Something is very wrong with our Christmas tree

We slowly stepped around it in the field at the tree farm. You know how you’re looking for which side will go against the wall? This tree had no bad sides. Brenda wanted slim but full, and the whole thing looked perfectly full top to bottom. The branches draped in a circle on the ground without a bare spot anywhere.

Brenda loved it. “It’s so beautiful!”

We got it home and in water and turned it this way and that to see which angle was best. It still didn’t matter–all sides were equally full.

We wrapped it in lights and hung the silver and gold balls. Then put on the harp and cross ornaments.

Brenda goes, “Hmmm.”

We hung the little plastic icicles. Stood back and looked. Moved some things around. Stood back and looked some more.

“Something’s missing,” Brenda said.

I said, “Maybe it needs some contrast, something red or green thrown in.”

“Nooooo,” She said, “I like silver and gold like we always have. Do we usually have more lights?”

“No. Exact same lights.”

We both began realizing what was wrong.

The tree is too perfect.

Too full, too symmetrical, too straight.

It’s boring. It needs some nooks and crannies, some branches sticking out here and there, some bare spots, a live squirrel popping it’s head out, something. It doesn’t look real.

Living things have strengths and weaknesses, holes and surprises. You think you want everything fixed, running smooth and predictable, but when you get it you’re disappointed.

You’re not wired for a perfect life.

As I go through my imperfect life today and this week, with imperfect people and surprises, with my own bares spots and my own awkward branches sticking out, I hope I can remember this perfect tree that has something very wrong with it. I hope you remember it too.

And when a squirrel pops his head out . . .

I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over one’s work.

Then one can feel that perhaps one’s true work–one’s work for God–consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one’s day. It is not a waste of time, as one is tempted to think, it is the most important part of the work of the day–the part one can best offer to God.

After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it.

Annie Keary

Can you think of a recent imperfect day or occasion that was beautiful because of the imperfections?

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Have you met your Squanto?

My wife said the little story I told her of how Squanto helped the Pilgrims was something every third grader learns.

And then forgets.

Squanto taught the Pilgrims to grow corn which would save their lives. He showed them how to fertilize the corn with fish. Since they couldn’t catch fish he taught them that, too, plus how to stalk deer, plant pumpkins, harvest maple syrup, and sell beaver pelts.

He was an Indian who spoke English and who needed a reason to live after all his family died. He’d had a tragic, adventurous life as a victim of kidnapping and almost slavery. He lived in Europe for years and finally returned to his homeland finding his family dead and gone.

Then a friend introduced him to these clueless foreigners.

The Pilgrims didn’t ask for Squanto. Didn’t go looking for him. Didn’t even know they needed him.

Sometimes the crucial key is kept a secret from you

Like a turkey cooking in an invisible oven.

When you finally get it, your thanksgiving increases.

Maybe that’s the plan the whole time.

When have you experienced a Squanto, realizing later that this thing has been prepared for you over time?

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Your Monday morning pep talk

“NOT TODAY I DON’T”

Jack Black’s “Gulliver” movie was pretty forgettable, but there was one scene I can’t forget.

Gulliver is about to change his life. He’s been in the mailroom too long, fooling around and fooling himself too long, afraid to do anything but the same old thing. Life has just thrown one of those “what are you going to do with this?” moments at him. Wrongs need righted and bad guys vanquished.

And there’s no one else to do it.

You can hate it, or you can accept it as a gift.

“Gulliver, you work in the mailroom,” his wish-she-was my-girlfriend Darcy says, doubting.

“Not today I don’t,” he says.

And today he doesn’t.

What if, just for today, you did the same thing?

Not today I don’t . . . 

  • act like it doesn’t matter
  • get by with as little as possible
  • grumble and gripe and feel sorry for myself
  • go thru the motions, phone it in, line up at the time clock
  • tell myself I’m a loser and daydream that I’m not
  • believe that little voice that says it’s hopeless
  • let my feelings tell me what to do
  • act like no one’s watching
  • live as if there’s no God
  • (add your own)
  • (add another)
  • (and another)

Just for today — Not today I don’t. 

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You can throw a baseball through your neighbor’s window

(photo by BigMan50)

But you can’t make your neighbor like it.

In our news the last five days we’ve seen a war zone of stories about generals and their families, and about women hiding in homes from telephoto lenses. We don’t see the very human part of the conversations going on in those families and homes. But we can guess.

We can guess it’s not much fun right now. If only you could reverse time and go back to when things were normal! 

And with all the cameras, stories, and scoops on what really happened and why, there’s bound to be some really bad reporting mixed in there somewhere. And when you’re the subject of the bad reporting it just drives you mad.

Isn’t the truth bad enough? Who gave people the right to invent your motivations and dig up irrelevant stuff and get so much wrong and then act like vultures and broadcast it to the world? Who do those people think they are?

It’s too late for that.

It’s too late to complain or try to control.

You’re not going to get any sympathy.

You’re just making it worse.

The time to influence people’s reaction to you is when you make the decision or do the deed.

And even then you don’t have much control.

Back in the old days I could choose to drink, but I couldn’t choose my wife’s reaction. Lecturing her on her reaction would be idiotic, even if she got some details wrong.

You can choose to finally tell your boss off. You can choose to give your spouse the silent treatment and be convinced they deserve it. You can choose to belch loudly and repeatedly during your daughter’s wedding vows.

You can do all that. You’re free!

But you can’t choose the consequences, or control what people say or think about what you do.

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My son-in-law tore his Marmot insulated jacket

Just a small rip. He doesn’t know how it happened, but he obviously caught it on something. It’s light stuff and would be easy to tear. It was definitely not any failure of the jacket quality.

He’d had it about a year and loved it. Too bad.

REI replaced it. For free. Even after a year.

But it was his fault!

Doesn’t matter. “Go on back there and pick out another one,” they said.

Do you find it hard to ask for God’s help when the mess you’re in is all your fault?

Of course you go to God when you’re scared or a victim. But if your trouble is your own doing are you on your own?

Is REI more generous than Jesus?

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Your Monday morning pep talk

When you get to the blank below, insert the place where you are investing yourself this week–work, family, school, marriage, relationship, whatever. Be specific. Make sure you personalize it.

‘I have chosen you.’

Keep that note of greatness in your creed.

It is not that you have got God but that He has got you.

Here, in this _____________, God is at work, bending, breaking, moulding, doing just as He chooses.

Why He is doing it, we do not know; He is doing it for one purpose only – that He may be able to say, This is My man, My woman.

We have to be in God’s hand so that He can plant men on the Rock as He has planted us.

– Oswald Chambers

Now go forth in confidence that God is using this week’s unpredictability and chaos to dent your world with grace.

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I can’t decide how to be selfish

Thanksgiving is at our house this year.

That means what it always means when you’re the host. Time to spruce up.

So my wife wants to change the bedroom around, make it better. At first I do the guy default and think, “That means work and money.” Of course I don’t say that.

After a day or so I start realizing how happy it would make her. Then I remember how happy I get when she’s happy. And how easy she is to please. And how she gives me more credit than I deserve.

Hmmm

Then I realize she’s just talking about some paint and accessories. Not all new furniture. Sure I’d have to paint the bedroom, but it’s been seven years–I’ll have to do it sometime anyway.

Let’s see, a couple of days work, minimal expense, nice bedroom, super-happy wife, hero status.

So what’s more selfish? Complain, do things grudgingly, and maybe she even gives up and so you get out of the trouble? Is that selfish?

Or is it selfish to think of how happy you’ll be when she’s happy? So you gladly do it for her but really it’s for yourself.

Are you selfish if you do it or don’t do it?

Getting joy from the joy of someone you love sure makes life complicated.

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The election you don’t see coming

Most of the time your life doesn’t change so radically in one day that you are either President or you’re not.

Presidential candidates see the fork in the road coming.

Almost always, you don’t. 

Ten years ago next week I was released from my job. Total surprise. But when it happened I instantly knew big changes were ahead. I didn’t know what changes, but I knew they were on the way.

But even that is not how most big change comes. Usually big change sneaks up without a word.

My life also forked the afternoon I met my wife at a summer job after high school. But I didn’t know it that day or for many more days, weeks, and months.

Or a chance meeting with a stranger in the door knobs aisle at Home Depot leads to a friendship and later a job, moving across the country, and new friends for your kids who soon take up competitive duck herding and motorized chariot racing. And become world champs. Everything changed while shopping for door knobs but you never knew.

Multiply that times dozens or hundreds in your life.

Aren’t you glad most life-changing moments are not like election day?

You couldn’t handle the drama.

When did your life fork but you didn’t know until long after you went through it?

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Can’t get there alone : Day 31 of 31

One of the Myers-Briggs personality types is INTP.

INTP’s connect dots automatically.

They can’t help looking for things to help the world make sense. Here’s a summary from a place that explains that kind of thing:

The task of the INTP’s mind is to fit each encountered idea or experience into a larger structure. Their central goal is to understand and seek truth.

They like to understand the structures and processes that govern the world and mold them with their own ideas and designs. They like to understand many things at deep levels.

You’re probably some other personality type. You’re not driven to connect the dots.

But you still want your life, your world, your hopes and dreams to make sense.

I’m an INTP, so since I’m going to be covering this corner of the pool anyway, you’re welcome to hang out here.

From now on I may not always describe it as ‘connecting the dots.’ I may not always take you in the kitchen like we did some here during the 31 Days. It might be more subtle. I may just catch the fish and cook the meal and present it.

If you like that kind of thing I hope we can become friends.

You’ve been assigned your own corner of the pool. I’m sure the way God has made you will end up helping me just like I want to help you. Thanks in advance.

~~~~

This is the last of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. You can visit the Nester to choose from over 1,200 more 31 Dayers.

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Nothing to see here. Move along : Day 30 of 31

This is just a video about the making of the T-Mobile dance commercial.

Fun. Entertaining.

Just a dot.

Could there be other dots that connect and take this dot to another level? And then when the dots connect could they reinforce each other and give each other deeper meaning for your life?

HaHaHa! Of course not. It’s just a video.

But let’s try anyway.

I’ll start. The quotes are from the video.

~~

Someone made this big old world and he made it for a reason. Then something bad happens in the world and people are dying but don’t know it. So as part of his reason he sends his son to the world to rescue people before it’s too late.

He’s working his reason out continually, but most people don’t see it. It’s not obvious on the surface of things.

It’s so big you can’t take it all in.

The people he rescues become pretty grateful. They don’t even know they need rescued until it happens. When they realize this, it fills them with joy. But the son isn’t done. He wants to use the grateful, joyful ones to rescue more people.

Your job is to pick someone up along the way.

Their joy and gratitude is to be something the people who need rescuing will find irresistible. People will be attracted and want to join in, without realizing it’s all a setup, part of an agenda to give them the same joy and gratitude.

But it’s all covert.

It’s like there’s a whole production going on behind the scenes of the world. Like it’s all choreographed, not for robots but for joyful, grateful people. And the choreographer is watching with excitement, unseen.

The real magic exists in you being able to convince members of the general public to join in and do what you’re doing

But sometimes the grateful, joyful people forget. They get all caught up in their own world–a wonderful world!–and forget their real assignment.

You’re so caught up in the dance that you’re not turning your head and saying to someone, “C’mon! Join in!”

Well, like I said, probably no other dots here. Just a fun video.

OR you COULD consider it your graduate class in dot connecting. Whatever. Enjoy.

(If you’re reading in email click HERE to go to the website for the video. It’s 4:24 and a joy.)

So what jumps out at you in the video?

~~~~

Day 30 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams. 

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