Gym Shame and The Basic

I came to a terrible realization about a month ago.  I was getting fat.  Not obese, mind you, but certainly overweight.  Part of it had to do with the fact that I love food.  Not just eating…food in general.  I love cooking, reading about, learning about, and listening to radio programs about food.  Since there is a saying, “never trust a skinny chef,” let’s just say that I was beginning to look mighty trustworthy.  (**note..the picture to the right was taken after 6 weeks on the plan mentioned below)The other contributing factor was that I live a pretty sedentary live.  Almost everything I do, be it for OBC or for Nashville music stuff, involves me sitting in front of a screen.  So besides my pale complexion, my mid-section and hind-quarters were expanding.  About a month ago, I stepped on a scale and realized that I was the heaviest I had ever been.  Something had to change and change fast.  So I joined the newly built rec center behind our house and began looking for diet and workout plans that I could follow.  I decided on the Men’s Health “Belly Off” program. It’s a “body weight only” workout regimen, combined with a daily eating plan.  The first day I tried the workout, I just about threw up.  It was REALLY hard.  The irony is that it’s made up of exercises that look like they would be easy: push-ups, pull-ups, forward lunges, etc...  It’s nothing flashy but it’s shockingly hard.  This, of course, led to an additional problem.  Gym Shame.

 

 Gym Shame is what I call the emotion you feel when you go to a fitness club and feel like a loser because the amount of weight you’re lifting is less than the person next to you.  I, of course, felt this in a magnified way since I was lifting no weights at all.  It’s one thing to grunt and sweat as you heft impressive looking dumbbells.  It’s quite another to grunt and sweat as you do squats holding an invisible bar.  There are two things that keep me going.  1: The fact that I’ve been seeing results.  I am, in fact, losing weight and gaining strength.  And 2: The Article.  The Article was something I read as I was searching for workout plans.  It said that the strongest, most “ripped”, athletes got that way by mastering the basics first.  They had perfected doing push-ups and lunges before they moved on to other things.  Why?  Because those exercises are still considered some of the best ways to strengthen your entire body and loose weight when combined with a well balanced diet and portion control.  So when my Gym Shame rears it’s head, I remind myself that I’m learning to master the basics and that my belt has had to come in a notch already.

 

I don’t know about you, but even as I was still in the gym, I could see the spiritual analogy.  We need to master the basics and we haven’t yet.  That “we” is a collective “we” meaning both you and me.  I’m not talking about fasting, prayer and memorizing The Bible (even though those are great things).  I’m talking about something even more basic than any of that: Believing God.  On a very bare-bones level, everything starts here. It’s THE Basic. How can we even trust God for salvation unless we’ve first believed Him when He tells us that we need to be saved in the first place.  Believing God means that we trust that what He says is right.  Regardless.  Even if everyone around us are flexing their churchy muscles, even if our lives aren’t as flashy as we think they ought to be and our Christian “gym shame” starts whispering doubts in our ears.  Remember this:  From Genesis to Revelation, all of the heroes of faith believed God first.  They were good at trusting that what God said was what was best and not what the culture, their friends, or even what the religious establishment told them.  And thousands of years later, we are still talking about them.  They mastered The Basic and the world was never the same.  

Dexters and Danskos

In previous posts I’ve mentioned that I’m a cheapskate.  I like to say I’m thrifty but….well…we all know the truth.  My wife is also incredibly good at stretching a penny.  We aren’t sure if it’s because we’re from the Northeast (where Yankee virtues include things like self-sufficiency, thrift, etc…) or if we just like to get the best bang for our buck.  Either way, nowhere are these character traits more obvious than in our closet.  Just as an example:  I graduated Barnstable High School in 1994.  During senior week, they gave us all t-shirts.  I still have that t-shirt.  Granted, it looks more like a lace doily than a shirt but if I can still use it than, by golly, I will.

 

  All this came to my attention the other morning when I realized that I couldn’t walk in our “walk-in” closet.  There was stuff everywhere.  A careful analysis of the situation led me to the conclusion that I didn’t have enough hangers.  An even closer analysis led me to the fact that the reason I needed more hangers was because eighty percent of the current ones were being used by clothes I didn’t wear.  Either they were old and holey (not holy), or they were too big (since back in the nineties, the style was baggy pants and oversized flannel…thank you Seattle).  Regardless, most of those clothes hadn’t seen the outside of a closet since we moved to Tennessee six and a half years ago.

 

The other thing taking up space was shoes.  I have a problem with shoes.  Not an Imelda Marcos problem.  Quite the opposite.  I never buy shoes.  I have bad feet so if I find a pair that doesn’t hurt me, I wear them every day, all day, until, like my t-shirts, they look like lace doilies wrapped around my feet.  Brown or black leather doilies but doilies none-the-less.  So, along with the eighty percent of my clothes that I don’t wear, I have several pairs of shoes that I haven’t worn in years haunting my closet floor.  Those old Dexters (remember those, Children of The Eighties?) and that pair of Danskos that used to feel good but are so worn out they hurt now.  All of these things were making the use of my closet impossible.  So….what is the solution?  After a few trips to Goodwill and a trip to the dump, I can actually see the floor again.  Even better, the new clothes I’ve bought can move from the floor to their proper place of honor on a hanger or a shelf.  These new clothes should be honored.  After all, they actually fit me right, and they make me look good.  And when I look into my closet, it doesn’t look full but what is there I use and there is room for more. 

 

I don’t know about you, but as I was cleaning all that old stuff out, I thought about how I deal with my spiritual life.  Much like that closet, I have stuff in there that doesn’t suit me anymore.  It was stuff that I picked up when I wasn’t a Christian, stuff from when I was an immature believer, and some of it was flat out sin.  Most of it started as ways of dealing with the world around me and, in the same way clothing and shoes cover our body, much of it was designed to hide the stuff I didn’t want anyone to see.  And some of it, like my Dexters and Danskos, felt great at first or were in style but now are just taking up room.  In The Book of Hebrews, the author urges us to “…throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”   What I love about that verse is that it specifically mentions two types of things that we need to cast off.  The first are things that may be good but are a hindrance.  These are the clothes that don’t fit or are past their prime and are just taking up space.  These are habits and mannerisms, needless events and business, and anything else that, on their own, aren’t bad but are holding us back from where The Lord is calling us to go.  The other specific thing that the author of Hebrews mentions is sin.  In the closet analogy, I think of my Dexters and Danskos.  They may have started out feeling good but now they don’t just hinder me, they hurt me.  And since I have such bad feet, it wouldn’t be long before I wasn’t just in pain but actually crippled.  Sin won’t just drag you down.  It’ll stop you cold.  So the author of Hebrews urges us to cast those things aside and to run.  As we run God gives us new strength, new life, and new growth.  So besides being able to run, by throwing off these things we now have room for the newness God offers.  We have a race marked out for us.  Custom made to fit us.  And all that newness deserves a place of honor in the closets of out hearts.  Our lives may not look as busy or blessed or as full as someone else’s but what is there suits us.

Kugel and Jeremiah

For those of you who don’t know already, I grew up Jewish.  And while I did have a Bar Mitzvah and all of that, I was more of a culinary Jew than anything else.  I liked the food.  One of my favorites is a dish called kugel, which is a sweet noodle pudding.  It’s quite possibly one of the most unhealthy foods imaginable.  It’s made with butter, lots of eggs, cottage cheese, plus carbohydrates galore; sugar, noodles, sugar, raisins (which are basically black, wrinkled sugar) and, did I mention, noodles?  And then you put sour cream on top.  You might as well inject lard straight into your veins.  With all those tasty calories packed in there, I think it must have originated as a way to bulk up for cold Russian winters.  As you can tell, it’s one of my favorite things to eat.  That’s why we don’t make it that often.  If we did I would have a girth equivalent to that of a walrus….or a woolly mammoth.  Needless to say, the love of kugel is a trait my son Brehm has inherited.  Which brings me to the other night. 

Since Brehm is four, he spends a lot of time sitting in the “time out” corner.  People will spread all sorts of propaganda about the “twos” but they’re lying.  At two, they can’t talk well or reason.  By four they can give any attorney a run for their money.  So Brehm needs to take some time, periodically, to sit and think about what he’s done or said.  It’s not that he is a bad kid.  In fact, he’s a great kid.   He’s just really smart and has an Old Testament sense of justice.  Especially when it pertains to his little brother.  Anyway…I don’t even remember why he was in “time out” but there he was, crying and trying to bargain his way to freedom.  But this is the interesting part.  I was in the kitchen the whole time making kugel.  He’s in time out and I’m making his favorite food.  He can hear my voice telling him he needs to stay in  “time out” but he can’t see what I’m doing.  While he is experiencing my discipline, I’m preparing a future blessing for him.

That’s exactly what is going on in Jeremiah 29:11 when God declares, “ I know the plans I have for you.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you hope and a future”.  That verse is often tossed around to make people feel better.  And it should make us feel better.  But not in the way the coffee mugs and throw-blankets emblazoned with that Scripture would have us believe.  The context of that verse makes it both richer and more beautiful but less warm and fuzzy to a modern American.  We like to think that this verse means God will remove all hardship.   Right now.  We want to think that His plan for us is involves bon-bons or endless fishing trips or checking accounts perpetually in the black.  However the context of the verse points to something very different.  Something more like kugel and “time outs”.  God is speaking through Jeremiah to Jews in exile.  Exile is just a fancy word for a National “Time Out”.  And not just any Jews in exile, but the ones who had a chance to return to the promised-land but didn’t.  I’m not sure why they didn’t go.  Maybe it was the fear of the unknown, maybe they we too comfortable where they were, or maybe they were simply being disobedient.  Regardless, they’d missed their chance and, more than likely, were hearing reports of how good it was for those who did risk everything to go back.  And so God speaks.  And, backing up a few verses, says (my paraphrase), “ get comfortable.  You’re not going anywhere for a while.  There are consequences for your decisions and you should put down roots here in exile.  Have families, build houses, and all that because you’re stuck here.”  In essence God is saying, “ You’re not done with your time out yet.”  And then, He gets to verse 11 and says “But”.  That is one of the most beautiful words.   It means “however”, “in spite of all that”.  And then He continues, “I’m making kugel you don’t even know about, yummy things that will make you happy and fat.  And even more than that, I’ll give you my Shalom., my peace and hope.”  Can you see why that is less comforting but more comforting all at the same time?  It’s a call to trust God, even as we are told to make our home in confusion and apparent (or literal) exile.  It’s a bold call to faith; to believe that there is a loving father, preparing spiritual kugel for us.  And His kugel….well…..it’s the best there is. 

Crumbs

Brehm is a picky eater.  Elijah is the Tasmanian Devil.  Brehm fusses over every bite.  Elijah has tried to eat the support columns at our local Target store.  I’m not kidding.  Brehm didn’t used to be that way.  There was a time when he would eat anything we put in front of him.  Fruit?  He’d eat it.  Mustard?  He’d make funny faces….but he’d eat it.  Now….he has very specific things that he likes and, much to our chagrin, those things change from day to day.  Some of you may recall a previous newsletter where I mentioned that he loved a dish called kugel.  Much like computer technology, that essay was obsolete as soon as I wrote it.  Our doctor tells us that it’s normal for his age.  He said that he’s known of kids who eat only Cheerios for a year and turn out normal.  Somehow I think that he’s lying to me but the lie makes me feel better. 

 

So, for right now, his favorite lunchtime treat is peanut butter and grape jelly on wheat bread.  It’s healthy for him and so we are happy to oblige.  Lately that is what we send in for his lunch along with apple slices and small thing of yogurt with a picture of Diego on it (if you have to ask…you don’t have kids).  “Not Dora,” he said, “that’s for girls!”   OK then. 

 

The other day, while I was still on Cape Cod, Laura (aka Superwoman) had managed to wrangle all three kids, make a fresh breakfast, prepare lunches, got them dressed and out the door, all by 7:45 AM.  I can barely tie my shoes by 7:45 AM.   I married up.  So anyway….the lunch she had made was Brehm’s favorite; peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread.  It’s what he likes and it’s good for him so everything should be OK.  Right?  Wrong. 

The scenario I’m about to describe took place while I was up on The Cape for Easter so I’ll tell it as best I can based on the accounts I’ve heard.  At our kid’s daycare, they all take naps.  This is only partially because the kids need them.  I think the teachers need the break too.  They have little blue cots, which appear to be far more comfortable than the squares of rug-sample I tossed and turned on when I was a kid.  They have it so easy now.  They even get pillows.

 

 Well…..after lunch it was time for nap and Brehm, despite his insistence that he loves PB&J, had not eaten his lunch.  His teacher had given him more than enough time but he had decided to goof off instead.  So they put the children on their cots, dimmed the lights, and put on some quiet music.  But this is where it gets weird.  Brehm would not stay on his cot.  That is not the strange part.  He can’t sit in a chair for more than a second and a half either.  What was unusual was what he was doing.  He was finding crumbs from lunch that were still on the floor and eating those.  Our son, who had a good lunch, lovingly made, was eating crumbs off the floor!  When I heard this, my “father’s heart” hurt.  My son, who I love, should not be eating crumbs!  I know it was his choice (both to eat the crumbs and NOT eat his lunch).  I know that he doesn’t yet understand that the crumbs are dirty and could make him sick (the floor we are talking about is, after all, a daycare floor).  But all I wanted to do was to be back in Tennessee and be in that daycare so I could tell him that my son should not eat scraps from a dirty floor.  And, as is often the case, God reminded me that He is a father too.  That He has prepared a table for me.  One that is set even in the presence of my enemies. He reminded me that by His grace, I am made His son and invited to dine there.  To eat with my father, The King, instead of scrounging for crumbs.  Despite knowing this in my head, I think I often choose to goof off and ignore the feast God offers.  Then I scramble for scraps later.  I trade what is good for me and lovingly prepared for what is dirty and can make me sick.  I think we all do that.  And so God, with the love of His Father’s Heart, DID come to Tennessee, and Massachusetts, and Galilee, and, and, and.  And He tells us, “No child of mine should eat crumbs.”  So come, Children of the King, let us dine.

Adjustments

I have a friend named Rob.  Rob has two Grammys. When Rob tells me how to make my recording projects sound better…I listen.  You see, Rob is a mixing engineer and his job is to take what people like me record, and make it sound good.  He has a great set of ears.  I’ve never actually seen his ears; since his hair often covers them, but I know that he hears things I don’t hear.   Kind of like a bat.

 

Because I know that he has great ears, and he has two gold gramophones on his mixing console to prove it, when he gives me advice about recording, gear, etc… I try to take it. Recently he sent me to a web site that explained all about acoustics in a mixing environment.  It was for smart people.  I had to look up a lot of words.  Basically, what the site said was that there are rules about how sound bounces around a room and interacts with the walls, sofas, and other bouncing sound waves.  All of that effects what you hear when you listen.  This is important when you mix a record because you need to hear everything.  I don’t know who had the time to figure all this out, but one of the rules was called the “38% rule”.  What it says is that the ideal listening spot in a room is usually about 1/3 into the room (38% to be exact).  Well…since Rob had sent me to that site, and I listen to Rob, I got out a tape measurer to find out where I should be sitting when I listen to stuff in my studio.  I was close but I was about 6 inches off from where that site told me I should be sitting.  So I moved my desk 6 inches.  Not a big adjustment.  I skeptically sat down to listen to something I had been working on, and WOW! I felt like I had just got a new set of monitors!  I could hear things that I hadn’t heard before.

 

The purpose of studio monitors is to tell the truth.  Not to sound pretty.  If they were humans, they would be prophets.  They would say things like, “Repent or God is coming to smite you, sinner.  Oh…and by the way…your recording sounds like garbage.”  So, if the speakers tell the truth and, by making a small adjustment, I could hear them better, this is both good and bad.  It’s good because I can hear it clearly.  It’s bad because I may not like what I hear.  That means I need to fix things, and fixing things takes work and work is…..well…..work.  And I’m lazy.

 

So I have a choice. Fix my mix or move my monitors back to where they were so I can’t hear the truth.  I have the same choice with God.  Make adjustments when He reveals things to me and go further toward intimacy with Him knowing that each step of trust and obedience helps me hear Him better.  Or I can pretend I never heard Him and keep on doing what I was doing.  Seems like an easy decision.  I wish I could say that I always chose the better of these two options.

 

The flip side to all this is that I might hear things I like too.  My mix might be better than I thought and making the adjustments might actually encourage me.  To continue the analogy, I might hear, “Well done!  I’m so proud of you!  Keep fighting.  I’m crazy in love with you and will not rest until I see you face to face. I love you, not what you do for me. I’m faithful.”, and lots of other stuff that absolutely thrills my soul.

 

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

                                                                                    John 10:27

Pumpkin Pie and Judges

This past Thanksgiving my wife Laura and I decided to try something different.  We decided that we would take the pumpkins from Halloween and try to turn them into pies.  The thought wasn’t purely spontaneous (since we had bought “pie” pumpkins back in October) but it was more of an inspired decision after watching Ratatouille, a movie about a cooking rat.  If a rat can whip up gourmet French cuisine, then surely I can make a pie out of a pumpkin.  So, we made the pumpkin puree, we made the pies and then put them in the fridge for the coming holiday. 

 

Well, Thanksgiving comes and, after a full day in the kitchen basting, roasting, and whipping, we sit down for our feast.  And we’re truly thankful.  The amount of food could feed the better part of Mainland China.  We are a blessed family.  We have healthy and happy kids, and they have happy and healthy parents who think nothing of slaving in the kitchen all day so that they can have a special holiday experience.  You see where this is going, don’t you?  So, when our eldest looks at his plate full of yummy food and declares, “I don’t like it” without even a taste, I tried to let it roll of my back.  After all, he’s only four and most kids, myself included, don’t cross from selfish to gratitude until they are twenty at least.  He does eventually eat some of his food but, at this point, he has made no small secret of the fact that he wants some pumpkin pie.  He’s antsy at the table so we use the pie as leverage and he sits still.  He gets sassy with my wife.  He gets punished.  We use the pie as bribery.  We like to call it a “reward” but who are we kidding.  Overall, he doesn’t do a very good job eating his meal or listening to his parents.  We tell him that he doesn’t deserve the pie but, since it’s a holiday, we’ll still give it to him.  Plus, I think, patting myself on the back, I’ve just given a good object lesson on Grace.  Getting what you don’t deserve.  He asks for whipped cream and I, being a benevolent father, oblige.  As I write, I’m reminded of a saying.  Pride cometh before a great fall. 

 

So my son scrapes the whipped cream off the pie, eats that, and then after a mere nibble of the pie, brings the plate to the sink and dumps it.  The “handmade-from-Halloween-pumpkins” pumpkin pie!  The pie of Grace!  Dumped.  So I loose my cool.  On a scale of serenity to total apoplectic fit, I’m heavy on the apoplexy.  How can he take this thing that I’ve made for his pleasure, to bless him, and dump it after only eating the fluffy, store bought junk on top?  I tried not to let it show too much because, after all, he is only four and I’m thirty-one and I’m supposed to be mature.  But I was pretty mad.  He got a lecture about gratitude and Thanksgiving.  He’ll share this story with a therapist one day.

 

A few days later I sit down in my favorite chair, our house now decorated for Christmas, and I start to read the book of Judges.  Not the normal Advent reading, but I felt like that was where I was supposed to be.  The book starts out with the Israelites finally arriving in the Promised Land and beginning to settle there.  It’s pretty R-rated due to violence.  People’s thumbs get cut off and such.  But what happens is that the Israelites don’t do what God told them to do.  They don’t wipe everyone out.  It’s too hard.  So they settle with the people God told them to get rid of and God gets angry.  How can they take what He has offered them as a blessing and “dump it” by not obeying?  As I start to get filled with “righteous indignation” at the foolishness of the Israelites, I look up and see my Christmas tree.  And I’m convicted.  Here I am, celebrating the biggest gift, given at the greatest cost, offered with unfathomable Grace, and so often I “dump it” because I’ve eaten the fluffy, easy junk and considered that enough.  I take the simple, the immature, the pre-packaged, and the lite instead of feasting on the rich, ineffable, substantial, deep, and the joyous.  I’ve heard it said that what annoys you most in other people is often the very things that you do.  Maybe that’s why my son’s reaction to the pie bothered me so much. He was a reflection of my own faults.  Maybe that’s why God chose the Israelites.  Perhaps it’s because they exhibit so many of our weaknesses.  They are undeniably human.  Since conviction is supposed to fuel repentance (unlike condemnation which brings shame) I spend some time asking God for forgiveness and then go have another piece of pie.  No whipped cream added.

Nerds

This past Halloween, my kids and I went out trick-or-treating.  I don’t know where you all stand on Halloween.  I’m not sure where I stand on it either.  I just know that my kids looked really cute as a train and a sheriff and people were willing to give us free stuff. And I love free stuff.  Plus it’s a great time to see the neighbors we never see.  I wanted to go and knock on the door of the house that always has a strange blue glow coming from behind the curtained windows.  The list of what that light could be grows long in my imagination.  Is it a home tanning bed and is their skin all dark and leathery like a purse from the hours of compulsive tanning?  It doesn’t flicker so it’s not the TV.  Maybe they are gardeners and they are gingerly tending their baby tomatoes under grow lights.  Or they’re growing drugs.  Needless to say, Laura wouldn’t let me knock.  I was disappointed. 

 

So we get home, and the kids unload their sugary bounty and we tell them that they can only have two pieces tonight or else their heads will spin around and pop off.  Or they’ll throw up.  It’ll be one or the other.  Both boys picked a candy bar and a box of “Nerds”.  For anyone who doesn’t know, “Nerds” are little, colored, sour candies that look like shrunken head versions of a Sweet Tart.  Anyway, we dumped the little candies into bowls for the boys.  Brehm had purple ones and Elijah had pink.  Then it began. 

 

“Mom.  I want a pink one!”

“No son.  You have your own”

“Mom.   Brehm took mine!”

We look and find pink Nerds in Brehm’s purple Nerd bowl. 

“Son, did you take those from your brother?”  
“No.”

“Go sit in time-out for lying and we are giving some of your Nerds to Elijah.”

 

We wait for the time-out to be over.  Meanwhile, ninjas and princesses are ringing our doorbell begging for treats and threatening retribution, or “tricks” if said treats are not dispensed.  You gotta love a holiday based on extortion.

 

With the time-out over, Brehm goes back to his bowl and the first thing he notices is that some of his purple Nerds are now in Elijah’s bowl.  In fact, it’s the only thing he notices.  It consumes his mind.  He dances and cries and insists that he wants purple Nerds.  All the time, he has a full bowl of purple Nerds sitting there.  They, apparently, are invisible. The only thing he cares about are the, literally, five Nerds in his brother’s bowl that “should have been his”.  Finally the Nerds get taken away and they get nothing.  Parental justice.  Look out.  He missed what was his because he wanted what his brother had.

 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve done that.  I’ve missed what God had for me, all because I was too busy desiring what God was doing in someone else’s life.  Basically I wanted God’s timing and plan for their life and not what He had for me.  I’ve been so focused on the “Nerds” in someone else’s bowl, that I’ve ignored the bowl full of Nerds in front of me.  It all boils down to trust and gratitude.  Do I trust that what God has for me is the best for me?  Do I trust that His timing is perfect?  Am I grateful for all He has given me already? Some of the biggest mistakes in the history of Israel were made because they wanted something other than what God had for them.  They wanted the “idol nerds” of their neighbors, or their “king nerds” and forgot about the whole bowl of “chosen people nerds” right in front of them. 

 

Sometimes I think I need to read Psalm 145 everyday.  It says, “The Lord sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down.  The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food at the proper time.  You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”  I need to remember that the part that says “…every living thing.” includes me.  And it includes you.