Loneliness

My wife and baby are in memphis visiting family (and fleeing the 85 foot tall tree we are having cut down), and so you might think this post is about that. It is not.

I am simply amazed by the ways we (and by 'we' I mean myself) put ourselves out there. I have a podcast, a blog, a facebook, a myspace, an e-mail address, and an AIM name. I have GREAT reasons for each one: podcast - Mike asked me to do one, and I can't refuse Mike anything. Blog - lately, it is my excuse to put pictures of my daughter all over the place. Facebook - I'm a youth pastor, I can comunicate with 100 kids in three minutes using Facebook. Myspace - there are friends who only use Myspace, and that is the only way to read their blogs. E-mail - I have sent over 5000 e-mails since I came to work for Greentree. AIM - I have had blzrscool for 13 years now!

Anyway, I am amazed at how we put ourselves out there (often different selves for different venues), and yet we are still so lonely. Chap Clark said (to 700 Jr. high kids) that loneliness is the human condition. I think he is right, and when I think about how lonely most people (and myself many days) are, my heart is broken.

I wonder if the great irony is going to be all this technology pushing us back into human contact because it is such a great need in all of our lives. I wonder if the lesser irony, everyone sitting at coffeeshops typing away with their headphones on, will ever strike anyone like it does me...

Thoughts?

SAD and Lloyd Dobbler

Seasonal Affective Disorder; many people are somewhat affected by this. It is simply when the weather changes afffect your mood; for good or for ill. Today I feel close to depressed. It is, in fact, gloomy outside. I am about to transition jobs and am less able than usual to flee to the idol of productivity. I was hoping to just sit and read my Bible when I got to my coffee shop (from whence come all podcasts and most blogs because of their coveted high speed connection). I haven't don't that yet.

My great friend Mike Higgins has a cliche' riddled paragraph about attitude on his desk. Lloyd Dobbler thinks similarly, "Why can't you just decide to be in a good mood and be in a good mood?" Webel has always fought to be controlled by anything, which seems like the antithesis of most people I know who are just looking for an excuse to act tired, etc. Isn't everyone tired and busy though?

I just wonder how much I am supposed to fight? How much am I just supposed to roll with it and look forward to tomorrow, hurt as few people as possible in the process? Or should I seach out what the real problem is and address it?

Pictures like this make me wonder how I could ever be in a bad mood...

(My wife and baby)

Change

It is hard for me when a philosophy is presented that is not a philosophy. These recent elections (I'm of course writing from Missouri) had an interesting result that seemed more about 'change' than any particular political platform; unless of course rejecting a platform is a platform!

Examples of my earlier point: loyalty, sincerity, and 'change' are not, in and of themselves good or bad, they just are... I heard someone say yesterday (he happens to drive a jaguar and his silver hair - so, stereotype and judge all you want), "Well, Claire McCaskill won't be able to find her way to Washington, so it isn't a big deal..." His comment made me sad. I did not vote for McCaskill, but I do support many policies that she claims to hold. More importantly, I want her to do well because she is in office. This is not a war anyone lost (hopefully!) it is politics...

My fear is that we were so busy screaming for change we weren't paying attention to the issues, our own hand in shaping them, etc. Instead, we were busy reacting to things we don't like. I think of Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black answering Will Smith's question, "Why not tell people, they're smart, the could handle it?" "A person is smart; people are dumb stupid animals and you know it..."

I myself wonder if I voted as a person or as a group of people. I also wonder what the recent changes in our nation will bring.

Settling

What does it mean to settle?

Can someone reconcile for me the difference between buying into the American Dream (which I would say is a fallacy, in that it doesn't deliver anything emotionally - instead it just delivers stuff) and the flip side of our culture not (generallly???) having the courage to believe in the romance of life... Are we, in fact, settling for the American Dream?

And, of course, one more picture...

Just a picture

the discussions are waning, but I don't want anyone to miss out on some of our latest pics...