A Square Meal

"I want a hamburger, Dad," Elliot said.

"How do you ask?"  I asked him.

"May I please have a hamburger?"  Elliot said, very appropriately.

I studied his plate for a second.  He had already had a hot dog, green beans, and some potato chips.  I cut a hamburger in half and put one half on plate.

"Dad," he wailed.  "You cut it in half.  I wanted the whole thing!"

"You wouldn't have eaten the whole thing," I told him.  "If you are still hungry when you finish that, you can have the other half."

"But... but... Dad, I like square food and this is a rectangle!" 

I stifled a smile.  He was certainly correct that the burger had been square initially and cutting it in half made it rectangular,  but this was a reason I had never heard before.  I'm sure that Elliot thought that he wanted a whole burger, but it had nothing to do with the shape of the meat sitting in his plate.

In the same way, perhaps, there are many times that I want something and I work really hard to come up with reasons, good reasons why I want it.  And yet, if I am honest with myself, there is only one reason:  I want it.

As I think about it, it is really important that we are honest with ourselves about our motivations to get or, do things.  There is nothing more confusing than when we manufacture fake reasons to do things we just want to do.

In the end, rationalizations aren't worth much.  No more, really, than the difference in taste between square and rectangular food.

Dealing with Grief

 

Daniel was sitting in a the chair beside the door when I entered the exam room, waiting patiently for me.  We shook hands and then I sat down.

"How have you been doing?"  I asked him.

"Oh, I guess about the same as ever," he told me.

"Is that good or bad?"  I asked him.

"I think it's good," he responded.  Daniel was seventy-eight years old and only on one prescriptions medication.  He was in for visit for an annual physical and to get a refill on his medication.

I pressed a different tab on my computer and his vitals popped up.  "You've lost some weight," I said.  "Is everything OK?"

Daniel hesitated and then tears spilled out of his eyes.  "I... I just don't have as much of an appetite since Mary died.  You knew that Mary died in March?"  I had known, but I hadn't remembered it when I came into the room.  Now I did.

"I'm sorry," I said.  "I'm sure you're missing her terribly.  How are you dealing with Mary's death?"

"It's hard.  I miss her so much.  I was doing something last night and I realized it was time for us to go to bed and I started to say: 'Mary, let's go to bed,'  when it hit me that she wasn't there.  That seems to happen a lot."

These are the sort of conversations that medical school doesn't prepare you for.  What do you say to a man who has lost the love of his life -- someone he had shared everything with for the past fifty years?

Everything sounds trite and hollow. 

"She's in a better place." 

"You'll see her again some day." 

"Time will heal your wounds."

While these words may be true, they don't meet the need of the moment.  I don't know what such a loss is like, I can only imagine.  "Daniel," I said.  "I don't think there's anything that can fill the hole in your life, or take away your grief.  Time may make the wounds less fresh, but sometimes there will be things that remind you of her and bring it all back to you.  That's also an indication of how much you loved each other."

I asked him if it was OK if we prayed together and he said yes.  That's what we did.

I am no grief counselor, but it seems to me that the most import thing to do in this situation is to acknowledge the reality of the loss and the depth of the grief.  Maybe for a moment we can share in someone else's sorrow, even if we don't totally understand.

I know that burdens which cannot be borne alone can be shouldered together. 

In the darkest situations, only Jesus can shine a light that will pierce the darkness.

Traveling for the Sake of Traveling

“Classic Travel Stories.” Perhaps it sounds like an interesting book. Certainly, a book that includes an assemblage of true stories from a variety of journeys in numerous different places is sure to have excitement on every page.

This is exactly what I thought when I picked up the book and started wading through it. The stories ranged from Xenephon’s journey from Persia to Greece, to Robert Fallon Scott’s disastrous attempt on the South Pole. All were very interesting indeed, yet I found something distinctly lacking.

You see, I found that the stories of the journeys themselves did not assuage my desire to know what these various individuals did upon reaching their goals. The journey is really only a means to an end.

I know this from my own life. I do not enjoy traveling, I enjoy getting places. I hate the hours that are often necessary to reach a given destination. If it were possible to teleport from one location to another and skip the travels completely, I would gladly take advantage of such an option.

Unfortunately, in life, many people believe that the goal is not nearly as important as the journey itself. Yet, a journey without a goal; travels without an intended end are worthless.

The writer of Hebrews made it clear in chapter 12, that our focus is not on the race, but on the finish line. "Therefore, ...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eye on Jesus..." Somehow, in spite of all the obstacles, we must arrive in glory with Him.

Life is a journey; one made either aimlessly or in a goal directed fashion. It is only as we fix our eyes on Jesus and make Him the focal point of our travels that our goal of eternity with Him will be realized.

What's Facebook good for?

An awful lot of people use Facebook these days.  According to Google, it has 1.4 billion monthly users.  Now, of course, some of those aren't real people, but still, there are at least a hundred or two folks who use the social media site regularly.

All this begs the question:  "What is Facebook good for?"

I suppose it is good for selling things and for keeping track of people who you haven't seen in a long time.  It also seems to be a good place for finding low calorie recipes and even for drooling over the occasional super-high calorie dessert recipe as well.

Most of all, I think many people use Facebook to reinforce their own strongly held beliefs and to solicit encouragement to do things they were planning to do anyway.

Unfortunately, I see biased individuals posting links to web sites with similar biases and dubious credibility.  The internet is a wonderfully large place where, however unusual my views, I can definitely find a couple of others who hold similar beliefs.

This leads me to thing that Facebook is useless for -- changing someone else's mind.  People who log onto Facebook with a strong opinion are likely to sign off with that opinion held even more strongly -- even if someone calls them a name, or attacks them personally.

I look at these arguments and wish that love would prevail.  I see the anger and desire that kindness would be the rule, rather than the exception in internet interactions.

The cause of Christ will not be furthered by yelling at people, but by loving them where they are and praying that they will accept Him.

For, when Jesus enters a life, He has a way of turning it upside down in a way that Facebook never can.