Problems are for Solving

Earlier this week I wrote about people and “non-people” and alluded to writing again about “family.”?

Last night we had the Ben-Ezras over for dinner. We try to do this every week because the Ben-Ezras are not only “non-people”? but they’re “family.”? We decided when the Ben-Ezras moved here in 2002 that we would need to reach out to them since they were moving so far away from their family in Pennsylvania. There is more to this story, but the Ben-Ezra family and I go back quite a ways and their father was my pastor and mentor and is still a dear friend.

“Family”? are friends and family around whom you can totally be yourself without fear that they’ll hate you tomorrow. When they arrive for dinner and ask if they can do anything you’ll feel free without the slightest hesitation to ask one of them to sweep the dining room while reminding her that the last time (or was it 10 times ago?) she swept your dining room (while over for dinner) the broom suddenly broke in her hands.

Last night was, as it always is, a treat. We feasted around the dining room table. The children (except Moriah and Noah who are 10 and 2 respectively) ate on the porch since it was so nice and we enjoyed a slightly quieter dinner than normal, but no less interrupted. Gabrielle’s account gives a good picture of what the evening looked like, but I want to hone in on a couple of things she left out.

With “family”? there is no stress. No masks. No forced conversation. All flows, even when interrupted and when multiple conversations go on at once. We are truly ourselves when we are around “family.”?

We can be truly ourselves because they already know who we are and they love us anyway. Every week I realize that I know the people around this particular family gathering better than I thought I knew them, and better than the week before.

Last night we had a discussion of NDS (Noun Deficiency Syndrome) which afflicts nearly 100% of parents and adults who spend large amounts of time around children. Why is this universal, that even those of us who talk to TV cameras for national television or get up in front of thousands of people without an accelerated heartbeat turn into blithering idiots when speaking to children?

“Move the thing! And . . . the other thing!”?

And knowing one another means we can in jest call the person who tries to make fun of the joke in order to cover up the embarrassment of not recognizing that quote from The Princess Bride. Because only in a group such as this would one even be tempted to be embarrassed at missing a quote from The Princess Bride and only in a group such as this would one be able to laugh when called on the embarrassment.

“Family”? love one another. Period.

And the relaxed feeling at supper with “family”? comes from the knowledge deep down in our hearts that no matter how stupid I am tonight or any night they will come back and it will be a joy still. And that knowledge comes from knowing that our Father, our true family in heaven, and these dear friends we call “family”? love us not because of who we are or how we act.

They simply love us. Not because, or for, or through or beside anything. They love us. Period.

This morning I took the recyclables and the trash out to the curb. Some people make fun of me because I pay for recycling but it’s worth it to me to have someone else take care of the recycling duties for only a few dollars a month.

This morning, though, as I took out what seemed like a lot of trash and cans and bottles I remembered something I read several years ago while studying the book of Judges with my pastor and using a commentary on the book as a companion to the study.

The author was saying that he used to hate taking out the trash. One day, though, it hit him that the mere existence of trash meant that God had provided abundantly for his family. I was struck by this and remember it over 12 years later.

God provides for my family so much that I have stuff left over to throw away.

Today, therefore, I was thankful for taking out the trash as I remembered that God is a great and abundant Provider. Praise God for His abundant blessings!

Note: I edited this to make it a little shorter. I’ll include more on a similar topic later this week.

Tuesday night we had another family from our church over for dinner. It was a lot of fun. Raquel and Gabrielle have a whole topic devoted to dinner at our house. We try to have people over a lot because we can. We have a big dining room and want to be with people (I’ll write more about “being with one another� in a future post).

Well last night we had people over for dinner. I call them “people,� but they have a great potential to be “non-people.� In my mind there are three categories of people who come to your house, “people,� “non-people� and “family.� The categorization refers to your reaction to their showing up at the door or your preparations for their doing so but mostly your internal attitude and feelings about their coming over in the first place.

“People� are those who you lack some degree of comfort around. You’re likely to clean up the house as best you can (spotless is best for your own maximum comfort) and put the best foot forward. By “best foot forward� I mean that when they arrive the house should look absolutely nothing like it looks on a normal day. “They wouldn’t understand,� you reason. “They wouldn’t understand that my children don’t always put their toys away. They wouldn’t understand that when my children play outside they get dirty!�

This is what we tell ourselves and so we lock our children in a trunk, clean the house, and have dinner catered by some fancy French restaurant so that they won’t have to “understand.�

Obviously none of us have gone that far, but I think the example gives you an idea of what having “people� over means.

“Non-people� is a bit more complicated.

We get the phrase “non-people” from an event that happened years ago. After we moved up from South Carolina we were scheduling a trip back and wanted to see some friends. We contacted one of our friends who had the idea of organizing a group of families getting together all at once. Tammy (the wife in this particular family) contacted Emily (the other wife) and asked if they could do it at her house. She said yes.

During the afternoon she began to be stressed at the number of people that would be eating there that evening. It was something akin to 20 or more. “How am I going to entertain all of these people?” she asked herself with great strain. And then she thought, “oh wait–we’re not having people over, it’s just the Lansberrys and the Northrops!”

Hense the term, “non-people.”

“Non-people� are those who we are more relaxed around, those who could stop in unexpectedly on a typical day and we wouldn’t bat an eyelash at letting them see our living room even if it’s in the worst condition it’s been in all month because the dog just got inside (perhaps one of the children opened the door?) after rolling around in the mud and has been trying to get clean by wiping his back on the nice duvet cover you just got dry cleaned and back on the living room couch. They are someone who you might think, “oh I’m not having people over tonight, it’s just the so-and-so’s� instead of stressing out that “they wouldn’t understand.�

“Family� I will deal with in a post later this week.

The family we had over last night was wonderful to be around. We had a joyful time and though we haven’t known them very long they were easy to be around and relaxed even though dinner was a bit late and the house wasn’t quite where we’d hoped. They are well on their way to being “non-people.�

Within an authentic community all of us ought to be relaxed around one another. We ought to be so confident in our love and grace for one another that we’ll know our friends won’t assume the worst about the mud on the floor, but rather assume the best (like the dog and the duvet cover). Everyone within a particular community that has been a part of it for a while ought to feel free to stop by unannounced knowing that we’ll be direct about whether we have time to talk or whatever. We ought to be “non-people� to one another. We won’t achieve “family� status with everyone. Even Jesus had three disciples that he spent more time with than others, but achieving “non-people� status and the relaxed relationships that come with it ought to be our goal with everyone in a given covenant community.

I mentioned when I started this blog that one of the chief topics I hope to do serious writing on is community. I realized this morning that discussing community in the abstract is part of the reason we don’t enjoy more of it. I could sit here and define community while I type (but when there’s dictionary.com, why do that), but what most of us really need is not a dictionary definition but a painting.

Community is something foreign to most of us American rugged individualists because we haven’t really seen it working in front of us.

So, as part of writing on community I’m going to tell you stories and sprinkle principles of what I think is Biblical community within the stories. Being as uncreative as I am, these will most often be true stories of what actually happens as we try to build a community right here in the University East neighborhood in Peoria, IL. I’ll get abstract along the way, but mostly you’ll see what I believe is crucial to authentic community nested into what we are actually doing.

TC and I had to work out separately today since Raquel went over to a friend’s house to play a game tonight.

 I got 20 minutes of cardio in plus a short swim and short sauna.  Feels good to be tired and I’ll sleep well tonight.

 We joined Landmark today.  We’re stuck with them until September 2007.  I doubt I’ll post every workout but as I get started I’ll post something to let my readers know if exercising regularly actually sticks this time.

Some people call him Pastor Ben-Ezra, others the HHG (for High Holy Guy) and still others (including me) the wisest man living.

Today I had breakfast with him.

Today was different.

It’s funny, but I don’t think I noticed this before. Today I had breakfast with him as my friend. I think it’s the first time, at least in Peoria, that I’ve had a meal alone with him and it felt like two friends having a meal together.

This is significant not because we are just now becoming friends. We have been friends for some time. But the HHG is also in many ways my spiritual father. He was my first real mentor after coming to Christ and is still the man I look to for spiritual advice when I run up against a problem. Sure I’ve had other mentors and I ask my own father for advice in other areas, but as I’ve grown up in Christ I’ve always looked to Leon for advice on spiritual and church matters—as long as I can remember. Today, though, the conversation felt more like a conversation between equals. Not equals in wisdom—for I may never be as wise as he is now—but equals in office. He is my brother as well as a spiritual father.

The striking thought to me today that was such an encouragement is that someday I will have a similar transition with Samuel, Toby and Peter. One day they will grow to the point where they will still seek my advice, but they will see me as a friend and brother as well as “dad.� They’ll get to the point where they see areas where I can grow and will feel free to talk to me about them and I’ll no longer follow up my rebukes of them with any kind of discipline.

We will be equals.

I have changed their diapers and one day they will be my friends.

Today I glimpsed an ever so small picture of what that will be like as I enjoyed a breakfast with the man who changed my spiritual diapers.

I took great joy in what I saw and will hope to see as my sons become men.

I will enjoy, Lord willing, many more years of friendship with my old mentor and friend.

And many more years beyond that of friendship with my sons when they become men and stand upon my shoulders and become greater men than I am.

May God show them grace to be great sons to me—but more importantly great sons to their Father who is also my Father.

Proverbs 18:13—“He who gives answer before he hears, that is folly and shame to him.�

If you want to help people solve problems, the first and most important thing you need to learn to do is listen.

Proverbs 18 has three verses on listening and I will talk about all three if them in time. Verse 13 is the right place to begin. This is the one I personally struggle with the most.

I usually am told I am a “type A� personality or a choleric. I will write more about personality later, but briefly here I’ll say that all of us have all of the personality “types� but we tend to gravitate towards one or two of them most easily. There are times that we ought to be each of them and times where the reactions of one “type� are sinful.

For me, though, I gravitate towards being the boss. In many situations that is a good thing, but in many others it’s bad. One place where it’s totally horrible is when I am listening to others and I succumb to the temptation to finish their sentence for them. I do it to my children way too often, my wife on more occasions than I ought, and occasionally with people I work with. I see this same tendency in my oldest son and desire to purge it from my life in order to help him with this struggle as well.

Anyway, finishing somebody else’s sentence is the most obvious way to violate God’s injunction here—answering before one hears.

If I finish your sentence, it’s not only rude, I’m likely to be wrong. I’m right when I do it 50% of the time but even when I’m right, I’m not really right. Because I won’t say it the way you do and I’m not supposed to say it at all. I’m supposed to listen.

Much more subtle than finishing another person’s sentence, though, is answering before one hears. I do that all the time. I listen just enough to think we have a solution to a problem and then jump in with the answer when what I am sure is the right answer.

When what I should have done is asked another question.

Answers are more fun than questions.

But too often they’re wrong. God says here that when I do that it is ‘folly and shame� to me. Folly and shame are not words that we use much today. But we do still use words that are related to them. Folly means being a fool. We all know what it means to be a fool, or to be foolish.

When I have shame, I am ashamed of myself. That often happens when I do something foolish. God says here both folly and shame to show the magnitude of the foolishness of answering before one hears.

Listening is important to solving problems. Crucial. Don’t answer before you hear. Ask enough questions that you are sure you understand before you give an answer. Don’t be a fool and bring shame upon yourself.

May God give each of us the grace to listen long and hard before we answer.

“What is it?�

The same thought was wandering through all of their minds. The music was beautiful. Somehow more beautiful than anything they normally heard in their own worlds. So beautiful it was that it caused Mr. Abernathy to begin reconsidering how he thought of beauty.

“Beauty is only skin deep.�

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.�

These are sayings that he had heard since his youth—‘truths’ that he began to question. This music is BEAUTIFUL. So beautiful, he mused, that it must be objective—it must be beautiful to everyone. To deny the beauty of this music would be to deny truth exists.

As they walked the music changed. It got louder, of course, because they were getting closer to it. But it also slowed down and sped up. Dischordant phrases of the music were followed with resolution. And something new became audible—voices.

There were voices singing. Voices laughing. Voices shouting with joy. Young and old, boy and girl—this wasn’t a concert, it’s a party.

At this point I need to stop and tell you that the Abernathys had not been to a party in years. Not since Frieda was born, in fact. But that party had been very different from this one. That party had been men and women standing around in formal dress—men in tuxedos and black ties, women in long formal elegant dresses punctuated by shiny jewelry. The party was formal in every sense—there was no relaxed conversation at all. No laughter. There were hors d’oeevres (these are small appetizers that can usually be eater in one bite) that were handed out on trays.

But this party was nothing like that one. They had never in their lives been to a party that involved singing and dancing. As they grew closer they could see the people. Young and old all together, people were having a party. It was simple in itself, but everything still was beautiful. In the middle of the gathering was a large, beautiful carving of a swan—made of ice, glistening in the sunlight as it slowly melted. Other decorations there were obviously not extravagant—but were yet beautiful.

People were talking with each other! Not about the weather, or work, but about the music, about art, about books, about each others’ lives, and about Jesus. And they were happy! There was obviously a great deal of love among these people. Children were playing with one another and the adults were watching with enjoyment. Never had any of them seen quite this kind of gathering.

At this point—one of them saw the Abernathys and Jack coming down the beach. He alerted some others who appeared to be leaders among them and a small group of men walked towards them. But for what happened then—you’ll need to wait for another story.

Note: This is as far as I’ve written so far. I have a title for chapter 4, but I’ll have to brush Elsie’s hair again to actually tell it and then write it down. If you nag me it’s more likely to happen. :0) Chapter 4 will be called, People, Parties, P’s and Q’s.

…and maybe I’ll get up to speed later.

At one point I was at least posting old stuff here on a regular basis.

Tonight, my wife and I went, guest passes in hand, to Landmark Fitness Center. We’re thinking about joining. We’re out of shape. Especially me, and I can’t claim pregnancy as an excuse.

We chose Landmark because they’re open late and we’ve had varying [read: no] success at working out in the morning together. With Raquel here we can go out after the kids are in bed and she doesn’t have to do anything extra except not leave the house.

At 9:38 we pulled out of Orange St. and headed for the gym. We had a minor hicup at the desk when they said “all guests must have a picture ID” and TC didn’t have one. I talked them into letting us both in on mine (”she’s my wife, I’l vouch for her”) and we took a brief tour before settling in to a 20 minute cardio workout that we’re starting with.

After 10 minutes rowing, 7 on the eliptical trainer and 3 on the bike I was tired, but feel good about it. I know I’ll be sore in the morning, but that’s an added advantage of working out in the evening–I can walk it off and stretch out and be ready to try again Wednesday.

I’ll try to post chapter three of my story before bedding down. Be sure to leave a comment sometime so I don’t think I’m writing to the www electrons alone.