I’m a big fan of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” but lately have been saddened as they are showing nothing but re-runs. The obvious reason for the re-runs is the Writer’s Strike. All of the TV writers are upset with the TV execs. because the execs refuse to share the profits from online shows and sales with the writers, so the writers are doing a strike. Personally, I think it would be more fitting to call it a Writers’ Block than a Writers’ Strike.
This little feud is foolish to me. If I’m a big, primetime producer with a hit TV show like “Lost” or “24,” in which the writing is everything, and my writing team comes in and says they’re going on strike unless I give them whatever they want, I think I would give them whatever they want. Without them, there is no show. The TV Executives’ motive is obviously more money. If they share the online profits with the writers, they want make as much. But the writers quit because the Execs won’t share, so now there is no show at all. “24″ even cancelled season 7. Doesn’t that mean no more money for anyone? No one is winning this fight, including me.
It reminds me of the little gas station across the street from the big chain gas station. The little guy’s price is ten cents higher than the big boys’. And for what reason? The little guy is hoping to make more money by charging higher prices. But no one is buying gas there. Wouldn’t you make more money if you were even a penny cheaper than the guy across the street? The gas station desperately needs drivers, but their high price is pushing people away.
And that reminds me of marriate. So often marriage becomes a competition of who is more important - who sacrifices more, who works more, who makes more, who washes the dishes more, who took out the trast last time. We get selfish and we get self-righteous and we start a competition that no one wins. You can’t just go on strike. You can’t refuse to share. You can’t raise the price. You’ll only hurt yourself. Marriage is not meant to be a competition, its not even meant to be two people. Marriage is ONE, ONE entity, ONE life. If you cut the other person out, you’re not just wounded… you’re dead.
The show stops. The gas runs dry. All your efforts to hold out and wait for the other person to cave only leaves you alone. How many shows could have been written during this strike? How many more sales could have been made at the little gas station? How many marriages could be saved if we spent half the time and energy giving as we do taking?
So sometimes you have to share the online money and sometimes you have to lower the gas price a little, but in the end you will profit so much more.
My wife often picks on me with the phrase, “You’re not 16 anymore!” I do hang out with a lot of 16 year olds, and I guess it does rub off on me occasionally. But more than that she’s making fun of my obsessive nature. When I get interested in something, I generally want to go all the way with it. For example, I once skimboarded with some guys last year. I really enjoyed it. I wasn’t half bad at it. So in a few weeks time I bought a skimboard, boardshorts, a dry-shirt, and I was getting up at 5:30 am 3 times a week to go ride the surf. A couple of weeks back I was with some kids who were skateboarding, and I used to skate back in the day, so I tried my old moves and I have to say I didn’t do that bad. So you know what my wife said when I told her I think I might be interested in buying a skateboard.
I’m not seriously interested in that, but it led to a good conversation. She asked me, “What is that makes you want to go all out when you get just a little interested in something?” I thought about it for a minute and then I asked her, “What is that makes you want to buy every piece of clothing there is when we walk into Gap?” We both had our answers, but the bottom line is this: it makes us feel good.
I once heard someone say that men and women each have a question we need answered. It starts when we are children and stays with us our whole lives. Men want to know “Can I do it?” And women want to know, “Am I worth it?” Another way to put it would be that my obsessive nature has more to do with me being a man than a teenager at heart. As a man I will value myself by what I can accomplish or conquer. Can I do it. My wife’s obsessive nature (i.e. shopping) has more to do with being a woman than being trendy. She’s not just trying to look good. She’s trying to look good for me. She will value herself by I perceive and respond to her? Am I worthy? If you want to destroy my self-esteem, tell me I can’t do it. Of if I do something but it doesn’t turn out well, then I won’t feel good about myself. If you want to destroy a woman’s self-esteem, tell her she’s worthless.
What’s the moral of this story? Well, I think at first we want to disagree with this little theory. We want to say that we’re deeper than these things and that our self-esteem is stronger than that. But let’s be honest men: We desperately want to feel good about our ability. And when the answer to this question is in doubt, it leads us do foolish things. We will search for an answer. Some men pick up a new hobby. Some men buy a motorcycle. Some men have affairs.
The truth is, the sheer fact that my wife believes I can do anything and she tells me she believes this, makes me truly able to do anything. If I have her support, I never doubt my ability. So how did I get such support? Well, mostly I’m just lucky. But I also strive to let my wife know how important she is to me, how much I value her relationship, and how much her faith in me makes me able. Basically, I don’t need my question answered anymore because my wife answers it everyday. And this happens because I answer her question. Let the women in your lives know they are worth everything to you.
My wife often picks on me with the phrase, “You’re not 16 anymore!” I do hang out with a lot of 16 year olds, and I guess it does rub off on me occasionally. But more than that she’s making fun of my obsessive nature. When I get interested in something, I generally want to go all the way with it. For example, I once skimboarded with some guys last year. I really enjoyed it. I wasn’t half bad at it. So in a few weeks time I bought a skimboard, boardshorts, a dry-shirt, and I was getting up at 5:30 am 3 times a week to go ride the surf. A couple of weeks back I was with some kids who were skateboarding, and I used to skate back in the day, so I tried my old moves and I have to say I didn’t do that bad. So you know what my wife said when I told her I think I might be interested in buying a skateboard.
I’m not seriously interested in that, but it led to a good conversation. She asked me, “What is that makes you want to go all out when you get just a little interested in something?” I thought about it for a minute and then I asked her, “What is that makes you want to buy every piece of clothing there is when we walk into Gap?” We both had our answers, but the bottom line is this: it makes us feel good.
I once heard someone say that men and women each have a question they need answered. It starts when they are children and stays with them their whole lives. Men want to know “Can I do it?” And women want to know, “Am I worth it?” Another way to put it would be that my obsessive nature has more to do with me being a man than a teenager at heart. As a man I will value myself by what I can accomplish or conquer. Can I do it. My wife’s obsessive nature (i.e. shopping) has more to do with being a woman than being trendy. She will value herself by how she appears or looks. How do you perceive me? Am I worthy?
If you want to destroy my self-esteem, tell me I can’t do it. Of if I do something but it doesn’t turn out well, then I won’t feel good about myself.
What’s the moral of this story? Well, I think at first we want to disagree with this little theory. We want to say that we’re deeper than these things and that our self-esteem is stronger than that. But let’s be honest men: We desperately want to feel good about our ability. And when the answer to this question is in doubt, it leads us do foolish things. We will search for an answer. Some men pick up a new hobby. Some men buy a motorcycle. Some men have affairs.
Truth is, the sheer fact that my wife believes I can do anything and she tells me she believes this, makes me truly able to do anything. If I have her support, I never doubt my ability. So how did I get such support? Well, mostly I’m just lucky. But I also strive to let my wife know how important she is to me, how much I value her relationship, and how much her faith in men makes me able. Basically, I don’t need my question answered anymore because my wife answers it everyday. And this happens because I answer her question. Let the women in your lives know they are worth everything to you.
Tonight I was talking with Mike Browning, the lead guitarist in our band at The Gathering Place. He’s 19. I’m 27. But it feels like we’re the same age, at least for me. Earlier we had heard the song “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” on the radio and it kind of sticks in your head, so Mike and I kept singing it, kind of under our breath like you do when a song gets stuck in your head. Then Mike says, “Who sang that song? Hootie and the Blowfish?” And was like, “No, man, Creedence Clearwater Revival sang that, probably before I was born. Its classic rock. Hootie is from the 90’s and that is definitely NOT classic rock. Hootie came out when I was in high school.” Then it dawned on me that high school was only a year ago for Mike, but 10 years ago for me, and Hootie and the Blowfish were very close to being “classic” rock. That hurt a little bit.
A few weeks ago I was speaking at a Youth Summer-Mission Camp for a few days, and one of the kids came up to me and said, “Its really easy to listen to you speak because you talk just like a teenager would.” First of all, I wasn’t sure this was a compliment (I decided to take it as one though). She could have been insulting my maturity, but I think she meant it to be nice. But still, what hit my heart most was that I “talked like” a teenager, not that I am a teenager. I guess a lot of times I feel like I am a teenager. But I am not. I’m 27. I’ve been married for almost 4 years. I am a father to a toddler. Definitely nothing teen about those facts.
This weekend my wife and son were out of town and I was home by myself. I was a little miserable, and would have been a lot more miserable. Luckily my friend Patrick was willing to hang out with me. We went to the movies. We went skim-boarding. We did a half-day of kayaking. It was great - very much like being single. It was fun. But at night I would come home and it would not take long before the emptiness and the stillness of the house surrounded me. It was strange walking by my son’s room and it being so dark and empty and quiet. It was difficult to try to go to sleep without my wife next to me. I couldn’t even sleep in my bed because it was so weird. I had to sleep on the couch. And the words God spoke in Genesis echoed in my head: “It is not good for man to be alone.”
My wife and son returned tonight, and I’ve never been so happy. The teen years are gone. My music is now “classic.” I am not a single bachelor. I cannot simply go out and see a movie or kayak for half a day when the urge hits. I cannot eath pizza every night and fall asleep in the wee hours in the glare of TV. Those things were fun in their season. But that season has passed. And I would not trade my life now for a million years as a teenager or as a bachelor.
Thank God for age. It may be painful sometimes, but there is so much joy in a life shared and a life given for others. So all of you teens and bachelors and bachelorettes out there - enjoy it now, but know that something far greater awaits you!
Filed under: marriage
Do you know what really annoys me? Cell phones. It was not that long ago that we didn’t have cell phones or pagers or internet or even answering machines. You used to let the home phone ring a few times, and if no one answered you just waited. But now cell phones are a part of our existence, so I have one and I use it. As a matter of fact, I don’t even have a house phone anymore! But what I really dislike even more than cell phones is when there is static on the line or when you have a bad connection. And then you have that whole conversation: “What’d you say? I can’t hear you!” And then the person starts yelling, but you still don’t know what they’re saying because you can in fact hear them, you just can’t understand them because of the static. Its not a volume problem, its a clarity problem. Then you get frustrated because the volume is going up and up and up, but things aren’t getting any clearer - and finally someone just hangs up and then curses their cellular provider.
Last night my wife and I finally laid down to go to sleep. It was almost 11PM, we had been up since 6 AM. And as I set my head on the pillow, anxiously pursuing sleep, I realized something: I had not had a significant conversation with her all day. But we had talked! We probably talked on the phone 17 times. I even had breakfast with her. I got off work a little early and came home before I had some evening meetings. We had spent time together, but yet I felt a little disconnected. And when I look back I see that converstaion over breakfast was about our day’s schedule and to do lists. The phone conversations were much the same - quick spurts intended only to gather pertinent information to make decisions. The time in the afternoon was spent doing chores around the house. We even went to a party last night, sat next to each other, but spent all of our time focused on others. Sure we talked and sure we spent time together, but it was all just static. We never had a significant, personal, connecting conversation amidst all the busy-ness of life.
So I started asking her questions. They were kind of cheesy, but she laughed and was a good sport. We finally had that significant conversation and I slept better for it. It may not seem like a big deal right now. But what would happen if we repeated this pattern of time together and talking, but never having significant connection? What would happen if we lived that way for 5 years? Would we make it 5 more years? It’s not a volume problem, it’s a clarity problem. The important thing is to not get frustrated and hang up, but to keep talking and working through all the “static.”
Filed under: marriage
So, I’ve been thinking about marriage a lot recently. My wife and I have been asked to speak at this little retreat soon about marriage, which seems kind of funny to me because we’re pretty new at it. I’m also leading some discussions in youthCHAT for the next few Sundays about dating - and in my opinion, if you talk about dating then you have to talk about marriage. But also, I’m just seeing more divorce. I know that it was always there and always happening, but in the past few months it has been a little closer to home, happening to people I know, people I care about.
I myself am a child of a divorced family. Chances are more likely that you, the reader, come from a divorced family than not, statistically speaking. From this stance, I’d have to say that I’m an enemy of divorce. I know that a lot of people would say there are special circumstances and sometimes divorce is the healthiest option and all of that. I’m sure there is some truth there. Obviously if you are in an abusive situation or something like that, it would be dangerous for you NOT to find a way out.
But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the marriages that are seemingly healthy. The people who don’t just get married out of impulse or one night in Vegas or whatever. I’m talking about the people who at one point were genuinely in love with each other and who really did dream of living their whole lives together at one point. No abuse. Nice family. Good kids. The neigborhood, the house, the mini-van. What happens?
Well, like I said before: I’m not expert. I’m not even going to try to come up with an answer. Its just a thought that has been running through my mind and I wanted to throw it out there. This seems pretty important to me because we are new in our marriage, and I really cannot imagine any circumstance or any situation that would make me want to leave or to quit. But I’m sure the people I know who are struggling with this same issue right now would have said the same thing.
Bottom Line: Each day I have a choice in my marriage. I can make it stronger or I can make it weaker. Neutral is not an option because it is the same as weaker in my book. Sometimes that means humility, swallowing my pride, and enduring some struggle. Sometimes it means taking some initiative and getting some ambition and taking the risks to do what is best for my family. I guess the real danger is the day I choose to think about myself instead of my wife and my son.
Sorry for the not so positive post, but I think this is something that we need to be thinking about and acting on. Replies requested.
