The Annoying Disciple....Me.

Bear with me.  I so wanted to name this post the Annoying Apostle since it had the irresistible charm of starting with double A's, but I thought the more traditional among us might get their panties in a wad if I put myself as an Apostle, which is typically reserved for men.  I won't go there.  I proceed.
   In my attempt to aid my husband in attaining his Master's degree in Philanthropy and Development, I decided to read a book titled "Richistan", which supposedly is a glimpse into the lives and thinking of today's wealthy.  And, of course, if you're in Philanthropy it would serve you well to understand the inner and outer lives of those you will probably be hunting down for money for the rest of your dear life. By wealthy I mean anywhere from, I think it was $10 million in assets to the billionaire "I have so much money I can't even count it all" group.  Let me tell you, this book blew me away.  Not because it discussed the elaborate butler school that some of the wealthy use, where the house boys (and girls) learn an elaborate dance to perform as they serve you your gold-encrusted meatloaf.  Ahh, no.  I was neither impressed with the "who-can-build-the-most-ginormous-yacht" race either.  

 

     What stood out to me the most was two-fold: Apparently, according to the aforementioned house servants, one of the biggest fears of a lot of super wealthy people is....can you guess?  Murder by a jealous family member? Nah. A recession?  Heck no.  Perhaps falling off their skyscraper-high decks aboard their fantastic yachts?  Wrong again.  It's GERMS.  Germs????  Really??  I was so tickled by this.  And yet, it so makes sense.  When you have so much money and are truly living the high life, I guess it would scare the Armani pants off of you that you might get sick and die and lose it all.  Second most intriguing point of the book would be the survey which asked the super-wealthy how much money it would take to give them a sense of financial security.  To which almost ALL of them replied with an answer that was twice as much as they currently had.  So, if they were worth ten million, they said it would take twenty million to feel at peace.  If they were worth fifty million, they said a hundred and so on.  Wow.  Okay.  Wow.

   So, as with most new tidbits of information, it got me thinking.  I read somewhere where Jesus talked more about greed and the danger of material possessions more than any other sin.  Would love to have the time to count that to see if it was true.  But just off the top of my head, I think that might be right.  I can think of numerous examples of Jesus warning about money.  One of my favorite is the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  Oh, golly gee, how I've thought about this story in my lifetime.  Too many times to count.  I won't copy and paste it from an online bible because I know everyone just tends to skip over bible passages, but I'll summarize.  It's that whole story where the rich dude lives the good life in his mansion and Lazarus is basically dying right outside his gate.  Then, as all good things must come to an end, the rich man dies and is sent to um.....hell.  Yeah, it always seems to get my attention when Jesus tells a story and it ends with someone's rump in eternal fire.  Holy Moses!  The dude went to hell?? Really? Like, the real hell?  Then I moan and groan and let out a primeval scream that says: "AAAGGGGHHHH!!!! I don't want to go to hell!!!"

       Seriously, I would have been one of the more obnoxious disciples.  Putting myself in that biblical setting makes me sweat.  I, no doubt, would have been sitting there, my loaves and fish in my pockets for my afternoon snack.  He begins the story of the Rich Man and I, enthralled with every word, marvel at his superior story-telling skills.  Then, He gets to the end and he just figuratively condemns someone to never-ending-flames.  I gasp! I fiddle with my loaves and fish and probably let out an unintended scream.  I then start to hyperventilate as I raise my hand, hoping to be called on by the Master.  Agh! He sees me.  Oh no, He IS going to call on me.  You doofus! Why didn't you just keep fiddling with your fish?
"Yes," He calls out, "You over there with the bulging pockets full of fish and bread."
Umm....I start to get the paranoid sense that He is calling me "rich" with all my fish and bread.
"Ahem," I begin, throwing my fish and bread at random people who look freakishly thin in the crowd, "I just thought maybe, that while you were telling that awful story that, um, well, you seemed to be looking at me the whole time, and, um, I don't know, uh, well just tell me, would you???!?!?!  WHY LEAVE A SISTER HANGIN'?!?!?!?  Am I going to hell?? AM I RICH!?!?!?!"  And then I fall down in utter exhaustion over the thought of being roasted for the ages.  It's just too much.

   See, that's how I think.  I read these books about rich people where it's so obvious that there is extreme wealth and over-the-top purchases but it always creeps back in that I become afraid that I'm rich.  Why?  Because it's all so damn relative.  In "Richistan", the rich people surveyed didn't think they were wealthy because they always had someone else to point to who was more wealthy than they were.  Even the one's worth a hundred-flippin-million dollars just pointed to Bill Gates- now, HE is wealthy, they said.  Ugh.  What? I want to slap them with their wads of hundred dollar bills.  But, isn't it true?  Would you say you're one of the wealthy??  Most of us probably not, we'd just point to the people who have more money than us, just like the super wealthy do.  Only, if you asked a family of five living in a two bedroom apartment and riding their bikes to work and school, and suddenly....they're pointing at you.
    So, while I enjoyed reading the tales of those who live on Easy Street, once again wisdom whispers closer to home.  I find myself grappling once again with the biblical definition of rich, aghast at its purposely-hidden definition.  For, if it was so easy to excuse yourself from the self-examination of opulence, a lesson in self-knowledge may go away unappreciated.  I glance at a quote from my dear C.S. Lewis (a man who saved my winning personality from utter savagery-and thus, I will thank him by mentioning him in the next five hundred posts):
       “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusement, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our giving does not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say it is too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our commitment to giving excludes them” 
  Oh dear.  It was fun mocking the rich while it lasted.  Alas, I find myself at the end only heckling myself.  It's okay.  Really.  I needed a kick-in-the-money-pants.  I'll go now, and lick my spiritual wounds.  Now, as I think about it, if I was back there, close to Jesus as He told that story, maybe it would have been different.  Maybe He would have looked at me lovingly, even smiling a little at my nervousness.  Maybe He would have called me over to sit on His lap, and taking my hand, looked into my eyes.  And maybe, just maybe, He would have said, "It's okay.  I love that you're trying.  I love that you want so bad to be good.  Work on it, keep trying.  Heaven isn't for the perfect, but for those who kept trying so hard to love Me."  And maybe I would have pulled out one of my fish and the rest of my bread, and gave it Him.

Not-So-Great Expectations

I have discovered the meaning of life.  Actually, I have discovered the meaning of a horrible life.  Does that count?  Maybe it's the C.S. Lewis in me (see previous post if this seems pompous to you), but I really do think I'm on to something here.  Something that has been brewing in my deranged head (again, see previous post if this seems a bit harsh to you) for quite some time now.  I must admit, I think people have been on to this way before me.  Dang it.  Oh well, though, at least I'm jumping on this bandwagon now.  So what is the secret to having a horrible life?  What is the gateway to unmitigated suffering?  Having high expectations.  I know, quite novel, wouldn't you say?

   But really. I'm all over this like I was all over cloth diapers last month (btw, I'm still all over cloth diapers).  Helloooooooo, expectations! You are my new enemy to conquer.  So, let me share with you how I got here.  Not that I haven't thought about this many of times before, but just recently it has really, really, really hit me how we can be slaves to our expectations of life, husbands/wives, children, churches, food, cars, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  So, we've been passing around a nasty stomach bug in our house the past two weeks which has brought a record amount of lack of sleep.  One morning, after a particularly brutal night, I felt myself putting up the streamers for the Pity Party I was about to throw.  And this was going to be a doozie of a Pity Party.  I got myself all fired up about how James has never, and in full Pity Party mode- probably WILL NEVER- sleep through the night.  It went from bad gas as an infant, to teething, to sickness, back to teething, sickness and teething, and the list goes on.  I was stuck in this total rut of "If I could just get this gas under control!" to "Ok, when this sickness finally passes....then I'll get some sleep" to other expectations of future peace.  Now, look, I totally understand that sometimes you have to think positive thoughts and convince yourself that it WILL get better just to survive the tumult of today.  But then I started to feel like I was constantly setting myself up for disappointments.  That, rather than praying for the grace to accept whatever comes my way- no sleep, cranky kids, a husband who has to work late- I was constantly praying for my life to change.  Who am I kidding? I wasn't praying for my life to change, I was pitching a royal fit that it better change or I'm heading to Mexico.  Adios!

    I had this same thought during my stint in Central America.  During one particular nasty storm, the rest of the volunteers and I went out to the river that bordered our land.  One of the vols waded out into the river (now that I'm thinking about it, that was totally not smart) and waved as we took pictures of him in the raging waters.  Suddenly, we see a perplexed look on his face as he starts feeling around on the ground of the river with his big toes.  He leaned over at one point and came up holding part of our water system that brought running water into our house and the other houses at the farm.  I didn't exactly know what that meant....what does it mean, I asked myself, that he's holding a pipe in his hands that is supposed to be transferring water to our house?  Well, it means, dork, that you won't have running water for months.  Things got a tad nasty as the toilets couldn't be flushed, we washed the vegetables and such in the ocean, no showers, etc.  We had always washed our clothes by hand but with no running water we had to now take them all the way down to the river and wash them there.  The thing that I noticed, though, is that while this latest snafoo totally wreaked havoc in my already fragile Central American existence, the natives totally took it in stride.  The Honduran women didn't shake their fists at the heavens (although I have to admit my Spanish was really rough so there is a small chance that they were indeed screaming at God but I didn't see the usual hand motions that go with such a tirade).  They brought their clothes down to the river and found a decent rock and started rubbing.  Let me tell you, it's a good thing I saw them doing it before I tried.  If left to my own brilliant ideas, I probably would have been searching for tree bark to scrub my underwear with.  Bottom line, it didn't really phase them that much.  I'm sure they considered it such a luxury to have running water in the first place that I suppose not having it was just more of a return to normal than a total demotion in quality of life.
     I started to feel sorry for myself, not because I had to bathe with the fish, but because I realized I had so far to fall in life.  And when you have so far to fall immense fear can creep in because you are so preoccupied with hoping that you don't lose the comfort, or the money, or this or that.  And you become so preoccupied with worrying about if your car is going to break, or your refrigerator is about to go bust, or your hairdryer is going to explode and the frizzies are going to break out in a free-for-all.  You realize how much control (or a modest stranglehold) you have on things.  You realize that you may just lose the last screw in your head if the damn ants won't stay out of your food.  But the Hondurans?  Why, that's all just life to them.  Their lives were so naturally simple that they weren't as easily thrown off-kilter like I was.  My expectations of life were (and are still) so high that it had (and has) the potential to create in me a constant unrest, a constant search for more comfort, a constant search for more money, more sleep, and the addiction goes on.

  Pray for me, will you?  I want to release that hold on things.  I want to raise my kids with a simplicity that is freeing, without going totally overboard and moving to Amish country (which I HAVE thought about, albeit only briefly).  When I pray the Our Father I want to really mean it, that I depend on Him for literally everything.  And, God forbid, if my house burns down to the ground (without anyone in it), or my new Kitchen-Aid mixer goes on the fritz, I will calmly smile and realize that this is not my heaven.

My Pleasing, Psychopathic Personality

Ok, seriously, next post is going to be about something really great regarding my winning persona.  I feel like I've given myself several virtual right-hooks with some of my previous posts.  Nevertheless, I just couldn't resist one more dig at myself :)  By the way, the comics on here really have nothing to do with the subject matter of this week, I just really liked them :)
    If you're friends with me on Facebook, you may already know about the results of the Myers-Briggs personality test I took a short time ago.  For those of you not on Facebook, let me indulge you.  Cory is currently in grad school and one of the assignments a couple of weeks ago was to complete the Myers-Briggs personality test.  So, he did it, and shared with me the result: ENFP.  Unless you are very familiar with this test, you may not know that ENFP basically means you are a magnificent, charming, sparkle-in-your-teeth type of person.  And he is. So, since Cory got such an awe-inducing result with the test, I decided I could use a little pick me up during James' morning nap.  I don't know what exactly it meant that it took me three times to complete the test because I got so bored with it.  I should have known that was probably a warning sign that this thing was going to spiral downwards.  I took one of the tests online and got an INTJ.  'Hmmm....,' I thought, "what's that?"  While my lovely husband's label for an ENFP is "The Inspirer" (ok, as if that's not great enough right there), mine came up "The Scientist."  WHAT?!?!?  The SCIENTIST?? For crying out loud, I hate science!  It didn't start out well.  It didn't end well.

  Cory is apparently a 'warm, affectionate, enthusiastic' person while I give off an 'aura of arrogance.' Thank you.  It said I thrive on organization, which means I must be near death because I can't even find my keys at the moment.  INTJ's are also known to be 'perfectionists.'  Good Lord.  In relationships, we tend to struggle because we don't know how to flirt.  Gee whiz.  Of course, Cory came to my defense, being that he IS an ENFP and all.  ENFPers, apparently, are so great they even comfort those of us who are scrounging at the bottom of the personality trash can.  He challenged me to look at the bright side of my frighteningly-dull character.  We are supposed to be "ambitious and self-confident."  Hmmm....I even disagree with the parts that are supposed to be good about myself.  Plus, it irritated me that "ambitious and self-confident" are probably code words that actually mean we give off an incredible strong "aura of arrogance."  What on earth do we have to be arrogant about?
   To top it off, the website gave numerous examples of people with your same personality.  I did do a complete, internal cheerleading routine when I saw C.S. Lewis in my miserable group.  He WAS an amazing Christian thinker and writer.  Maybe this isn't so bad, I thought.  Then, a couple of lines down, it gave Hannibal Lector as another example of an INTJ.  Hannibal Lector.  Yes, the cannibalistic psychopath.  Do they list such people to humble you in case you did an internal cheerleading routine when you read C.S. Lewis?     So, we might be deep, thought-provoking writers or we might just slide right into barbarism.  Or maybe its just that if I'm having a good day I resemble Mr. Lewis, and a bad day?  Well, Mr. Lector, of course.

   Naturally, Cory and I discussed this at length.  Although, I have to admit, everything he said during that conversation was leading me to think the whole time, "Of course you would think that, you're a marvelous ENFP!!"  One of the more interesting facts we both agreed on, though, was that no matter what personality you have we all have our strengths and weaknesses.  No matter how lovely the description of an ENFP is, if we were all ENFP's we'd drive each other crazy.  I can imagine that those who cannot wait to talk to anyone and everyone would get intensely irritated if everyone else in the world loved to talk just as much as you.  Then, who would listen?  Bring in the INTJ's!! We'll listen!  We may eat you when you're through talking, but hey, we listen.  And need we say what would happen if we were all INTJ's.  Apparently, we'd have complex, profound conversations followed by ghastly barbecues.

   I've thought about this so much lately.  That the very thing that can totally annoy me about someone else, is also the very quality that makes them wonderful at the same time.  Sometimes people can annoy you because they're too controlling, but that same quality usually means they're very dependable and will help in a moments notice.  Some people may be too laid-back for your liking, but that same trait makes them good listeners or comforters in the rough times.  Cory and I strive to see this in one another. Sometimes where our personalities differ can be annoying in one another but, at the same time, the very reason we love one another.  The intense part of his personality can rub up against the laid-back part of mine.  But that intensity is the same part of him that does the dishes when I'm wiped out and takes both kids to the park to play for hours so I can get stuff done. The part of me that totally does not even see the dust bunny running alongside our baseboard in the hallway can probably totally annoy Cory sometimes.  But it's the same part of me that he loves that doesn't get too uptight and run our house like a navy ship.  Of course, we all strive hopefully for the middle.  Where I notice most of the dust bunnies and still don't grab a whistle to get control.  But that, my friends, is what marriage and friendship and every other relationship is all about.  Being able to see the good qualities in other people and being patient with the negative ones.  Understanding that we all have our highs and lows.  We're all wounded people looking for a little gentleness in life.  Thank God we all have different personalities.  If we could only learn to appreciate in others what is so different from ourselves.  THAT would be an amazing personality.