How I met your Mother, Part 1

So this is the story of how I met your mother. Unfortunately I am not as near as attractive as Neal Patrick Harris – which is fortunate for all my biological children. This is not a story book romance. This is more of a normal story about how a boy, completely encumbered by self-doubt, low self-esteem, and difficulty in fitting in with people found a girl who could look past all of that and hang out with him… and subsequently fall in love. It is not a short story at all since it has now encompassed 19 years. It was not easy, nor does it fit any sort of Hollywood mold. If this gets turned into a movie I am sure that many unbelievable turns of events will have to be added to make it palatable to the modern movie-going audience. But this is the real story. Note: I’m listening to T-Swizzle, who will always remain, in my sick twisted and completely stuck in outer space mind, as my next ex-wife. Because I’m broken. And my beautiful and wonderful wife still loves me. This is a love story.

In 1997 I was a student at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. I was tall, skinny, awkward, and relatively unmotivated. You see, I had failed out of college about a year prior, joined the Army, and ended up on the west coast of the United States. I had suffered through a relatively easy bout of basic training and wound up at DLI. I had maybe one or two people I called “friends” and I still don’t know if they considered me friends at the time. Now I think they do but since I haven’t seen either of them in person in a decade I can’t be sure. The lack of friends will be a recurring theme in this little narrative.

Unrelated to friends, I was struggling in language school. When I joined the Army I knew I was going to go to Monterey. I had done a tiny bit of research and chosen a job that I knew would bring me to Monterey but I had no clue what it would do for me. I wanted to learn Arabic or Russian and definitely not an Asian language. Due to my lack of planning, lack of research, and lack of anything that resembled the cognition associated with my desires I ended up learning Korean. When I found out that I was going to learn Korean I literally said, “Korea? We fought a war there once.” Yeah, I was ignorant. I was also less than diligent in my studies and despite my crush on my instructors (Ms. Moon and Ms. Choi I’m looking at you…) I was failing. Background: failing out of language school means that you become subject to “needs of the Army”. Somehow, despite my ignorance, I knew that I didn’t want to become subject to the needs of the Army – something about being a truck driver didn’t appeal to me (not that there is anything wrong with driving trucks for the Army, I just didn’t feel like I wanted to do that at the time). So, in order to avoid driving trucks for the Army I decided to… *gasp*… study. I also had designs on meeting a girl. Let’s talk about me and girls.

Me and girls weren’t really compatible. In high school I was rejected by over 13 girls… in a row. At Monterey I had equal success, although I was coming off a not-unsuccessful try at meeting and hanging out with a girl. I had met a nice Mormon girl who was out in Monterey for the summer but she had left the peninsula. She sent me cookies because she was truly a nice girl but that relationship wasn’t going anywhere because distances were hard for me – at the time. She was in Utah and I was in Monterey and there were many miles between us – and I didn’t have a car. Since I was stuck, and failing language school, I was kind of hoping that studying at the local coffee shop would raise my profile a bit and allow me to meet the girl of my dreams. Nothing attracts young, rich, beautiful women like a skinny, awkward, self-conscious man who lacks confidence quietly studying alone in the front of a coffee shop on a weekend in a city populated by old rich people. Right?

So there I was. Sipping my chai latte reading my Korean text books splitting my time between writing Korean phrases with poor syntax and furtively glancing around at the other patrons, of which there were none. A young Asian girl walked in and sat down on the other side of the coffee bar and I got a little bit of tightness in my chest. I knew she was Asian because I have eyes but I had no idea which flavor of Asian. Japanese? Chinese? Thai? Korean? A mix of one of those two? I had absolutely no idea so I continued to try and study but I was failing. Remember, I was a REALLY BAD STUDENT. Eventually the girl left her seat at her table and disappeared into the recesses of the bathroom. I knew this was my chance and I quickly spring into action as I walked past her table and noticed her hand lotion and a notebook. A gold mine, but not really. The only really important information that I garnered was that the hand lotion had Korean writing on it. Thanks DLI, you taught me to identify Hangul – what useful skill. That’s what $100,000+ worth of training will get you. In an uncharacteristically bold move I decided to act. I wrote what was probably the poorest worded offer to buy a cup of coffee that has ever been written in the history of the Korean language – and pick-up lines as a whole.

I was mortified. You see, my Midwest upbringing taught me that asking a girl if she wanted a cup of coffee was akin to asking her to conduct unspeakable sexual acts. I argued to myself between using the word “drink” or“coffee” for about minute. “Drink” could be misinterpreted to indicate something not exactly appropriate in a coffee shop, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember how to properly spell “coffee” in Hangul. If I was wrong I could accidentally write “nose blood”, and what kind of freak would offer a young presumably Korean girl a warm cup of bloody nose refuse. I opted for “drink” despite the *obvious* connotation toward sexual congress – such a pervert. I scribbled the note onto a post-it, stuck it on her notebook, and retreated to my window seat in the corner and desperately stared at my homework as she returned to her seat.

A note on the environment: There were three people in Plume’s Coffee Shop that day. Me, the Barista (or whatever they are called outside of Starbucks), and this as yet unidentified presumably Korean girl.

I was watching out of the corner of my eye as this girl sat down at her table, saw the post-it note, and got a distinct tightness in my chest as she looked up from her table and intently stared around the coffee shop, looking for the offending party that had clearly entertained the idea of anal sex via sticky note. With disdain evident in her voice she spoke to me in perfect English, “Did you write this?” My heart sank, I struggled to lower myself into the faux-wood tile of the restaurant. Surely she had to be talking to someone else – but that couldn’t possibly be true. She was talking to me and there was no denying it. I had offended this girl – the obvious resident of the peninsula. I had strived mightily to introduce myself and had brought shame and disgrace on my family, the entire history of the U.S. Army, all Soldiers past and present, and every man who has ever tried to make an introduction to a woman in a coffee shop ever. I was lower than low. I don’t remember what exactly I said in response but it was pitiful.

My Bootstraps

In fifth grade my primary teacher left for, I think, a week. I was pretty stoked because my teacher was a no-nonsense kind of woman who ran a fair but strict classroom. I wasn’t too keen on strict so a full week without her made the idea of going to school a little less horrifying than usual. There would be movies, and self-study time, and generally less schooling. Perhaps with the extra time I could work up the courage to finally talk to Sara Huotari… or not. But that was not to be. Our substitute teacher, Mrs. Johnson, was just as strict as my primary teacher and my primary teacher had left Mrs. Johnson a very detailed lesson plan which she intended to follow. However, I did not intend to follow that plan.

One of the things I have realized about my faulty brain is that sometimes I get an expectation in my head, however irrational, childish, or stupid, and I get fixated on it. I get ornery, I struggle, and I pitch a fit if I don’t get what I consider is owed to me. And in extreme cases I act out. (Note: As my wife knows, fifth grade Greg was only slightly less restrained than 38 year old Greg.) Since I felt it was my God-given right to slack off that week I raised hell in protest. I was disruptive, I was obstinate, I was the class clown, and I was downright cruel. I don’t know if I succeeded but I acted as if my goal was to get Mrs. Johnson to quit teaching. At the end of the week our primary teacher came back and with her came dread.

Later in life I really did get better. Sure, I dropped out of college and joined the Army at the lowest rank possible. Yes, my credit score was damn near the double digits at one point. Yes, I did leave the woman to whom I am now married for some very selfish and stupid reasons. But I made it out and now I am a relatively well-adjusted and successful father of four. I have been happily married for over 15 years. I’ve traveled the world, done lots of cool stuff, have some awesome kids, a nice house in the suburbs, and what appears to be a healthy set of life and career skills. I am also, in the words of Chad Kroeger, a leader of men and I also brew some pretty good beer.

Stop. Look back on that last sentence and count the number of times you read “I” “I’ve” or “my”. Check out all those accomplishments. Take all that into consideration and spend some time basking in my accomplishments. I was a poor, awkward kid from the middle of nowhere and look where I am now. Pretty impressive. (Those that have read certain of my other blog postings know that this is a very, very ham-fisted setup but sssssshhhhhh. Don’t spoil it for the n00bs.) In the words of Grace from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I am a “righteous dude.”

But I’m not, and that is the focus of today’s blog post.

Here is how it happened: My fifth grade teacher responded to my friend request on facebook so I finally got the opportunity to send her a note thanking her for being such a strict and wonderful teacher. As I was composing that letter in my head I realized that much of what I wanted to tell her was in line with what I wanted to tell a lot of people. To wit: I am where I am because of the care, concern, and hard work of multitudes of people. Some more than others. This is why I will never be able to write a self-help book. I can never honestly claim any sort of special wisdom or work ethic or “secret to my success” because all of the wisdom, hard work, and secrets came from all the people around me that took the significant amount of time to teach me how to not be an idiot. And it was a lot of time because holy crap I am dumb. So instead of just writing to her I am writing to you all in the hope that I will encourage you all (and myself) to be more like her.

Take care of the people around you. There are some kind of special morons that surround you on a daily basis and they most likely irritate the enamel off your teeth. Some are violently racist. Some are brutally ignorant. Some are just… awkward… really, really, painfully awkward. Awkward to the point that you feel all weird just being in the same room as them. Others are their own worst enemy and can’t seem to figure that out. I am asking you to reach out to them and try to help them. Teach them, or counsel them, or school them, or in the case of Gre… the awkward ones just be their friend and try to get them to be comfortable in their own skin.

But that is not easy. It is not easy to be the nice guy or girl. It is definitely not easy to be a teacher. Spending a lot of time with the lowest common denominators of the world seems like an almost complete waste of time. So much effort. So little short term payoff. Hell, so little visible payoff in any sort of realistic timeline. In the example of my fifth grade teacher she is just now, 29 years later, seeing her results. The time you spend with these people will be a short-term and mid-term loss and may very well be a complete loss. Because let’s face it: you may not help in the long run.

I say “try” for a reason. Unless you are an experienced teacher, a trained counselor, or a truly empathic and caring person you will mess up your efforts. You will do something wrong. You will be inadvertently hurtful yet say things with the best of intentions. And those things will rip the breath right out of the person you’re trying to help. You will accidentally tear off scabs you didn’t know exist. You will do all the wrong things and discourage someone from even trying to better themselves. You will completely botch everything, despite your best of intents. But you have to try because even if the person you are trying to help doesn’t show it, your work is appreciated. Plus, when you get it right it means more than you can possibly imagine to the person you’re trying to help.

Case in point: I just got a call from my oldest daughter. She is at dance camp and has been having a rough time of it. She didn’t get into the level she wanted, some of the other girls decided the movie “Mean Girls” was an instruction manual, and this is her first time away from home for any extended period of time. But tonight she was so happy it made me cry. One of her instructors was patient and kind and took the time to help the awkward kid with an attitude and a poor grasp of the English language. That teacher persevered and took the time to train the untrainable and tonight Lena was the happiest I think I ever heard her. The instructor told her she did a fantastic triple pirouette and complemented her dancing. The instructor probably doesn’t realize it but those words at this juncture in my daughter’s life were probably the most positively impactful things ever.

The instructor didn’t hear the joy in my daughter’s voice. She will never know how grateful I am as a father. That instructor may have been thinking about all the other girls who would be easier to teach. She is probably exhausted and getting paid shit wages at a summer camp and reevaluating her life choices. But right now that instructor and the time she spent with Lena are the single most important things in my daughter’s life.

It is people like that instructor – dozens, perhaps hundreds of them – that got me to where I am today. Those people are the proverbial bootstraps I pulled myself up with. Except they did the pulling. People like Bev Moye, my fifth grade teacher. The woman who took the time to put me in front of the class as an example of bad behavior, give me two weeks of after-school detention, call my parents and take the time and explain my actions and her decision, and then spend the two weeks of late nights after class watching over me and continuing to teach me.

Bev was one of many. Her example and the example of those like her encourage me every day to be a bit more patient and a bit more understanding when dealing with those around me. Be like Bev. Or be like my parents. Or like any number of other people that got me to where I am.

And now on a happier note…

A lot of times when I write the words that I put on the page stem from hardship and struggle. I use the process of writing to find the silver lining in a taxing situation; I use them to find hope. Today is not one of those days.

Yes, today was a taxing day at work and as soon as I got home I was bombarded with requests for help with homework by all of the children. The good news I saw right away was that Lena, despite my dreadful example of parenting I wrote about in my previous entry, was eager and willing to ask for help. This is a huge milestone for her since she is FIERCELY independent and stubborn and for the longest time would either hide the fact that she needed help, or refuse to ask for help even though it was obvious that she didn’t understand what was going on. This has been a pretty regular occurrence and even though it is a tremendous effort for me to stay calm and composed while teaching, I have been making a real effort at being compassionate and understanding – even showing empathy – with my teaching. And the results showed today.

Lena’s science teacher is fantastic and regularly sends her home with assignments that require my attention. He then follows up via email on the same day to make sure that his kids don’t conveniently “forget” to tell their parents and that parents have a REALLY hard time being “too busy” to check up on their kids. Additionally, if the kids do poorly on a quiz or test then he sends the homework home to get a signature and will give the kids 5 bonus points if the parents sign and date. Altogether it keeps me, the busy parent, involved in teaching, keeps the kids engaged, and helps foster discussions in households where the dad fancies himself a lay-scientist. And today Lena came home with a quiz that needed signing.

She was slightly nervous about showing me the quiz and I could tell she was REALLY hoping that I would simply sign and date the sheet and let her go. So of course I started asking her questions about the answers she got wrong and I gently (for once) and carefully (no, really) tried to find out where the disconnect in her work was. But even though I was being gentle, and empathic, and patient Lena began to get very upset. Now, when Lena gets upset it is not a loud and violent kind of thing. Instead she literally clams up and will only mumble one-word responses. This type of response normally causes me to blow up and storm out of the room. As soon as she started this I had one of my few moments of clarity and quietly explained to her, as gently as I could, that I had to step away. In the past when I’ve done this I have blamed her for it. “I’m stepping away because you are mumbling. Maybe when you quit mumbling I’ll try to teach you again, but remember that if I don’t it is YOUR FAULT.” Thankfully that was not the case today.

I still stepped away from her for some time but I promised her that I would return once I calmed down. I also encouraged her to take a break while I wrote her teacher for a little more insight into the matter. A quick email to her teacher and my suspicions were confirmed: Lena had messed up the instructions. However I held off telling her until I could regain my own teaching spirit and when I finally did sit down and explain Lena was very receptive. I honestly believe that she understood the nature of her mistake and that is the first step in not making the same one again.

And that’s it. A relatively small success in most eyes but for once I have a bit of a longer perspective and can see my and Lena’s tiny triumph and embrace it in the moment. There was a struggle but there was no yelling. We both got upset but we both took the time off we needed and came back to help solve the problem. I turned for help to her teacher, and she turned for help to her knitting needles to help come down off her angry place. 1 Corinthians 13:13 talks about faith, hope, and love. Today I saw that my faith and hope that Jesus can teach me to teach was rewarded with the patience necessary to teach from a loving heart instead of from an angry one. A happier note, indeed.

The Meanest Dad in the World

Today ended up being a pretty good day. I came home and was speaking with Lena about her day at school and I heard her speak and thought, "Wow, she speaks so well for a girl who has only been regularly speaking English for just over two years." During her retelling of today’s events she got on the subject of her English class and told me how she only got one answer wrong on her quiz about nouns, verbs, and adjectives. And I immediately felt a strange mixture of pride and guilt – pride that she did well on a second day of school pop quiz of something I didn’t think she could even pronounce (the word adjective. I’ve never heard her say it correctly and today she didn’t even pause in her story when saying that) much less identify among a list. And guilt because I’m pretty much the meanest dad in the world.

Those that know me well know that I regularly call myself “the meanest dad in the world” in jest when I make my kids do something awful like setting the table, emptying the dishwasher, and other times when I forbid them from drinking gallons of soda, playing in traffic, or jumping off the deck railing. But in this case I’m quite serious because while today ended on a good note it started off terribly. It started with a continuation of my and Lena’s battle from last night over homework. Again this morning I reminded Lena that all her stalling and sitting at her desk and staring at the paper “pretending to try” last night was for nothing. That if she had only done the simple task I asked her to do, summarize a note from her teacher – like I have showed her a hundred times, she could have spent the evening playing instead of sitting at her desk crying. If she would only try, instead of “try not to try” we wouldn’t have these kinds of fights. After our talk Lena stormed off teary-eyed to school but as angry as I was about Lena’s behavior I was proud of myself. Not once in all of my lecturing and ire did I raise my voice in anger, which is a new goal of mine. Success! But the problem with my attitude and my little speech is…

It’s complete and utter bullshit.

Lena lived in an orphanage until she was ten and we’ve come to find that what other parents who adopted older kids said is true: That each year a child spends in an orphanage can equate to two years of unlearning some of the socially-unacceptable, yet completely necessary for survival in a Lord of the Flies atmosphere, behaviors they developed there. And one of the behaviors that Lena learned was to stall until the teacher went away. However, I’ve discovered that whether that behavior was learned or just something that evolved from an undiagnosed learning disability Lena does not do this consciously. Again: Lena does not freeze up, become physically incapable of proper speech and unable to repeat even the simplest of sentences of her own free will. It has taken a while to wrap my head around this but it is true. This maddeningly frustrating behavior that causes both me and my wife to turn into unhinged lunatics is not from her conscious effort. The truly shameful thing about my actions with Lena is that I know full well that the problem is actually my approach since all her teachers seem to be able to educate her of things that I am clearly incapable (see that word “adjective”? Yeah…) without causing her to freeze up as happens with me. Despite my previous observations, my learned knowledge, my previous testing of this theory, my 15 years of formal pattern analysis experience, my 10 years of experience in leading all manner of Soldiers in all manner of situations, and 32 years of knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus… I still found it in my heart to berate, belittle, taunt, and chastise my daughter. Then I got a night of sleep to think about what I had done and come up with a way to apologize and do my job as a parent better. And then I woke up fresh this morning and berated, belittled, taunted, and chastised my daughter.

Again.

I am the meanest dad in the world and yet in my time of darkest self-hate and well-deserved self-flagellation I am reminded of Jesus’ compassion. I was adopted into Jesus’ family at the age of five and it took the requisite 2 years for each year of being an orphan for me to shed all my institutionalized behaviors. But by the age of 15 I was a model Christian and I’ve lived life beatifically and in the same manner of Christ ever since. I am always kind to the people around me, I help them, do kind things for them, love them unconditionally, and dispense wisdom when offering answers to their questions… except, of course, when I verbally assault my daughter.

And yet despite being shown the right way to be like Christ a hundred times, reading of His example a hundred times, and seeing Him modeled in others a hundred times, I still don’t get it. I daily fail miserably in every way imaginable – even with my own kids – yet Jesus does not berate, punish, or withhold grace from me. Furthermore He has never belittled me nor taunted me and has only gently chastised me in the most loving of ways. Jesus still loves me. In the 32 years since I’ve accepted the shocking fact that I am a sinner and that He died for my sins, Jesus has only heaped blessings upon me.

I was a poor kid from a farm town and He gave me a glorious house, in one of the most expensive areas, in one of the most expensive countries, in the world. I grew up a tongue-tied goofball, had a mullet until I was 19, and couldn’t get a date to save my life in high school (I believe there were 17 consecutive rejections at one point) yet He gave me this most beautiful and intelligent woman who after 14 years is still proud to call me “husband.” I sucked as a squad leader, platoon sergeant, got fired as a platoon leader, and almost left the Army but Jesus’ grace allowed me to work through my issues and make a comeback, do a fantastic job as a Commander and become respected by my peers, seniors, and most importantly my subordinates as a leader. And finally when I, at the age of 32, conflated the compassion, love, and grace of Jesus and the people that surrounded me with my own sense of self-accomplishment and told a father who was working three jobs in order to have enough money to earn a college degree that he should “just work harder and you can get to where I am”… Yes, I did... And Jesus still loved me enough to work through that completely unwarranted view of His gifts.

Then He blessed me with a desire to be more compassionate, more loving, and more graceful and to change. He encouraged me to truly empathize with those around me and then used me for a positive purpose. The biggest part of that transformation was my decision to adopt and even though I have admittedly and obviously mucked that all up on many occasions He still hasn’t treated me the way that I treated my daughter last night and this morning. He continues to shower down more love, more compassion, more empathy, more grace, and more forgiveness and for that I am forever grateful.

So this afternoon when Lena asked me to help her with her homework I told her no. As she stormed away I demanded that she return to me and obediently she did. As I realized that I was setting the wrong tone I paused… reflected… and started over. I started with the words, “I’m sorry,” and continued on to tell her that I was sorry because I truly was the meanest dad in the world and that it was absolutely not her fault. I explained that I’m not kind enough or compassionate enough to help her with her homework without being mean, and that is why I can't help her with her homework. Then I asked her to forgive me and because maybeI don’t completely suck as a dad, but definitely because Jesus still continues to bless me even though I don't deserve it, she did. And then she told me about her day and how in English…

Why Does This Have to be so Hard?

Those of you who have ever asked me a question along the lines of, “If your God is so loving and merciful, why do bad things happen to good people?” you know that I tend to not pull any punches. You will not hear me tell of how God is using someone’s situation as an object lesson for someone else, and you definitely will not hear me talk about how “it’s all going to work out for the better.” The answer you’ll get is “because He is God. You know – ALL POWERFUL and ALL KNOWING and WISE and WITH HIS OWN AGENDA.” Job, you know the guy who followed God with all his heart and all his mind and did everything God asked him to do and was struck with the worst the world had to offer, that Job, covered it pretty well when he said, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21). And for a lot of last year I lived my life with a “what are you gonna do?” kind of attitude when it came to life since it seemed like I couldn’t catch a break.

It was when I walked into church (grudgingly) one morning and the lead singer broke into a song entitled “Where is the Love?” that a switch tripped in my head. I was reminded that I’m not a Christian because God holds all the cards and I’d best be praising him up front for fear of displeasing him. No, I’m a Christian because God loved me first and sent His Son Jesus to die for me (John 3:16) and I want the people around me to know that by showing that same kind of love to them. And it hit me: I wasn’t showing that love. No one had any clue that I was a Christian from observing me because my actions and my attitude were not those of a loving response, but those of someone doing the bare minimum. I was so caught up in my own pity party focusing on the Majesty and the Glory and the Unquestionable Supreme and Divine Will of God as it applied to my life that I’d lost sight of why I even answer to His Mightiness in the first place. Where is the Love, indeed? Not showing in my life.

Life is a bit better, now. A lot of the issues that were going on at that time that were causing me to slump forward and plod through my life of drudgery and pain have been solved; and if not solved then in the process. However there is one issue that keeps coming up and that is my oldest daughter, Lena. There is a previous blog entry of mine that covers some earlier problems, namely bullying, with which I was dealing. And praise be to Almighty God. The little girl that was stealing from her brother and sisters, and bullying everyone around her has turned around. At school she is the shining example of “kindness to others” and at home she is slowly buying into the idea of “being kind; loving the people around you; helping them; and doing nice things for them”. However with all her behavioral advances there still exists a problem. A major problem.

She doesn’t care about school at all. She does the absolute bare minimum required and only with serious prodding by Jenn and I. Every night at the homework table is a battle. On the weekends when we require all the kids to do a little extra work in order to improve their weaknesses, she cannot express her displeasure enough. In many cases she will take the homework and sit at her desk for 2 or 3 hours without doing anything at all until either Jenn and I spoon feed her the answers, or one of us blows up, there are tears, and then the homework gets completed in about 10 minutes after the crying stops. In many cases she knows the answers and will simply refuse to answer correctly. Furthermore, after a year of school and all the extra emphasis, time, effort, and worksheets we have expended on the problem her standardized test scores DROPPED. Not dropped relative to her age group. But dropped from her own personal test scores at the beginning of the year. And so I find myself asking God, “Why does this have to be so hard?”

From the beginning of this adoption process, for the first time (and I’m guessing the only time) in my life I knew without a doubt that the adoption was GOD’S WILL. No kidding, read my blog post from that time. Throughout the two-year process it was clear that the hand of God was on us as roadblock after roadblock evaporated and we were able to accomplish things that no one else was able to do. To this day, almost two years later, only a handful of people have been able to follow in our footsteps. So why, God? Why, as I walk in your will, is this so #$%^ hard?

On the afternoon I received notice of my oldest’s test scores I was driving to pick her up from dance. The plan was to confront her and explain the error of her ways. I had a couple object lessons planned and a couple logic traps all ready to spring on her to help bring her to the light. Things like, “If daddy just stood around in the gym do you think he would get stronger? Then why do you think you can simply walk into school without working and get smarter?” It was going to be a continuation of months of warfare on the education front and I was frankly stoked. I finally had concrete proof that I was right about EVERYTHING regarding school and studying and now I could convince my 12 year old daughter to truly apply herself. And that stupid/wonderful song I had heard in church months past drifted through my brain, “Where is the Love?” Yes, Lena is not trying as hard as she could be. Yes, there are many things that she can do that she is not doing that require me as a parent to get involved. However, in this moment of clarity, this moment of quiet reflection and as the words “Where is the Love” and “You’re doing it wrong” quietly flitted through the back of my head I couldn’t help but think about Jesus.  

While on this earth Jesus unabashedly loved those around Him; particularly His disciples. These were the guys that had all an all-access pass to God and yet they JUST. DIDN’T. GET IT. And Jesus loved them. The wonderful, colorful, and fickle people of Judea followed Jesus, begged for his miracles, didn’t like a lot of his sermons, and ultimately decided to have him killed. And Jesus loved them. Jesus kept giving, and giving, and loving, and giving, and sharing to everyone, even up to that night in Gethsemane when after sweating blood and probably asking His Dad “Why does this have to be so hard?” more than once, He once again showed love and compassion to both a Roman soldier and to his idiot follower Peter who STILL. DIDN’T. GET IT. Furthermore, a couple millennia later Jesus did the same for me when I took a stroll on the not-approved-for-Christian-consumption path. And Jesus still loved me. Not only did He love me in spirit he also blessed me with an excellent wife a great job, and so many other things that I in no way, shape, or form deserved.  

So after reflecting on all of that I decided to drop my plan of attack and went with Love. You see, there is a lot of tough love in our house and in my opinion that is a good thing. Just as God will remain ALL-POWERFUL and he should be feared and obeyed because HE IS GOD, Lena will have to do homework (and summer school). But since I’m factoring God into this little plan I can’t forget about Jesus. While Jesus did use tough love, he also used a lot of sacrificial love and a lot of “just because I love you” kind of love and it’s those other types of love that have been lacking in my house for a little while. It’s time to search my soul and find out exactly where those other kinds of love are. Because it’s not the knowledge of an all-powerful God, but the mercy, love, and joy of Christ that made me a Christian. So I’m going to make a bold assumption that I’ve been doing it wrong up until this point and that it will be my mercy, love, and joy that will help make my daughter care about school.

Snow Day

Last night before we went to bed Jenn and I made the assumption that due to the snow that school would be closed. We were right. Now, normally a snow day is a bit of a cause for concern for us because just because Howard County shuts down their schools does not mean that my office or Jenn’s office will close. It also means that one of us is usually left holding the proverbial bag of kid-watching. However today we were both already on vacation so it was no big deal. In fact while normally I’m kind of a grump when I get “stuck” home watching the kids all day I am taking this time to relax, enjoy the time around the kids, and make a concentrated effort to maybe be a bit less irritable; almost like a resolution of sorts. So today I will try to enjoy my day, I will spend time happily with the kids, I will relax, I will not go to the gym, and I will indulge in one last day of vacation and on this last day of vacation I resolve that I will live with more compassion to my family. Because if there is one thing that I learned in 2013 it is that I lack compassion in so many areas.

This lack of compassion has been an overwhelming theme in my year. Although things started out pretty tame it was about the time that we moved back to the U.S. that just about everything began to grate on my nerves. And unfortunately that grating had the most impact on my wonderful children and wife – those who have suffered the most of my impatience, my surliness, my bursts of seemingly uncontrollable anger, and my general disdain for all things fun. Many moments this year I have had to force myself to enjoy things that should have been considered fun: Trips to the County Fair, traveling to see relatives, playing games with the kids, and other moments that I should have been cherishing I instead had to grit my teeth, slap a smile on my face, and try to enjoy them. There were very few times this year when I was honestly joyful. Most of the times I had to work extremely hard at maintaining the appearance of peace and joy and many many other times I failed miserably.

At many points I had long conversations with myself about this as I was mostly aware of how unbearable I was being. I tried to reconcile my actions with my feelings with the feelings of those around me and I never could. I always came back to the realization that I was being a jerk and that I had to work harder and sacrifice more of my time, energy, and money in order to keep peace in the home. That was my solution: sacrifice more in the hopes that my heart would soften. I had hope that seeing the joy in my kids and wife would bring a little joy back to my heart and then I could get back to being a “good dad.” So I sacrificed more and I grit my teeth harder as I smiled wider. I spent more money that we didn’t really have in order to spend more time with the kids. I gave up personal time that I felt I needed in order to spend more time with my kids. I prayed FERVENTLY that I God would increase my personal resources so I could pour more of them into my family. Additionally I spent more time with the kids trying to help them with their homework, more time assisting Jenn in running the house so she could have time for her job. I was sacrificing and that was what I told God: “I’m sacrificing, God. Just like Jesus did on the cross. I’m living a Christian life so could you please help me out here? I’m running out of Schlitz and I need your help.”

Those were hard, hard days when I was doing everything right and I was working so hard and I just didn’t feel or see anything coming back from the big guy. My talks with Jesus were decidedly one-sided and on more tangible level I was failing miserably. My temper got shorter, my voice got louder, my patience got thinner, and my heart got harder. I stopped writing not for lack of ideas but for lack of will to put those ideas on paper (or digits as is the case). My inspiration was gone and my willingness to even TRY at being a “good dad” was gone. I continued to make sacrifices of my time and effort “for the kids” in the hopes that with enough repetition I might find joy in the habit but for the most part I knew that I needed something else. I had no idea what that “something else” was but I knew I didn’t have it. I was also losing at being a “good dad” and settled for the “I hope he’s not as angry tonight” dad. So in one of my more… ahem… spirited discussions with Jesus I may have possibly kind of yelled and swore and got all self-righteous with the God of the Universe.

Now, I’m not saying that my approach was correct (in fact I’ll humbly remind you all that I am the sinner of sinners and the product of an inexplicably deep fountain of grace) but I did get an answer. Jesus, in his best Jeremy Clarkson impression called me an idiot. More specifically he hit me up with Matthew9:13. Usually this passage is used when someone is trying to illustrate how Christians are urged to love others more and correct others less. But in this case it hit me hard because much like the Pharisees I had been sacrificing many things in the hopes of a good relationship. They had been doing it with God and I had been doing it with my family. Jesus reminded me that the best way to be a good dad was to show mercy and compassion to my family and worry less about sacrificing for them. Because sacrificing time and money and even energy is relatively easy. That’s the path that the Pharisees chose and the path that Jesus avoided. Jesus calls us to empathy and understanding in order to bestow mercy and grace – arguably much more difficult tasks. I realized that all my sacrifice was building resentment for those whom I love the most and that I was “doing it wrong.” For example I was so focused on driving the girls all over Columbia in order to get to their dance lessons that I missed the fact that they LOVED the extra time we spent together (when I wasn’t swearing at the other cars on the road and was instead just talking about life or music or funny stuff). Another example is that I was so focused on sacrificing my time helping Lena and Sujin with their English homework and struggling to help them get perfect that I missed the fact that both girls’ behavioral issues were rapidly eroding away and that I was closer to them as a father than I thought possible in only a year.

So in this New Year I am consistently seeking to know the hearts of my kids and wife. I want simply to understand their point of view and work less on sacrificing for them (outside of the love and empathy required) and more on showing mercy, understanding, compassion, and grace. I firmly believe that Jesus’ actions in the gospel – the ones that caused throngs of people to follow him, believe his words, and inspired them to try to act like him – are the same actions I need to embody in order to lead my family. The people of Jesus’ time did not follow him because He sacrificed for them. They followed Him because He loved them, He taught them, He showed empathy and compassion for them, and He truly had their best interests at heart. So let that be a lesson to me and to you.

Asymmetric Spiritual Warfare

     While I was growing up I was introduced to Christian Rock by some friends at church. There were quite a few different styles all equivalent to some of the mainstream artists of the day to include Steve Taylor (Weird Al), D.C. Talk (Beastie Boys), Amy Grant (Belinda Carlisle/Tiffany), Michael W. Smith (Peter Cetera), Carmen (Henry Rollins post Rollins Band), Tourniquet (death-metal) and my all-time favorite Petra (pick your hair band). My dad (who reads this blog and will either chuckle at this or shake his head and sigh deeply) still referred to all of Christian Rock as “the screams of Satan” even though it was Christian because electric guitars and hair band metal were not the way he was raised to praise Jesus – but I digress. I had a couple favorite albums by Petra but the one that I automatically think about when I hear “Petra” is the Album “This Means War.” In fact in a fit of inspirational genius I just purchased the album from iTunes and am currently rocking out to it. It is so fantastically hair band awesome I know why I liked it so much. The whole album is about, you guessed it, spiritual warfare in quite the literal sense.  That album sings and plays on numerous different themes we hear in church on a regular basis: Put on the full armor of God; be prayer warriors; be available to God’s call; we each fight the good fight in our own ways; etc. So I grew up wanting to be a warrior for the Lord, in fact I had the t-shirt and everything. Somewhere along the way I must have gotten my wires crossed because I ended up enlisting in the U.S. Army as opposed to God’s Army and in 2005 I found myself in Iraq… yes folks, it’s time for some war stories.

Very important qualification that I want to make up front: This post is not about Lieutenant Galstad. This is an allegory. The fact that I am in this story is completely inconsequential to the message I’m trying to convey. I am DEFINITELY not trying to put myself on a pedestal because as you will see this post is quite self-deprecating. As my friend most eloquently stated once: Jesus Saves. I’m no Jesus. On with the war story…

     When we arrived in Ad Dawr, our first area, one of the first things we did was go for a little area-familiarization tour. And of course that tour was interrupted by excitement so I spent my first day on the ground doing exciting things like shooting locks off houses with shotguns, clearing rooms, and running over donkeys with armored Humvees. The unit as a whole started off driving around in tanks, setting up checkpoints, and generally trying to keep the peace. Since I was one of two assistant intelligence officers it was my job to identify and find the bad guys and then send our Soldiers out to get them. After a couple weeks of getting acquainted with the area our intelligence shop got pretty good at finding the bad guys. Meanwhile the Squadron Commander started to change things up a bit. He started to really truly engage with our local hosts. He started to invite them onto the FOB, talk to them, find out what they needed, go visit them at their houses, and promise and deliver money to them for projects. There was a distinct lack of talk of finding bad guys and I also took issue with giving money to the local leaders because they were all corrupt and that money would them be used to fund operations against us… and me. But I was very junior and was not in any position to argue with the boss so I saluted, moved out, and continued to find the bad guys while the boss was out dealing with the local sheiks and civic leaders.

     Eventually our unit, due in no small part to the excellent intelligence section, had calmed our first area of operations. We had found our #1 bad guy, attacks were way down compared to the rest of the theater, the local Iraqi Army unit was getting better, and there were other places to use our expertise. Our unit was ordered to move and as a farewell gift my boss put together one last project for the local leaders: he turned our entire base over to them and gave plans and money to turn it into a factory to create jobs for the local community. I thought that was a pretty decent going away gift. We said goodbye to everyone in Ad Dawr and headed to our new assignment, Muqdadiyah, one of the most unstable and violent areas in all of Iraq at the time. Muqdadiyah had it all, Sunni on Shia on Kurd violence; lots of attacks against the Iraqi Army; regular mortar attacks; corrupt government; areas that if entered would guarantee a firefight; basically Iraq 2006 in a nutshell. There was also, as we would discover, a then-quiet minority who were actively seeking to stop the violence.

     Once again we took a little time to learn the area but right away I noticed that the Squadron Commander took no time to start getting to know the leaders. From the beginning there was a shift far less “find the bad guys” and a lot more “let’s work on building this area back up,” despite the fact that there was roughly 1000% more attacks and violence in this area than in our previous area. I was still working the “find the bad guys” angle of all of this and we were EXTREMELY busy with ongoing operations so the boss consorting with the enemy (as I saw it) was of even less concern to me than before. However, one morning I was providing intel support to one of the units out rolling around the battlefield.

     The unit called in on the radio that they were at a Sheik’s house and that the Sheik’s name matched that of a name on their target list. I tried to find the target packet for the Sheik but I couldn’t find it. The Intelligence Officer (remember, I was only one of two assistants) was out of the headquarters and my counterpart had just gone to bed after an 18 hour shift and none of my Soldiers knew the answer to the question, “should we arrest this Sheik?”. The leader on the ground was losing patience and I made the “safe” decision to have the unit arrest the Sheik and bring him in. Wrong answer, Lieutenant. Not only was the Sheik not the same guy as the name on the list, but this particular Sheik had been working with the Squadron Commander on the “calming the violence” campaign. We now call that campaign “The Sunni Awakening” and it was that initiative that I, single-handedly, almost aborted. And I almost aborted it because I was stuck with the “kill or capture the bad guy” mindset while my boss was desperately trying to get the unit into a true counter-insurgency mindset. It was only after my boss apologized profusely and ate a lot of humble pie that the Sunni Awakening continued in Muqdadiyah.

     Welcome back from Iraq. We’re here in 2013 and now I’m going to talk about the Christian church and our propensity to go to war against sin – and consequently against sinners. Our boss Jesus is desperately trying to get the message of his love and forgiveness of sins out to people and a lot of Christians, to include me, get stuck on eradicating sin and seem to miss the fact that for most of his ministry Jesus was focused on healing, loving, teaching, and preaching about how Pharisaical Law (there he goes with the Pharisee thing again) was not the way to God. We preach to and teach our kids that the way to be a good Christian is to be abstinent, stay away from drugs and alcohol, and try to live a good life instead of focusing on helping others and loving the unlovable. There is nothing wrong with encouraging our children to abstain from sex because sex has the remarkable power to make a young person lose their ever-loving mind and make some bad bad life choices. An easy goal to identify (yet very unreasonable) is to wait for marriage but at a bare minimum we should make them aware of the real and life-altering consequences of unprotected sex and even sex using protection. We should encourage our kids to be EXTREMELY cognizant of the addictive power of drugs and alcohol and make sure they understand the types of possible negative outcomes that they are dealing with. But we fail miserably teaching these things because it’s HARD to get all that info in a 90 minute youth-group session. And there are a lot of hard questions and awkward silences and maybe even some terrible revelations that might get out like, “Mr. Galstad didn’t wait until he was married to have sex! O. M. Goodness.” And so we simplify things.

     But during the simplification process the message is getting lost and we’re teaching our Christian youth that they are better than the other kids because they are Christian. We don’t mean to do this but we’re giving them an attitude of superiority and we are setting them up to go to war against sin and the sinner. And then those youth grow up to be adults who teach their own kids those same terrible terrible lessons. As Christians we tend to look at other people like single parents, drug addicts, the poor, and other less fortunate folks as sinners caught by sin. “You see, that’s the consequence of bad decisions, right there. Now be more like Jesus or you too could end up pregnant at 17/addicted/poor/whatever.” Everything becomes a morality play and a lesson and a modern-day Christian fable and the idea of compassion is relegated to the potential chance-encounter on the road like the Good Samaritan.

     And meanwhile Jesus weeps because that’s not what he came to do. Jesus was a counter-insurgent against sin. He went to the people of the world and even though they were tainted with sin he gave them his love, his hope, his healing, and his everlasting life. He did not separate himself from the people and drive around in his armored tank of holiness. Instead he walked amongst the people, ate with them, loved them, showed compassion to them and pissed off the Pharisees to no end. Jesus did not call on us to put on the full armor of God in order to attack our neighbors. No, in Ephesians 6:12 we are told specifically that we wear that armor not against our flesh and blood neighbors but as spiritual protection. Our war is not with our neighbors our war is with sin and we defeat sin by acting like Christ which is by loving our neighbors; doing nice things for them; helping them in their time of need; wrapping our arms around them when they are sad and offering solace; rejoicing with them when they are joyful; and being there to answer their hard questions with a spirit of gentleness, love, and care. Leave the eradication of sin to the Holy Spirit because that is its war.

     Our war is one of compassion on a daily basis. Our daily prayer as Christians should be to live with compassion and love and understanding. Because here is the reality: we are all saved by faith and by grace. That’s it. We are all one bad decision/moment of weakness away from tragedy. I grew up relatively poor in small town in Minnesota and I turned out OK but only by the grace of God. I was one moment of passion too long; one drink too many; one credit card charge too much; one choice of the wrong drug away from terrible life consequences. So I encourage you all to remember that Jesus came not to condemn the sinners but to save them and I encourage you to do the same. Jesus waged war on sin and saved the sinners through compassion, healing, love, and sacrifice and we are called to do the same. That sounds like an Army into which I would enlist.