T.C. of an O.J.

Although their wedding day was filled with much drama and more than a few headaches, most in attendance didn’t realize it (that’s the work of an excellent wedding planner and many hard-working friends). More importantly, Eric and Andie were married and their wedding was a fantastic celebration of marriage and the Body of Christ.

I hope I’m not invading the privacy of the happy couple, but I was in the wedding and did want to write about it.

Every time I attend a wedding that takes place in the Body of Christ, I’m struck by it. They’re really fun! As I talked to Chloe, I high-school student attending her first Body wedding, she too was overwhelmed by how much fun these things could be!

People are dancing and celebrating and the guest list is full of people you know really well. It’s a big party for two people, in this case Eric and Andie, who’ve chosen to make a life together with dependence on God. I think this is why ultimately these kinds of weddings are so fun – everyone knows the marriage is going to be a success!

Leading up to the wedding, things were tense. As Melanie called to see were the late-arriving car of groomsmen was in relation to the hall, I played a mean joke at the most inappropriate time. “Where are you guys?” she asked, the weight of pulling off a wedding in the face of a reception hall that had made many errors resting on her shoulders. “We’re just about to leave Eric’s house”, I replied with a fib casually. Melanie and I both knew Eric’s house was almost an hour away from the hall, which we were supposed to have arrived at minutes ago. As soon as I had said it, I could sense Melanie about to have a heart attack despite prolonged silence coming from her end of the phone. It was a horrible trick to play and even though I quickly came clean and admitted we were minutes away, I imagined Melanie wanted to reach through the phone and strangle me, a feeling which later she positively confirmed.

The groom was nervous too. While everyone else could walk unencumbered around the hall and grounds, Eric was confined to a bench at the far end of the hall. If he moved, 20 screaming women would no doubt shriek and claw his eyes in order to preserve the tradition and ensure he would not see his bride before she walked down the aisle towards him.

So, we arrived at 1:30pm and took pictures for 20 minutes. Then Eric sat on a bench in his tuxedo until 5pm, all the while getting more nervous by the minute.

I have to admit, all this nervous waiting was making me nervous too! I would say it later in my best-man toast, but I was more nervous for this wedding than I was for my own. We knew Eric was making the right decision in marrying Andie, but that didn’t stop me from extending my obligatory “There’s still time to get out of here – just say the word and we’ll drive to Mexico” offer I give to all the grooms that select me as best-man. It’s just something a good best-man has to do. To Eric’s credit, he elected to proceed with the wedding, a righteous and godly choice.

Never gonna give you up! Photo (C) Neil Brooks 330-592-0924

The wedding was a blur: Grandmothers and mothers were escorted to their seats, bridesmaids paraded in. Andie made a beautiful bride – she looked like a glamorous 1920’s movie star! Eric tried like a champion to hold in a trickle of snot from a runny nose, but it elicited giggles from Andie and the bridesmaids who witnessed him trying in vain. Dr. Hughes performed the ceremony like an old pro, mixing in the right amount a humor and heartfelt direction for the new couple on top of a clear gospel message of love. The newlywed Mr. and Mrs. Schoofs looked like a photo spread right out of wedding magazine or that ridiculously good looking couple posing for the photo that comes with the photo frame.

Amy and I gave our toasts and although we were both nervous, I have to say those are some of the best toasts I have ever heard (although I’m biased!). Amy’s was hilarious – I mean “Beefcake Schoofs” are you kidding me? Afterwards, we both would have numerous people telling us how great those speeches were, although we didn’t get “rickrolled” which was awesome.

When it came time for the dancing, everyone was ready to boogie down. The DJ played all the hits and everyone was out on the floor moving, grooving, and singing along. I was hoping the party would last all night because everyone was having so much fun. But Eric and Andie needed to get out of there and get on with their lives (and get it on) – together!

I’m still “cleaning out my closet”…

A simple evening walk or drive down any residential street in America will do the trick. Maybe it’s the voyeur in me, but when I go for an evening jog or even when I’m driving my car at night, I can’t resist the urge to attempt to look into people’s windows. We’re not talking peeping-tom type stuff, just a quick glance from the street or sidewalk as I zip by. Like looking into another car as you drive, its a really harmless thing everyone does almost without thinking. After all, neighbors would close the blinds and draw the curtains if they didn’t want us to see them murdering someone, wouldn’t they?

The possibility of seeing something scandalous like a husband yelling at his wife, a woman undressing, or a murder keeps me coming back, however, I’ve never seen any of these things. I rarely even catch a glimpse of another person. What I do see through almost every window is the television and it is almost always on.

Photo obtained from flickr.com/photos/marmod8/2210824255/

I mean, that’s what we do in America, right? We watch TV and lots of it, after all, we’re Americans, right? The goal of the workday is to get to “run out the clock” and finish in order to get home and relax. This maneuver, of course, most always ends by getting in front of the boob tube.

We can’t miss it, it’s “Must See TV”. It keeps us happy and gives us something to talk about when we’re not watching it. We literally would have nothing in common with our co-workers if we didn’t watch it.

Everyone knows that too much television isn’t healthy for you or a fit parent for your children, so why do we keep coming back? Is the answer that Lost, American Idol, and Survivor are just too good to miss?

Probably not. Although I’ve looked forward to watching a television program or a movie, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt refreshed or fulfilled after seeing one. I love to watch movies and have been excited after seeing particularly good ones, but even Kill Bill, vol. 1 hasn’t changed my life in any meaningful way.

As humans who we created to be relational beings, we long to discuss things that have more depth than Jerry and Elaine, yet the vast majority of us don’t know how. A steady diet of sitcoms has taught us that relating with one other means sarcastic quips and witty retorts. Men should be chubby, yet hilarious and their wives should be skinny and smarter than them. Television also dictates every family should have at least one friend of a different ethnicity than them.

We try to apply the same to our lives, yet wonder why we haven’t developed any real relationships with the people we live life with. Joey, Chandler, and Ross seem to be close when for 30 seconds every other program they address some serious problem that one of them is having while piano music plays in the background, but this isn’t reality. For all of Danny’s pep talks, Michelle Tanner grew up to be two troubled Starbucks drinking waifs.

Shouldn’t we know it intuitively- It’s TV, not real life. This isn’t how people were supposed to relate, yet the habits we learned by watching always spill into our daily existence.

We turn to TV when we’re bored, sad, or happy. We hope to find some kind of excitement, yet life remains shockingly unfulfilled. Sometimes, we just need to waste the time until another day ends and a new one begins. The next day we’ll repeat the cycle.

Photo obtained from www.flickriver.com

Trent Reznor captured the futility of the repetitive and unfulfilling life beautifully when he said, “I believe I can see the future, ’cause I repeat the same routine, I think I used to have a purpose, But then again, That might have been a dream”. Most turn to TV because it’s the easiest and most readily available option that kills the clock until the next day in an endless cycle of meaninglessness and boredom. After all, drugs are illegal and they’re too expensive.

I also like the way another secular thinker puts it:

Like treading water to avoid becoming submerged, we attempt to stay on the surface level of thinking to avoid having to face the unquestioned thoughts and beliefs…And so we tune into a shallow version of life in the form of a soap opera, for example, to keep our minds occupied and distracted.

Watching television then becomes an act of delegating the work of thinking to an external system, almost a way of outsourcing mental[ly]… And if you look at the compulsion when it arises, it may seem that what you want to escape is boredom. But boredom is little more than an uneasy state of wanting desperately to escape your thoughts. - everydaywonderland.com

So much better than mindless television is the alternative of actually relating with a spouse or a friend. However, initially, it is also harder. Often, I know I should turn to my wife and concern myself with how her day went and what she’s feeling, but it feels so difficult and unnatural.

But, when I do break through the experience is always worthwhile. After all, God has created us to relate with other human beings and live in reality. Living in reality is fulfilling and exciting; afterwards I can’t help but think what a dummy I was for trying to escape it.

God has a recovery plan for addicts. First, he offers forgiveness and grace. Then, he replaces our counterfeit reality escape plan with his fulfilling design for life. It replaces what seems to be a monotonous and never-ending cycle of unfulfillment with real meaning and significance. When we finally step into living like we were designed, it can be awkward initially, but in the context of dependence on God, it always ends with great results.

After months of growing anticipation and some trickery on my part, I finally took my wife to see the musical “Wicked” last night. February 13 has some significance to it, at least to our relationship, because on that day two years ago I asked her to marry me. She said yes.

She was really excited to see Wicked and I’ll admit I was too. She’d been listening to the soundtrack for months, as well as telling anyone she met that she was going to see “Wicked”. Most of build up for me was an eagerness to see what all the hype and fuss was about. I knew the musical was based on a book, which she read, written as the “true” account of the wicked witch of the west. Supposedly, she wasn’t as wicked as Dorothy thought. It’s a clever story.

So, when we arrived at the State Theater it was filled with other female “Wicked” fans with their husbands and various boyfriend types in tow. It was a people watcher’s dream: there were other young couples just like us and older folks, but mostly the seats were filling full of young-aspiring theater majors with interesting hairstyles and wardrobe choices. One woman sauntered to her set wearing some kind of animal’s fur as a coat and a frizzy bee hive hairdo that would make Amy Winehouse cringe. The little child sitting directly behind her quickly switched positions with his mother.

I had bought the tickets online months ahead of time and with the foreknowledge that the gaudy purchase price guaranteed us nothing except admittance to the show. It’s hard to tell from a little color-coded chart how good your seats will really be. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see that our seats were not only very close to the stage, but on the aisle and in a row with only two other seats. Sure, we were off the side of the theater, but with all the action going down in the middle of the stage anyway, the only thing that was really necessary was my wife’s approval anyway. “These are really good!” she squealed with delight signifying my purchase had passed the initial test.

The musical raises a lot of moral questions- the so called ‘wicked’ witch isn’t really that wicked. She couldn’t help that she was born a hideous shade of green which made her an instant outcast to her family and classmates. But, in the end and for all of her life she was labeled as strange and then eventually evil by those that didn’t know her.

This was the part where the witches shot laser beams out of their eyes at each other…well, not really, but that would have been awesome.

Before the production began, a husband and wife were discussing the issue behind us. “I don’t think people are born evil”, she said to her husband whose non-response indicated his desire for the conversation to end and the show to begin. “Well…some people are born wicked and some just turn evil because of things that happen in their life”, she continued, waffling on her opinion somewhat.

The curtain in front of us was a map of the Land of Oz, with the Emerald City glowing green. Above the stage there was a mechanical-looking dragon. We wondered out loud if it would be part of the show. The orchestra tuned in preparation of executing the opening notes to the first number.

As the dancers leapt onto the stage and the good witch floated down on some kind of pendulum looking bubble, the cast burst into song, exclaiming, “No one Mourns the Wicked!” The dark, ominous tune set an appropriate tone for the rest of the performance. However, there were also lighter moments, happy endings, and considerable amounts of laughter woven into the show. I heard the rustling of a bag of candy behind me many times, wondering to myself if someone was wrestling with a roll of mutant flesh eating saran wrap, but my wife was too focused on the spectacle in front of us to be bothered one bit. She even sung quietly along to Galinda the good witch’s solo song, Popular.

Remember my defense of Men and Women?

Every so often, parents will tell laughable tales of their small children, who when at play with others of opposite sex in Kindergarten for the first time inappropriately begin curiously comparing what lies in their underpants. It is obvious to even the youngest minds that boys and girls are different, but the challenge according to Dr. Larry Crabb is “becom[ing] men and women who enjoy the difference.”

In “Men and Women: Enjoying The Difference”, Crabb aims to identify and isolate not the glaring physical and sexual differences between male and female, but the deeper, more controversial, and oft debated diversities that lie in our make-up and design as God’s creatures. In painstakingly thorough fashion, the experienced Christian relationship counselor isolates the biggest barrier he perceives in preventing husband and wife from attaining maximum enjoyment and potential in marriage. It turns what could have been 50 pages into a 213 page exercise of discipline, but for those aiming to become better husbands and wives, it’s worth it. According to Crabb, the festering roadblock of good marriages is self-centeredness.

It's a one-eyed monster!

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…

For Christians, self-centeredness is an old enemy many thought they’d eradicated by receiving Christ or intellectually acknowledging. Not so, says Crabb: Selfishness is a parasitic disease of the flesh we must constantly and humbly turn to God for help with in brokenness if we hope for any chance for success in our marriages. “No one marries with plans to be miserable” , explains Crabb, but somewhere along the way all falter. Spouses point fingers, scream and yell, and often eventually forget why they loved each other or even got married in the first place. There is no instant answer for martial bliss, instead in repentance we must shift our way of thinking to God’s; a good relationship isn’t “one that provides us with whatever we need to feel happy” , it’s something radically different.

For most of the first half of the book, Crabb spends his effort lecturing on what does not instead of what actually does makes marriage work. In addition, he spends a great deal of time extolling the differences between the traditional and egalitarian view of relationships rather than actually talking about his view of the sexes. After much qualifying and explaining, when he finally does get to the point- that differences and gender roles are meaningless unless we first establish others-centeredness, it’s well taken. Pounding it home like a the noise of a jackhammer on a throbbing headache, Crabb repetitively ensures that readers will realize arriving at an others-centered mindset is the vital first step in a good relationship. Those who wish to glance over the problems their selfishness poses in search of easy, practical, chug-and-plug solutions will loathe Dr. Crabb’s book.

Smartly, the arrival at the realization of self-centeredness is a crucial one because God’s design and Crabb’s counsel to every difficulty in marriage can’t be answered by a step by step repair manual. Instead, God created men and women to perfectly complement each other and provide for one another’s needs in ways that the other of opposite sex could otherwise never have met if not for their partner. Out of the marriage relationship drips God’s genius and creativity, which Crabb shares with readers is because our creator enjoys a similar and more perfect version in the confines of the trinity. The Trinity’s “way of relating”, explains Crabb, “is so radically right that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, in some mysterious but profoundly meaningful way, can be regarded as one.” By this perfect example, “A good relationship is one in which each member willingly and actively devotes whatever he or she has to give to the well being of the other…the highest criterion for deciding what to do at any moment is a person’s understanding before God of what would be the greatest service he or she can offer to the other.”

Part two of the book, “How Relationships Do Work: The Difference Men and Women Can Enjoy”, should be required reading for those wishing for long lasting relationships. Crabb gets to the real goods here and shares his insights on what make men and women so radically different, yet fully equipped for relationship with one another. Again, like a broken record, he extols, “We must get it out of our heads that there is only one right course of action to take in every situation…we must be committed to other-centeredness” and then builds upon his earlier writing, adding that “living biblically in relationship requires courage to make risky decisions that come out of hearts wanting above all else to give.”

Although both “have the authority to serve one another” , Crabb finally, after much wrangling and explaining, concludes men and women are truly and biblically different. “A husband exercises headship over a wife when he expresses his manhood toward her, when he gently but strongly leads her with a strength that is not afraid to become deeply involved.” A man “wants to know that he can move toward a woman and touch her deeply.” As the creator, “God has placed within [a man] exactly what his wife longs to enjoy and what can encourage her to become all she was meant to be.”

Conversely, “a wife’s special resources as a woman consist primarily of an attitude of nourishing, unpanicked supportiveness and warm, not biting acceptance.” As I see in my own wife, a woman’s “goal…is to use [all these] resources in a fashion that has the power to draw her husband into a stronger commitment to God and into more godly involvement with her.”

For me, the book “Men and Women” walks hand in hand with the Love Ethics course we’re currently taking. As I consider how to stimulate my wife to better love and serve others instead of formulate some selfish plot to have her meet my needs, our marriage has grown. Just last Wednesday night after class, as we lay down to bed together, something unusual happened. As usual, she was grumpy and tired and so was I, but after a few tense moments of bickering back and forth, I turned my thoughts to God and to recently learned Love Ethics. “Tell me a secret”, I whispered and took a risk, thinking of the most illogical show-stopping reversal of my always logical personality I could. “Are you serious?” she cautiously questioned back before the conversion quickly moved into hours of honesty, laughter, concern, and overall open spiritual exchange between me and my wife. I’ve been in a relationship with Lauren for more than 8 years, but I communicated and shared things with her I had previously never shared in a way I never had and she did the same. The craziest part was at 1:30 am in the morning, nether of us wanted it to end. Strangely, it all began with an effort to focus on and serve my wife in a way that would meet her needs.

Even though my brief vacation wasn’t over yet, I wasn’t really enjoying it as much as I’d hoped. My thoughts were already drifting back and forth between warm holiday thoughts and panicked realizations that what seemed to be a lengthy respite would soon be ending. A metal on metal head on collision would have been more preferable, as the horrible grind high school teachers like to use to scare their students known as the “real world” was once again looming.

But, I still had one more day of vacation. I tried to brush painful thoughts of responsibility and work aside for the time being and crawled out of bed. Last night was New Year’s Eve, it was 2008 now. I had a few drinks early in the evening and a Champaign toast at the stroke of midnight, so I felt much better than previous New Year’s mornings. Still, my feet always hurt for a few moments when they first hit the ground coming out of the bed. I guess they just feel the way the rest of me feels about getting up in the morning.

I showered and prepared to make the most of my day. I felt like I was preparing for my last hours of freedom on the outside. Before taking the half-hour car ride with my wife to my childhood home in Walton Hills, there were a few errands I needed to run. We borrowed the highly addictive and popular Guitar Hero from Jake. I needed to return this game because it isn’t mine and it had to be out of the house so I wouldn’t whammy in anymore new years by staying up until 5 in the morning playing on the easy level.

It was snowing outside. If anyone that tells you they like winter or snow and they don’t own a ski resort or participate in some winter X game is lying. Winter looks good when you’re in summer or staring at it through the window of some warm place snuggled up with a cup of coco in your hand. However, when you have to deal with the practical side of winter, scraping ice off your car, doing 180’s on icy roads, shoveling snow, etc., winter sucks.

Forgetting to slow down given the blizzard-like conditions, I raced to the door to drop off the game. Forgetting all the unpleasant thoughts about work, I was in a good mood now and I had a little bounce in my step. The problem is, bouncing and winter don’t mix.

Naively I ran back to the car, which was warm and running with my wife inside, bounding through the yard towards the vehicle. The driveway, I soon learned, was a little lower than the front yard and was separated by a wooden railroad tie. I planted my Nike on the tie in hopes of reaching down towards the door handle, but instead my foot found no traction and hurled upwards into the air. There was nothing to grab onto and no rewind button to undo what was about to happen.

My body was parallel with the ground now. The millisecond I was in the air was short, but long enough for me to decide to be angry about what was happening. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to hit the ground hard, but I’d make up for it in some idiotic way by acting all mad when I was on my feet again. I slammed onto the wet, icy driveway below, but the fury inside me worked like lighting to shoot me back upright. I was filled with rage, anger, and most of all embarrassment. I pounded my fist on the car window as if my Camry had some how conspired with the ice and snow to foil me.

Controlled?

My wife had gotten a front row seat to what had to have been a shockingly hilarious spectacle. Of course, she’d later say she waited to laugh until she knew I was OK, but in the moment in felt like the whole world was watching me.

Inconsolable, I was back in the car now. It wasn’t my wife’s fault I had slipped to the ground, but in the few stupid, tense moments after re-entering the car she probably felt like I was taking it out on her. A little muddied and bruised, but OK. I would be sore in the morning. When you slip in the winter it always hurts even if you try to catch yourself, sometimes more. You turn your hand all shades of blue, red, and purple bracing for the ground, yet it only seems to make matters worse when your hip takes the brunt of the blow. Maybe my wife was correct in mentioning that the bright side was at least I wasn’t older or I would have surely broken my hip. However, I don’t feel that young today.

Why did I get so angry? It was a silly accident, I was basically OK, and no one but my loving wife was there to witness it. If I can’t allow her to laugh at me, who can? Of course, when I calmed down, I was able to laugh at myself a few minutes later, but it the heat of the moment I was just so mad. What was the use of letting my emotions get the best of me and turn a silly accident onto something even worse?

My pride prevented me from getting up and laughing it off right away. I felt like I needed to get even with the ground or old man winter for dealing me such a horrible card!

I’m sore, but I’ll recover. It feels like I got tackled by a gorilla or crashed my car. But, I think the thing that got hurt most by the fall was my pride.

I’m generally a laid-back, in-control kind of guy. I like it that way. I knowingly and unknowingly project a cool-guy persona on people that attempts to get them to buy the image I’m selling. I like to feel like I’m in control of the situation, my emotions, circumstances, and my entire life. The problem is I’m not.

Cool, Cool James Dean

I don’t share my emotions or feelings well. Part of that is because of my personality and part of it is because growing up, I never was encouraged to open up. I just learned how to never talk about things that bothered me, until this ability became second nature. Now, it’s not like I’m actively hiding my feelings or emotions, I’m just in my default mode. It would be strange for me to tell you how I’m really doing, what bothers me, or something I’m really struggling with because I don’t even like to think about things like that. I’m so out of touch with my feelings and emotions, I don’t even think I know what’s going on most of the time with me!

I’m all about suppression. I’m a pretty tough guy, or at least I like to think of myself that way. If I’m feeling lonely or something, I can easily tough that out for days, months, or years if that’s what it takes.

But, no one can stick it out forever. Eventually, situations and circumstances get so tough that all the feelings I’ve bottled up inside come bursting out. Like a dormant volcano that catches the native villagers off guard, I explode because of some inconsequential thing: my wife left a dirty bowl in the sink or someone cut me off on the road. If there’s one emotion I’m not short on, it’s anger.

Mount St. Helens Erupts!

I’m learning how to share how I’m really feeling with people that are close to me. It’s no easy task. Sometimes it’s just easier to vent by screaming at another driver when I’m in the car all by myself or by writing on this blog. This routinely leaves the inside of my windshield dripping with spittle and the pages of my blog soaked with emotional outbursts. My wife can be a good emotional punching bag too- if I’m angry I can just find something to be angry at her about. She’s awesome for putting up with times like this and even when I acknowledge the error of my ways afterwards with an apology, I still probably deserve a slap. It seems stupid and a little puss to tell people you’re sad, lonely, or struggling. A popular excuse is to think “everyone knows I’m lonely, going through tough time, etc. if they cared about me they’d try to help” or to wait by the phone pondering “people know I’m struggling why don’t they call me?” Often times, people don’t understand the depths of what you’re feeling or give you a different reaction than you expected. There have been times I’ve tried to tell people that I’m sad and they looked at me incredulously saying, “You?!? You’re not depressed!” In times like that, It’s hard for me not to think I should have never opened up in the first place.

But, as I was telling B yesterday, us non-emotional people need to learn how to open up and share our feelings with people we’re close to, or we’ve got no chance of making it when difficult circumstances strike, which they will. God calls us to “bear one another’s burdens”, and as much as this is an opportunity for others to serve us, it’s an opportunity for us to serve them by doing something difficult and abnormal by opening up in the first place.

I know a big component for me is staying thankful in the face of adversity. In fact, Paul says that gratitude is at the heart of being content with life. It’s so easy to get caught up in financial hardship or family trouble, but a quick step back and a look at the enormous number of good things that are going on in my life, coupled with the awesome things God has blessed me with immediately brings me back to reality.