says, in part, “Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider.” The agreement goes on to explain what that means: “Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense, or otherwise assign any rights to the Kindle Content or any portion of it to any third party.”

Finally, the article connects the dots, saying, “In short, that means Kindle content can’t be resold or left to an heir – it cannot even be given away or donated.”

By the way, this applies to the Nook (see provision number three) as well.

I know this will prompt e-book naysayers to jump in and say, “This is just another reason not to get a Nook or Kindle! Death to the e-book craze!”

First off, calm down.

Secondly, the e-book craze is here. Book publishers know it, retailers know it and authors know it. Avoiding it or pretending it doesn’t exist is naive, at best. If you are an author who submits a book proposal and then lands a contract with a royalty publisher, your book will be released in electronic form.

Thirdly, the goal of an author is to write a book that moves, motivates or informs readers. Who cares what medium they choose to read your words? The point is, they are reading your words.

Enough of that. Now back to the real topic – our current inability to pass along e-books to heirs. The problem isn’t e-books, it’s the licensing agreements. They need to be changed. Take a look at the screen capture above. It comes from a page on Amazon.com for an e-novel I am going to order. Notice that the purchase button says, “Buy now with 1-click.®”

That is completely misleading. If I click on the button, I’m not buying the book. I’m buying a lifetime rental of the book.

I do not accept that.

How about you?

Find a Mitch

Sometimes dreams die of natural causes.

The 30-year-old minor league baseball player has a sudden realization that he’s never going to get the call to the big leagues, so he finds a job as a scout or a coach, or he joins the business world. 

The singer who gained a local following, but was passed over by every record label understands deep in her gut that her big break is never going to happen – with her finances dwindling and her opportunities drying up, she finds a way to stay in the industry by teaching or in some other way.

The man who opened his own auto repair shop during a down economy finds financial stability early on since people tend to hold on to their cars longer when money is tight and therefore need to have them repaired more often. But when the economy improves and they trade them in for new ones, his business takes a huge hit and he has to close his doors.

Sometimes we kill our own dreams.

I’m reading a novel called Unconventional by J.J. Hebert. It’s about a writer named James Frost who spends his free time working on his novel and the rest of his time as a janitor in a school. He battles the notion that he is not good enough to be published. Nearly everybody around him tells him so. His dad is doubtful too, but his doubt is rooted in his own regret. Early in the novel, James notes this about his dad:

He was a talented baseball player, an all-star in each league in which he participated. He could have gone somewhere with baseball, maybe the big leagues, but he quit. He withdrew because he didn’t believe he was good enough. Every time he watches baseball, I see pain etched in his face, the anguish of an abandoned dream. He’ll never get his prime baseball-playing years back. One can’t reverse time.

James’ dad found it easier to walk away than to find out he really wasn’t good enough.

Understanding the difference between a dream that is on the verge of dying of natural causes versus a dream that somebody is about to abandon prematurely can be tricky.

Be careful who you talk to about your dreams.

Some people just aren’t risk takers, so they impose their mindset on people who are willing to take a risk to chase a dream, but their doubtful tone causes more damage than they realize.

Some people failed in pursuit of their dream because they just didn’t have the talent or finances and they are bitter to the point of not wanting anybody else to succeed.

And some people just abandoned their dream prematurely rather than hearing they are not good enough and they think you should too.

If your dream has died of natural causes, take some time to mourn and then find a way to morph your old dream into a new one. But if you are on the verge of killing your dream, you need to find a Mitch.

Mitch is a friend of James. He invents sporting equipment and sees his profession as similar to what James does as a writer. Here’s a conversation Mitch has with James in a restaurant:

“Being different all the time,” James says. “It’s like an automatic strike against me. I feel so alone sometimes.”

He nods, understanding. “The greatest and most inspiring achievements are not produced by those who conform to society’s idea of normal, but by those who courageously adopt the unconventional.”

If you can’t find a Mitch, become a Mitch. It may come full circle.

The Ones Nobody Else Wants

I’ve been reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. It’s rich with courage, faith and heartache – here’s one such scene.

Eusie was a man who had obvious Jewish features, according to ten Boom. So, for him, finding a hiding place wasn’t all that easy. The razzia (German police) would easily identify and arrest him if they saw him. Nobody wanted to take a chance with him in their home. But the ten Boom’s took him into their Holland home, the Beje. And when it came time to find a hiding place for another hard to place person, Eusie was the first one to come to her defense.

Mary Itallie, a 76-year-old woman with a severe case of asthma, showed up at the Beje one day. She couldn’t find a place to hide because her wheezing would give her away if the razzia showed up. That meant trouble for everyone in the house. The nine people who were already staying in the Beje gathered to consider taking Mary in.

Here’s what happened next:

“There is no sense in pretending,” [Corrie] began. “Mary has a difficulty – especially after climbing stairs – that could put you all in danger.”

In the silence that followed, Mary’s labored breathing seemed especially loud.

“Can I speak?” Eusie asked.

“Of course.”

“It seems to me that we’re all here in your house because of some difficulty or other. We’re the orphan children– the ones nobody else wanted. Any one of us is jeopardizing all the others. I vote that Mary stay.”

They put it to a secret ballot.

All nine people voted in favor of Mary staying.

Most of us will never have to endure the type of pressure these ten people (including Mary) were under. In a free and open society, we can choose to be a host family to orphan children without fear of repercussion. I don’t just mean in the literal sense, although adoption is a beautiful thing.

Instead I’m talking about a lifestyle – inviting the lonely to dinner, approaching the loner at church, putting a hand on an elderly man’s shoulder who may not remember the last time someone touched him, really listening to that eccentric aunt everyone else avoids during Christmas dinner.

All of us could be more intentional this way, couldn’t we?

The Demise of Borders

Photo: Ruthanne Reid

It became a ritual.

Every Friday night during the fall, several of my friends and I would gather at Borders to spend 45 minutes browsing the bookshelves before meeting in the coffee shop to chat. I rarely left without buying a book. I also rarely bought a CD or DVD because I had already made the change to iTunes and Netflix. But I wasn’t convinced about e-readers yet. I still had a romantic view of bundled paper held together by glue.

That was just two short years ago. 

Since then, I’ve purchased two Kindles and have been talking to a publisher about writing a book for them that would go straight to e-readers and then come out on paper and glue. After reading a couple of books on my first Kindle, I realized that books are words that inform and entertain and take us to new worlds. They aren’t paper and glue. Those are just the medium. 

Borders wasn’t convinced of this on any level (books, CDs or DVDs).

In fact, not only weren’t they convinced, but they continued to charge ridiculous prices for old mediums. One of the last times I walked into a Borders, I picked up a copy of the movie SALT to see how much they were charging for the non-Blu-ray DVD. The answer: $28.99! I was stunned to the point of snapping a photo with my cell phone, thinking nobody would believe me:

As of this writing, Amazon.com is offering SALT on Blu-ray for $15.44 and on non-Blu-ray for $12.60.

Rather than adapting, Borders either showed complete contempt for the new ways of delivering entertainment or they were oblivious to them. I’m not sure which is worse. But when the news came down that the chain was planning to liquidate its assets and close its stores by September, I wasn’t surprised. I was a little bummed though. 

Not everybody wants to read e-books. And that’s fine, as long as a retailer offers both choices (please don’t tell me the Kobo e-reader was a choice if you don’t know a single person who owns one), I think there’s a chance they could survive in this economy and publishing environment. But since Borders didn’t, people who like to read paper and glue just lost a huge retailer.

As for meeting in Borders for coffee, well, there are multiple other coffee shop options for my friends and I to hang out in. But losing a book retailer the size of Borders is never good for the industry.

The Lovely Bones – Heroes

The Lovely Bones is one of many books I picked up a couple of years ago intending to read soon, but then put it aside when other books caught my eye. I ended up seeing the movie version first, which was probably best because I generally don’t like the movie after I’ve read the book. But when I see the movie first, I’m usually neutral on which one is better.

The Lovely Bones is the first novel I’ve picked up by Alice Sebold, so I had no frame of reference when I started reading it recently. As you probably know, the novel is told from the point of view of a 14-year-old girl named Susie who is brutally murdered. She can see and hear her family, friends and killer from heaven. It's an interesting concept, but the author looses me at times because Susie’s observations seem more like an adult’s than those of a 14-year-old girl. So it doesn't really work for me. For example:

Late at night the air above hospitals and senior citizen homes was often thick and fast with souls. Holly and I watched sometimes on the nights when sleep was lost to us. We came to realize how these deaths seemed choreographed from somewhere far away. Not our heaven. And so we began to suspect that there was a place more all-encompassing than we were.

To me, this sounds more like the point of view of a 38-year-old.

But one scene gets it right, even though it has a couple of awkwardly worded sentences, and it’s the one I want to focus on in this post. Susie is watching from heaven as her dad tries to carry her brother, Buckley, piggyback in their yard – the way he used to before Susie’s death and before he had knee surgery. And in the most ordinary of circumstances, she ends up seeing her dad as a hero for his effort.

So, awkwardly, in the beautiful isolation of the yard, where if my father fell only a boy and a dog who loved him would see, the two of them worked together to make what they both wanted – this return to father/son normalcy – happen. When Buckley stood on the iron chair – “Now scoot up my back,” my father said, stooping forward, “and grab on to my shoulders,” not knowing if he’d have the strength to lift him up from there – I crossed my fingers hard in heaven and held my breath. In the cornfield, yes, [that’s where she was murdered – and I guess Susie is saying her dad’s head is still there in the cornfield?] but, in this moment, repairing the most basic fabric of their previous day-to-day lives, challenging his injury to take a moment like this back, my father became my hero.

Heroes come in a lot of varieties – from people who risk their lives for people they don’t know to people who choose professions or volunteer positions to better their communities. And sometimes a hero can be found in the smallest of actions – like a father running the risk of embarrassment, or worse, just to make his son feel the special bond they used to share during piggyback sessions in the backyard.

Staying in the Flow

Photo: Mark Robinson

Life has a certain flow.

The interstate flows at a certain speed and we merge into traffic at the speed of traffic – or, at least we are supposed to. If we go too slow, we clog the flow and make it harder for people behind us to merge. If we go too fast, we force other drivers who are already on the interstate to make decisions about whether they should go on defense or not or just hope we don’t run them off the road.

Conversation is like that too. When we are receptive to each other – asking one another questions, shaking or nodding our heads in response, offering mmm-hmms or oh nos, the conversation meanders like a stream. It’s not in a hurry. Both parties feel like they are being heard and the conversation gets to where it needs to go. When it’s not natural – when there isn’t a give and take – it’s awkward, unsatisfying and we cut it short.

Nearly everything else in life is like this – appointments, walking routines, waiting in line at the movies, finding a spot in the coffee shop, romance, friendship, education, bowling. It all has a certain flow and if one of us steps out of that flow, it disrupts everyone around us.

Recently, I read a passage in a novel called The Dead Don’t Dance by Charles Martin and he says it better than I can:  

The river’s got its own rhythm, and you either dance to it or you don’t. Whether you’re man or woman matters not because the river leads, and if you’re stepping out of time, then it’s your fault because the river changes its beat for no one. You want to go swimming? Go swimming. You want to sleep? Sleep. You want to fish? Fish. You want to go faster? Too bad. You want to slow down? Good luck. The river’s got one speed, and it’s not going to stop and wait on you. And unless it rains, it’s not going to hurry you along either. Amos and I made our pact with the river long ago. We built a raft, shoved off, and never complained. Rain, no rain, sun, no sun, wind, no wind, hot, cold, fast, slow, wet, dry. It really didn’t matter to us. We were just boys, happy to go wherever the river carried us. And all the river cared about was that we were going in the same direction it was and that we could swim, because it didn’t like us dying.

Old Stuff Day, Part 2

On March 2 last year, I wrote about Old Stuff Day – a day that, according to the Holiday Insights website, is a day set aside to “recognize the boring nature of your daily routine, and make some exciting changes.” It goes on to suggest finding new activities, projects, and hobbies.

As I thought about how much has changed since last March 2, it seems as if I don’t even need to actively search for newness – it just finds me.

I lost my beloved cat of 20 years and rescued a different one from a shelter. The publishing industry is shifting from print to online and e-books at rocket-like speed. I was flirting with the idea of buying a Kindle 2 last March 2 and now I have a Kindle 3, on which I buy 90% of the books I read. I had a different car than I do now. I stopped buying DVDs for the most part because Netflix allows me to watch anything I want for one low monthly price.

Makes me wonder what will change the next time Old Stuff Day rolls around.

Kids Are Our Present

I tend to be nostalgic. I find balance in that line from an old Billy Joel song: “The good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.” Of course, the irony of that statement is, those lyrics were penned in the early 80s, so even my balance is rooted in nostalgia.

I often wonder if my penchant for nostalgia is the result of never marrying and having kids. Kids are our future – or so the saying goes. Maybe being focused on the future would have helped me to cut back on thinking big hair, big combs, and tube socks were all the rage. I know, even my clichés are nostalgic.

But I read a passage in a novel called Juliet, Naked yesterday that made me re-consider (Juliet, by the way, is the name of an album – Juliet, Naked is the name of the acoustic re-release of the album). The novel is about two people, Duncan and Annie, who have been in a 15-year relationship that is centered around their interest in an old, forgotten singer who hasn’t put out anything new in 20 years.

When Annie realizes she is wasting her time with Duncan, she breaks up with him and she goes out to a pub with a female friend to find out what other people do. She sees people who are stuck in old patterns who are trying to re-capture old magic, which causes her to wonder, “Where was the now?” How do people who swim around in the past stand it?

She concludes that children are the answer. Here’s her thought process:

That was why she wanted children, too. The cliché had it that kids were the future, but that wasn’t it: they were the unreflective, active present. They were not themselves nostalgic, because they couldn’t be, and they retarded nostalgia in their parents. Even as they were getting sick and being bullied and becoming addicted to heroin and getting pregnant, they were in the moment, and she wanted to be in it with them. She wanted to worry herself sick about schools and bullying and drugs.

That passage really hit me. Do we yearn for yesteryear because it was the only time in our lives when we live in the active present? If so, it makes me wonder if that is one of the reasons the cycle of life works the way it does. We are designed to get married and have children earlier in life, as opposed to later, and by doing so, we are forced into the active present. Maybe people who don’t have children drift easier from the present to the past. 

I do know this – being an uncle helps. I have two nieces and one nephew and I love all three of them dearly. I sing with them. Act goofy with them. And maybe tease them once in a while. And I don’t know who loves it more – me or them. But whenever I spend time with them, we are in the present. And I feel more alive.

5 Good Things About Getting Older

Photo: Dimitar Nikolov

Knowing my friends were planning a couple of board game nights a while back, I picked up a new (to me) game called Name 5. The premise is pretty simple – players advance on a game board by naming 5 items on a list from a card they draw.

A timer is involved, so that pretty much kills my chances of doing well because my brain just can’t recall specifics when a timer is ticking, but the game is a lot of fun.

We’ve played it a couple of times since I got it and both times I heard several topics that would be good blogging fodder, especially since I wouldn't be on the timer. Over the weekend I jotted down quite few of those topics and plan to blog about them.

The first one is – name 5 good things about getting older.

1. The lows aren’t as low as they used to be. I’ve never been an overly emotional person, outwardly, but internally, when I was younger, nearly every bump in the road felt like a crisis and when a genuine crisis occurred, I didn't think I would survive it. I'm just talking about the typical teenage angst – girls, popularity, sports. With age came perspective though. By surviving previous trials, I know that somehow I'll survive new ones too.

2. Having a core set of people you can trust. More than half of my closest friends are the result of friendships formed in high school. I know they are going to be present when I need them to be and I think they can same the same about me. We’ve seen the best of worst in each other, but still, the friendships remain. That’s not often the case younger in life – when so many relationships are based on performance.

3. Entertainment is more about the people you are with than the activity. The question that never changes is – what do you want to do? In high school, we went cruising, attended dances, went to football games and listened to music together. The event was necessary. Now, I go to coffee shops, go to movies, go to sporting events and a few other things, but mostly, the events are just the backdrop.

4. Having the ability to look backward and forward. I had a conversation with one of my niece’s the other day. She’s 20 and trying to figure out her place in the world. I told her about the hardships the previous generations in our family endured so my generation and hers would have more opportunities. I wanted her to know that her generation doesn’t exist in a void.

5. Digging deeper instead of wider. When I was a boy, I wanted to become a football player, a tennis player or a rock star when I grew up. I was also into stamp collecting, rock collecting (for about two hours), coin collecting, baseball card collecting, and lots of other things. My passions aren’t spread as thin anymore. Today, I read every book a favorite author writes. I listen to entire albums, not just the hit songs. I put my feet up and turn everything off sometimes, just to think. Depth is more satisfying.

How about you? Can you name 5 good things about getting older? Take all the time you need. I won't even start the timer.

The Problem with Popular Highlights

Photo: liveandrock

When I was in college, students had a theory about buying used text books in the campus bookstore. Not only were they cheaper, but many of them also contained huge sections of fluorescent yellow highlighted text, which obviously meant you wanted to buy those books because some other poor sap already spent her Saturday evenings in the campus library, studying. By purchasing her book, you were purchasing her study efforts.

Part of me wanted to believe that – because, what college student is looking for a shortcut? – but I always wondered what would happen if the former owner highlighted the “wrong” passages? Or what if the previous owner was a poor student? Or what if this book had been sold more than once and the multiple owners added their own highlights, turning entire pages into one fluorescent yellow blur, which would mean you’d have to read the entire book anyway?

I bought a couple of these books, even though I was skeptical. The highlights ended up distracting and annoying me more than anything else. I had a running monologue going on in my mind: Why in the world would a person highlight that? Holy cow, why not just highlight the entire page? Eventually I learned to look for used books in the campus bookstore that were as clean as possible.

That was 25 years ago.

Recently, I was reading a book on my Kindle and that old familiar feeling swept over me. For some reason, parts of the book I was reading were underlined on the screen and each underlined section listed a number of highlights (e.g. “109 highlights.”). What in the world? I had never even opened this e-book before. Who was highlighting my e-book?

One day it hit me. These were the underlined passages of other Kindle users who had already read this book – ah, the wonders, and irritations, of modern technology. A quick trip to Google confirmed my suspicions. Amazon calls this feature “Popular Highlights.”

Beyond being big brother-ish and therefore automatically suspect in my mind, seeing what others had highlighted robbed me of the joy of highlighting/underlining the text for myself. In fact, the contrarian in me avoided underlining text that the masses had underlined. And then it sent me searching for a way to turn off this feature, which I was able to do. Why the default is set to “on” is a mystery.

Here’s something Amazon needs to learn. Reading is highly personal. I like to record dates next to passages that speaks to me. I like to record questions or thoughts about specific passages. I like to connect passages. Neither Amazon, nor anybody else, has a right to view those dates, questions, thoughts, or connections without my consent. If Amazon tries to pull something like this again, Nook here I come.

Outcasts, Weirdos and Freaks

Photo: Maja Dumat - flickr.com

I went to hear a lecture on Friday night about the transcendental movement of the early to mid-1800s. As the lecturer spoke about the beliefs that grounded the various movements before and after transcendentalism, he touched briefly on southern fiction (Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, William Faulkner, etc.), saying those authors often used characters who were outcasts, weirdos and freaks to speak the truth into a situation.

He quoted O’Connor as saying, “Whenever I am asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.” I found a fuller context of this quote on a blog called The Reformed Reader, where O’Connor goes on to say, in part, “To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man. And in the South, the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological.”

In other words, they recognized freaks because their theological understanding of man drove them to examine their own hearts and on some level, we’re all freaks, so it's easy to spot another one. Some of us are freaky looking. Some of us have freaky mannerisms. Some of us have freaky beliefs.

Usually, we find other freaks of the same ilk to hang out with so we can let our freaky hair down and pretend we aren’t freaks. They don’t have to agree with us about everything or even look like us necessarily; they just have to accept us – think Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld. Who among us hasn’t wanted to live in one of those worlds?

While I’m not a Lady Gaga fan, I’m intrigued by her story and her fanbase, whom she refers to as “little monsters.” According to a story in New York Magazine, she began working with a record producer to find her sound, style and look. One of those experiments led her down the Michelle Branch-Avril Lavigne singer-songwriter route, but it didn’t work.

Wendy Starland, a singer who was responsible for connecting Gaga with the producer, pointed out why it didn’t work, “Those artists are usually classically beautiful, very steady, and more tranquil, in a way.” At this point, she wasn’t into fashion. She wore leggings and sweatshirts and she came into the studio a couple of times in sweatpants.

Wanting to be a star, she eventually went on to study trends in pop culture and she re-made herself as a performer rather than a singer. After she became a star, she began referring to her fans as “little monsters,” which she means in the most affectionate way. She knows how it feels to not fit in. She even wrote a manifesto of little monsters, and she closed it this way:

When you’re

lonely,

I’ll be lonely too,
And this is the fame.

Lady Gaga

Notice how she put the word “lonely” way out by itself? She knows how many of her fans – the outcasts, weirdos and freaks – feel, and while they, like other outcasts, weirdos and freaks find comfort in the company of one another, they also feel the same isolation the rest of us freaks of different stripes feel when they aren’t together.

On some level, we’re all freaks. Some of us are freaky looking. Some of us have freaky mannerisms. Some of us have freaky beliefs. Acknowledging that might help us to cut our fellow freaks a little slack once in a while.

The Happiness List

Photo: Joe King

Over the years, a number of variations of the bucket list have appeared and they all contain the same basic premise – make a list of things you want to accomplish, track them, and check them off as you go. It’s intentional living rather than reactional (I think I just made up a new word) living. 

I first heard about the idea in the movie, A Walk to Remember. Jamie had a list of 100 things she wanted to do before she died. Then I heard about 43 Things – a website where you list 43 things you want to do and you interact with others who are working toward the same goals. Then, of course, there was The Bucket List movie. More recently I read about The Mighty Life List. Just yesterday I read about a variation of these ideas called a Happiness List. It is similar to some of the other lists, but it also contains a twist.

This might be Rainbow Rowell overkill, but I read about the Happiness List in her latest article called New year’s disillusioned? Resolve to be happy. It is about a guy named Nicholas Schnell who chucked the idea of making an annual resolution list in favor of a happiness list – a list of stress-free items. On his list, he wrote things such as watch the original Freaky Friday with two of his friends and re-read Pride and Prejudice so he could read the zombie version.

But here’s the twist, he suggests getting friends to make lists, so on some lazy Friday night, when you can’t think of anything to do, you team up to help each other check something off your lists. If one of the items on a friend’s lists is, “try the new Italian restaurant downtown” and another friend’s list includes “check out the independent film festival,” you make a night of it and do both.

I love this idea for so many reasons.

First, for me and my friends, it would mean not going to Borders for the 43rd consecutive Friday night because we couldn’t figure out what else to do. Second, it means getting involved in activities our friends enjoy which will give us a view of who they are in their element. You can learn a lot about a person when he or she is in her element. Third, it would expose us to new things. Most new hobbies and passions begin after someone introduces us to them. I’m also thinking it would make for some great memories.

As a variation, I’m thinking it would be a good idea to list 50 items that could be done with one or more friend and 50 items that could be done individually. 

What do you think?

Red Guitar Wine (2006), Old Vine Rosé

On Sunday one of my pastors told us it was a good thing to be snowed in every once in a while. Snow was already falling and we had the promise of quite a bit more. I totally understood what he meant.

After church, I stopped at the grocery store. As I finished up my shopping, I meandered through the wine section looking for something new to try. I found a wine called Red Guitar – Old Vine Rosé from 2006. I’ve been wanting to try a red table wine for a while, and I liked the name because I used to play guitar and music has always meant something to me, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

I flipped the bottle over and read this:

Centuries ago, the Spanish added a sixth string to a little recognized instrument, bringing to life what we now know as the guitar. For countless generations since, music, food and wine have been the fabric of the Spaniard’s joyful and vivacious existence. Put simply, la buena vida (the good life).

Our prized Garnacha vines grow deep in the gravel soils of Navarra. Rosé is a classic wine from this ancient kingdom and our lively version is a fresh mouthful of raspberries with a crisp refreshing finish.

Red Guitar Rosé; a refreshing celebration of the Spanish lifestyle.

As the snow continued to accumulate on Monday evening, I popped in my Holiday Fire DVD, poured a glass of Red Guitar and plopped down in my recliner to read The Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks. Latte, my cat, made the scene complete by curling up in my lap where I rubbed her belly, causing her to purr.

The fire crackled and I’m pretty sure I felt it warming my feet. The wine went down easily. No bitter aftertaste and it wasn’t overbearingly sweet. Maybe that’s how raspberries taste? I have no idea because I’ve never tried one. But this wine quickly became my new favorite.

Ironically, the novel I was reading while enjoying my Red Guitar contained a scene in which two friends shared a bottle of wine, making the evening even better. Like one my pastors said, it is a good thing to be snowed inside every once in a while. But the scene ended when my roommate walked in the front door.

"Want a glass of wine?" I asked.

"No. I'm not highfalutin like you, with the fake fireplace and $7.50 bottle of wine," he joked.

"What are you trying to say?"

"It speaks for itself."

He’s probably right.

#81 Completed Goals

Photo: Horia Varlan

Continuing with the 100 life-enriching little nuances series …

The idea of writing an 80,000 to 100,000 word novel seemed unattainable to me when I attended my first writer’s conference in 1998. Thankfully, I wasn't the only person thinking that.

I took a comprehensive novel writing course at the conference taught by Nancy Moser. Somebody in class asked her what her writing schedule looks like – how does a person go about writing 100,000 words?

Her answer was pretty simple. She looks at the total word count she’s shooting for and she divides it by the number of writing days she has on her schedule for her first draft. That number becomes her daily writing goal. That made the process seem a lot more doable to me.

A couple of years later, while working at a bank, employees had a chance to work a flex schedule. I re-arranged my work schedule to have Mondays off. That gave me 52 full writing days available that year. My goal was 90,000 words. That meant I had to write 1,700 words a day. I could do that.

By the end of the year, I wrote 85,599 words – 371 pages. That's where my story ended so my goal was complete. Hitting my goal gave me the confidence to write a second novel. I didn’t sell either of them. But by the time I had a marketable idea for a non-fiction book, I knew I could write it if a publisher gave me a contract (non-fiction books do not need to be written before pitching them to publishers, but novels do need to be written if you are a first time novelist).

In 2004, a publisher did offer me a contract for my non-fiction book idea – a book called Single Servings. I put my formula to work and completed the book on time. I still use that formula, depending on the project.

A Christmas book I wrote in 2005, called The Experience of Christmas, was supposed to be in the 33,000-35,000 word range and it was broken down into 31 devotions. So each devotion needed to average a tick over 1,000 words. I wrote one devotion a day and was able to complete the book in about five weeks.

Slow and steady wins the race for me because it keeps me from straying when I’m writing a book. It answers questions for me. Do I have time to take on an article due next week? I look at my word count spreadsheet and see that I’m barely staying on schedule and the decision has been made. I’ll have to pass.

I really need to carry this practice over to the rest of my life though. The mountains of unfiled paperwork that sit by and around my desk could be handled if I just did 15 minutes a day. My laundry might actually be caught up if I did one load a day. And so it goes. But, like you, I’m a work in progress.

Mining the Word "Friend"

Photo: Bruno De Regge

Yesterday, I told you I was motivated by a novel called The Cyberspace Letters by Allen Palmeri to mine certain words for gold. After saying that, the word "friend" began to beg for attention. I thought back to a post I wrote in 2006, which I've re-written and expanded upon here.

On a golf outing with three friends in 2000, I found myself on the fringe of the green on the sixth hole. Missing greens is a fairly common occurrence for me. I'm not a good golfer. Typically I use a five iron to chip onto the green from the fringe because the blade is relatively flat while having just enough lift to pick the ball out of the grass and send it rolling somewhere in the vicinity of the hole. My friends were already on the green as I reached for my five iron that was tucked away in my bag. Then I saw it. My dad's one iron.

This was the first time I had been on a course since my dad died earlier that year. I inherited his clubs and I placed a couple of them in my bag. We spent so many hours on golf courses together, how could I not take a piece of him with me after he died? But I wasn't prepared for what came next.

My knees went weak when I saw his one iron in my bag. The reality that he was gone hit me full force and I was overcome with emotion. I did what guys do. I fought back the tears, but I lost the battle. I turned away as best I could, but one of my friends caught me, and he came over and put his arm on my shoulder. I pointed to my dad’s club and whispered “It was my dad’s.” But I didn't need to tell  him that. He knew. He lost his own father several years prior, so he knew how quickly the simplest memory can sneak up and overwhelm a person.

As sad as it made me, having a friend who knew what was happening and who cared enough to show that he knew, eased the pain. During one 30-second span of time I experienced the gut-wrenching pain that comes with loss followed by the euphoric high that comes from knowing a friend knew me well enough to understand my pain. It was one of the truest expressions of friendship I've ever experienced.

A friend is intuitive like that. He knows your fears, your failures, your struggles and your dreams. He's heard you say stupid things and he let you say them. He's seen you do stupid things and he didn't abandon you. He laughs with you. He gives you the business. He texts random movie or song quotes knowing you'll get them. He gives you a place of safety to be yourself without fear of being judged. He isn't quick to correct you, but he's not afraid to challenge you when the time is right. But most of all, he remembers your history and that drives him to put his arm around you on the sixth hole of a golf course when you are on the verge of a breakdown.

In the age of Facebook, where it's not uncommon to have thousands of "friends," the word seems to have been cheapened. But I'm not so sure it has. I learn so many little nuances about my real life friends there -- nuances that I store away and hope to use with them in conversation. But the truth is, I don't think the average person has room in his life for more than a handful of close friends. In fact, Jesus himself seemed to prefer spending time with just three guys -- Peter, James and John. I think that's a good model.

The Cyberspace Letters

"As simple as it may seem, we must pick up one word at a time, clean up each of those words as we go and set them one by one on a true foundation, in a context where people will actually take the time and the thought to read them. This must be the business of the authentic communicator of the 21st century. It will be gritty, necessary work."

This is the advice of Scriptura (a 40-something year-old former sportswriter), as written in a letter to Skateboard (a 20-something year-old sportswriter) in a novel called The Cyberspace Letters, written by Allen Palmeri, who is a good friend of mine.

The first third of the book borrows the format of C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters." The mentor and mentee discuss theology and psychology and a number of other meaty topics, but early on in their communication Scriptura wants to make sure they are speaking the same language, so they can, in turn, communicate with each other and their audiences more clearly.

One of the words they discuss is "beauty." Here is a portion of the way Scriptura defines it for Skateboard:

There is beauty in sports. I find it in those tightly contested games where defense, or the art of countering one's opponent, is elevated to a place of prominence that is normally reserved for those who get rewarded so handsomely for creating movement on the scoreboard. In other words, I like games of baseball, hockey and soccer that finish 1-0, and the occasional game of football that ends 3-0. We are talking about the beauty of pitching, goaltending and punting. In this I find true art.

Do you see the irony in this? In an age when someone, anyone, can sit down before his or her home computer and fire off hundreds of words in a series of e-mails to friends, we still have the 1-0 baseball game. Is that delicious or what? As much as the fan would want to come up with all kinds of fantasy methods to generate more excitement, it still comes down to a summer night in Yankee Stadium with two of the better pitchers in the American League taking care of the hitters.

Scriptura goes on to say:

When games turn out like this, it brings to mind the axioms that less can mean more, that subtraction can mean addition and that one is sometimes all it takes. In other words, in a general sense, it is not necessarily true in our culture today that more communication, or more information in its various forms, will mean more success.

I love this idea of discussing words -- one at a time, mining each one for gold. As I read the book, I found myself wanting to mine words I've been thinking about, such as "simplicity," "silence," "love" and so many more. Don't be surprised to see a post about each of those words in the near future. And, in the spirit of The Cyberspace Letters, I'd love to get your take on each of the words.