Friendship and reflection

My buddy Jason received a double lung transplant this morning.  Everything seemed to go well with the procedure, but now this evening he seems to be having some difficulties in the recovery process.  Please pray for him if you read this.

Jason is a childhood friend with whom I have kept in contact pretty well over the years.  I thought all of my childhood friends would be my close friends as adults, but as it turns out that's not the case!  I have to admit, it's mostly Jason's doing that we kept in touch.  When I went through the self-centered college years and early 20's, he did a great job of keeping the friendship going.  Now as adults, it's cool to have a friend with whom I have that much history.  Maybe I'm feeling old today or something, or maybe his surgery is impacting me more than I thought, but I'm just reflecting on the magnitude of what it's like to have a friendship with someone that has lasted almost 30 years.  Jason knew me when I was an awkward middle school goofball, and he still wants to be friends with me!  That's saying something.

Jason's situation has caused me to slow down and reflect.  I dropped everything today to go to the hospital because he got "the call" for new lungs, and it's not very often that I stop everything I'm doing to slow down for something.  This got my attention, and it caused me to reflect on our good times together over the years.  How I wish we could make forts in the sand at Pelee Island, or go ice fishing at Lake Chitaqua, or jump in the creek to join "the cool club" at the Beck's hunting lodge, or race trikes at Jason's parents mobile home in the mountains.  We have had so many fun times together... our childhood was over the top, and I'm very thankful for that.  I think that's a major reason why I'm directing a mentoring program as an adult, because I know the power of connecting with friends and being mentored by older men over fun activities.  I have many memories like that with Jason, and I'm blessed to have such a great friend.  I hope the friendship will last for many more years to come!

Mentoring... The Anti-Internet

                                                                       As I was reading through The Lexus and the Olive Tree, an interesting paragraph jumped out at me.  Friedman wrote the following:

"Because we rapidly move into a world in which the Internet will define commerce, education, and communication, there will be just two kinds of businesses:  Internet businesses and anti-internet businesses.  Internet businesses are those that can either be done over the Internet, everything from book selling to brokerage to gambling, or be significantly enhanced by the Internet, which applies to everything from management consulting to inventory control.  Anti-internet businesses are those that cannot be done over the Internet - such as preparing food, cutting hair or making steel - and those that are in some ways a reaction against the Internet.  This would include things like shopping centers and Starbucks coffeehouses.  Starbucks and the shopping center are anti-internet businesses because they benefit from the fact that the more people are home alone with their computers, surfing the Net, the more these same people will want to get out of the house, go to the mall or Starbucks or Main Street or touch someone, smell something, taste something or feel something.  Products will always need exposure in a way that people can touch or feel; people will always seek community, whether on Main Street or in the mall."

What really caught my attention was the "anti-Internet businesses that are in some ways a reaction against the Internet."  I draw a parallel to this with mentoring.  In many ways, mentoring draws young people out of a modern world that is shaped by school, family life, Internet, music, video games, cell phones, or many other types of technological distractions.  Mentoring is like drawing someone out of the matrix for a few hours.  So, mentoring is not necessarily a reaction against the Internet, but more so a reaction to being overly self-absorbed in our modern Western culture.  This also impacts the recruitment of new mentors, which often involves the elaborate process of influencing an average adult to forsake their own matrix once a week for a few hours in order to sacrificially spend time with a young person they've never met (often living in a neighborhood they've intentionally avoided for many years).  Even though the process of matching mentors and mentees is challenging, there will always be a tremendous opportunity here because, as Friedmann pointed out, people will always seek community.

Externally Focused Progress

Over the past year North Way has been attempting to become more externally focused.  I've been fortunate to be a part of the team that is implementing these strategies church-wide, and we're really starting to see some incredible results.  One example is that this year we're intentionally directing our Christmas Blessings outreach away from just "money and things" to "relationships."  This looks like what happened this morning, when I met a small group in North Way's parking lot to drive to a Homewood family's house in order to drop off gifts the group had purchased for the family.  When we entered the house, one of the small group members really connected with a 12 year old girl over a dance video that she was watching on TV.  A great conversation ensued, as it turns out both the group member and the girl were both passionate about dancing.  The family was extremely grateful for the gifts, but more than that, new relationships were developed.  The whole experience was powerful for both the givers and the recipients.  In the past, this exchange wouldn't have happened because the small group would have dropped the gifts off at the church for the family to pick up without meeting them.  It's great to see these new strategies panning out.  We also saw this happen earlier this year with the Harvest Party and LAMP at North Way Oakland.

The Call

Last week I finished reading a book by Os Guinness called "The Call." Has anyone read this book? I'd love to hear what you thought of it.

It's definitely deep stuff, and it was very challenging. Julie and I read a lot of it together on our way to and from our trip to NYC. Julie always drives on trips like that because she gets carsick, so I usually read to her once she's exhausted her 20,000 word total with me serving as her captive audience on the car ride. I usually powerhouse through books by reading as fast as I can while we're driving, but in the case with this book I had to slow down and reread many of the key points (which pop up in just about every paragraph). It definitely opened up some great conversations for us as we were driving. So much of it was applicable to our day to day lives as followers of Christ. It's having a tremendous impact on my calling. I'll post my book report for this one eventually, but I was just curious if anyone else has been impacted by it (or any of Guinness's other books).

Integrity, Control, a Car Battery, and the Gospel

Lately I've been reading about integrity and a willingness to give up control as essential leadership qualities.  I would love to be able to say that I demonstrate integrity all of the time, and that I don't want to be in control, but I am definitely still a work in progress.  This is a long post, but I think it will be very therapeutic for me (i.e. I need to vent!). 

Yesterday afternoon I went to pick up my mentee in Homewood, and on the car ride to my house we had a great conversation.  We talked about life, girls (of course... he's in middle school), school, family, video games, and the mentoring weekend that is coming up on Saturday.  I had anticipated this time with him for most of the week because Julie and I had planned to include him in our family traditions in Christmas decorating at our house.  It's always a fun time, and I was really looking forward to it.

I had ordered two pizzas on the drive, and we stopped in at Luciano's to pick up the family dinner (nothing goes with Christmas decorating like pizza).  With pizzas in hand we sat back in the car and wouldn't you know... it wouldn't start.  I have to say my mentee stayed calmer than I, and a great opportunity to model patience passed me by.  I was agitated.  I was agitated because I don't know anything about cars.  I was agitated that I drive a car with 228,000 miles on it.  I was agitated that this happened in the middle of winter.  Sorry sight that I was, I nevertheless popped the hood and did what every man tries to do.  I faked it.  I was fronting big time, pretending to tinker with wires and such knowing full well that I couldn't fix it.  It was pretty funny in retrospect.  With the hood up and my mentee still sitting in the passenger seat of the car, he couldn't see me and I was pulling stuff and punching stuff in the engine and making mean faces.  Then I would pause to peak my head out to the side and give him a smile and say "I'll figure it out, don't worry!"  As if "SUPER MENTOR!" had just entered the parking lot.  Then I would go back behind the hood even more frustrated and start muttering things like "stupid car" under my breath.  Then, I'd pop my head out again to nod assuringly that I had the situation under control, only to start shaking the whole car the next time I went behind the hood.  I was definitely not in control.  A little voice seemed to whisper in my ear, "See... it can't be done Bryan.  Why are you even trying?  This kid sees right through you.  You're so stupid."

With my masculinity fully robbed, I decided that I needed to call for help.  Since Julie was busy with the girls, I called my dad and asked him to come and pick up my mentee to take him to our house with the pizzas and wait for me to get the car jumped or towed.  Dad was kind enough to do that, so then it was just me waiting for an hour in my car for AAA to arrive.

For some reason this stage in life doesn't afford much down time, or in this case, an hour with absolutely nothing planned to do.  What would you do in your car for an hour with nothing to do while waiting for a tow truck?  I'd like to say that I prayed, or read my Bible, or just spent quiet time in the Lord's presence.  Instead, I checked emails on my phone until I got thumb cramps.  Then I played a few games of Bubble Burst, checked my fantasy football squads, and I even managed to get caught up on world events on the NY Times website.  I was so immersed in my 2 inch by 2 inch virtual world (gotta love the Treo) that I managed to tune out my unfortunate circumstances.  Isn't that how life always seems to work?  We humans will turn to any number of things to avoid facing reality, like distraction, food, drinking, or TV.

Anyway, when the AAA guy showed up I was resigned to let him take over control of the situation.  The problem was, he couldn't fix my car.  I had a bad battery, and it was so dead that he couldn't jump it.  It was like that scene with Billy Crystal in the The Princess Bride where he describes the difference between "mostly dead" and "all dead."  Apparently, my battery was "all dead."  If it was "mostly dead" he would have been able to jump it and I could have driven it to a battery repair shop to get a new battery.  But no, my battery was definitely "all dead."  For a nominal fee... $125... he would be gracious enough to send out one of the other workers at their shop who specialized in replacing batteries.  Once again, I'm agitated with myself because I have no idea how much a car battery costs (let alone how much it costs for someone to drive to me to fix it when I'm stranded in a pizza joint parking lot at night).  Naturally, I fronted again and said, "that sounds like a good price, man.  Let's go with it."  No questions, just me pretending like I was in control.  You'd think, "Um... how much does a car battery usually cost?" would have been a good question to ask.

So I waited for another 30 minutes (I'm thinking, "There goes all of my time with my mentee, not to mention family bonding time over Christmas decorations").  If I knew anything about my stock portfolio (I think I have one), I would have checked that out on my phone while I was waiting.  Instead, I went back to the fantasy football sites.  I was demolished last week in one of these leagues by a certain young North Way pastor who shall remain nameless.  Let's just say he failed to show humility and restraint in his victory.  So it was a top priority that I set my team correctly for this week.  I managed to waste 30 more minutes, and the battery replacement expert showed up.

When I'm at church or doing something LAMP-related, I'd like to think that I do my best to engage people relationally through meaningful conversation and good, active listening.  When my car's broken down and the "all dead" battery replacement expert tries to engage me in conversation while he's fixing it... let's just say I acted like a distracted jerk.  This is definitely an integrity issue with me.  Valuing people is not something that I should be able to turn on and turn off, but I totally checked out in this situation.  I sat in my car for a while checking more emails, and I wasted an opportunity to get to know someone new.  I did check in every ten minutes or so, but only long enough to fake my way through conversations about car parts that I knew nothing about.  It took him about the rest of my usually alloted mentoring time to fix the car, so by the time I got home it was time for me to take my mentee back to Homewood.

It started out as kind of a quiet car ride back to Homewood... much more subdued than the animated conversation we had going on the way to my house before the pizza stop.  I gave him a good 10 minutes of silent treatment after he dared to start out the ride back by saying, "Is your car going to make it back to Homewood?"  Yes, I'm a grown man, but I'm sure I still reserve the right to give a 13 year old the "silent treatment".  But just then, in ending the awkward 10 minute silence, he asked, "Bryan, are you afraid to die?"  My thoughts, which had to this point been with the evening's battery episode, came crashing back down to the real world.  I thought, "Where did this question come from?"  Here I was fully immersed in my pity party, and he draws me out with a deep question.  What to do from here?  Thankfully, I decided to relinquish control of the evening and let God take over (finally!).  Some integrity may have even kicked in.  My initial response, "Well, that question was out of the blue, but I think I have an answer.  I'm not afraid to die because I know I'll be with God in heaven when I die.  This is because Jesus in in my heart."  What followed next was a review of the gospel and a great discussion about the meaning of life.  When I dropped him off at his house and started driving back home (yes the car made it), it was as if another quiet voice was whispering in my ear, "Bryan, you do have what it takes.  Well done."  From my own human rationale, I had chalked the evening up as a waste.  But God has a way of showing up when we least expect it.  Only He is in control.

I'm sure this DMin program will continue to be a huge learning curve for me, and I'm thankful that I'm a work in progress.  This is a journey, and I love that God is never done with me.  I hope I can some day be a leader who ALWAYS leads with integrity and authenticity, one who understands that God is always present and in control.

New York City Trip

Julie and I ditched the kids with her parents over Thanksgiving, and we had a blast in New York City.  This was the first time I had been there, and I thought this was great timing considering how much I'll be studying cities over the next few years.  We parked our car and crashed at my sister Cameron's place, and we explored all over the city.

I was amazed at the diversity of this huge city.  The sights and sounds are a lot to take in, but I think I was most impacted by the people.  So many different languages were spoken, and family businesses celebrated their ethnic identities through their storefronts.  Affluent and middle class and poor parts of town flowed in and out of one another.  The stark contrast between the upper east end of Manhattan and Central Park was profound... both the buildings and the nature were beautiful in their own ways.  Central park has some trees that seem like they're straight out of an old forest in Lord of the Rings, as if they're speaking to the people who pass by them.

On our way to Wall Street we noticed an amazing old church called Trinity.  I had to go in, and this place was overwhelming.  It's hard to believe men could set out to build such a beautiful place of worship.  The church has a cemetery next to it where Alexander Hamilton was buried.  Also, it serves as a sort of gateway to Wall Street on one side, and a gateway to the World Trade Center site on the other side.  It was impossible to experience these locations and not be impressed by the magnitude of what they represent.

Times Square was unbelievable, as it seemed to test the limits of the types of things that human beings can design.  We watched the Broadway show "Wicked", and I was amazed at the talents that God has gifted so many people with.  I've heard people say that life in this fallen world is characterized by beauty and affliction.  I can't think of a more distinct example of that description than New York City.  Everything there collides together in an epic battle between beauty and affliction.  One of my early learnings from the DMin program has been to look for God in the city.  Many people claim that God has abandoned cities... that they are evil places.  When I was viewing the city through a different lens, I was able to see God's fingerprints all over the place.  God is in the city!