I HATE ORPHANS

The movie, Nacho Libre, is one of my favorite guilty pleasures to watch. Its quirky comedy is for random, silly people like myself. However, I want to highlight a specific comedic scene in the movie and give it a more serious spin. If you haven’t seen the movie I hope what I share is something that still makes sense. The wrestler, Esqueleto, stares in frustration at the main character of the movie and his partner in the ring, Nacho Libre. Suddenly Esqueleto angrily announces “I hate orphans!”. Nacho is shocked and this comment makes these friends instant enemies. Nacho had become a luchador (wrestler) to escape the boredom of his religious duties and to give the orphans a better life, while Esqueleto was in it for the money and only for himself. The back and forth between these two makes for an epic scene but I won’t give any of the details away. You’ll have to watch it for yourself.

However, it did have me thinking. The orphans I want to discuss are not necessarily ones who live in orphanages but are orphans because of what’s going on in their hearts. They are people who don’t know where they belong, they don’t know if they are loved, they are unsure about the future and aren’t sure of who they are. People with an orphan heart are not easy to love because of their neediness and tendency to sabotage what’s good for them. They are people who are on survival mode. Sound familiar? If it does it’s because we all have a little orphanism in all of us. Here is a twist. Esqueleto doesn’t realize that what he hates is what exists in him. He was a man with an orphan heart judging orphans. We are all missing something and feel a void. It’s only remedy is when we encounter the transformational love of our Heavenly Father found in the sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ. The only way to come out of the “orphanage” is to be adopted into the family of God.

Most of what we hate in the world is because orphans have been running it. When that happens the way things are cared for are warped and the way to progress hurts more people than it helps. Children of God have access to the Father’s heart for themselves and the world. That effects how they live and lead. Like Nacho the Lord willingly stepped into the ring of this planet and wrestled against enemies of our destiny and true identity of being children made in the image of our Father.

Our Heavenly Fathers love is too good to never experience. If I could take you to a place where you are guaranteed to experience it I would. The truth is He makes His love available to all the spiritual orphans in the world but where we need to go to know that love is different for all of us. Some might find it on a walk where the beauty of nature tells you something about the one who created it for you. Some might find it in a place of recovery where you see that your choices have power and your choice of ignoring God is part of the problem. We all have a special place where God is not afraid of showing up and adopting us as His children.

I don’t know if my diagnosis sounds too cheesy or simplistic. If so, my excuse for the cheese is that I was using Nacho Libre as my metaphor. Nacho is for the cheese and Libre means free. The truth that sets us free is often simple to understand but difficult to live out. I’ll let you wrestle with that ;-)

PS ooxxooXoXXx

That was for all the fans of the movie

Socially Disconnected

I was attempting to watch Jimmy Fallon at home to observe how the experience of the late-night TV show would hold up without an audience. I was also looking to get some inspiration for how I could arrange my video interviews. Have any of you watched an episode? Maybe it was just the episode I watched, so I don’t want to be too judgy about it, but this particular episode had me cringing. His jokes were awkward without an audience to laugh or feed off of. It wasn’t the weirdly funny awkwardness of The Office tv series, but more of a pitiful awkwardness like a poor performance at America’s Got Talent. 

It got me thinking about how audiences aren’t just accessories—they are connection points. Having people gathered together brings a desire out of us to communicate or perform in a way that garners their support. If it’s a positive experience, you begin to feel that around you. When that chemistry is there, it brings a certain energy into the place that acts like a magnet for everyone who gets close to the action. It’s hard for a person, no matter how charismatic they are, to be by themselves and create the same type of atmosphere that gets produced by groups of invigorated people. 

Now think about how that plays out when we attempt to live out our lives without considering our connection points or support systems. When we are miles away from feedback, we sometimes do the most cringy things. When we aren’t having people hear what we are thinking or seeing their faces when we’re acting out some kind of behavior, we can be easily deceived that we are doing it well. We can be deceived into thinking we are more entertaining than we really are, more rational than we really are, more skilled than we really are, or doing more good than we really are. It’s pretty bad when we don’t have people around. 

I know we are living in a time where we are forced to keep our distance, but there are ways around that, right? When something is important to us, we will find a way to make it happen. Whether that is going through a back alley to get a haircut or getting on the Hangout app or a Zoom account to see people’s faces to schedule time to meet together.

The episodes of our lives are being played out every day. We need an audience of people around us who care about what is happening as each episode takes place. If those people are not laughing at what we think is funny it might be because it’s not funny to watch you live that way. If those people are not clapping at what we think is a great accomplishment it might be because you’re not really accomplishing anything that brings any value to yourself or others. You won’t be able to tell much without an audience around you. Social distancing shouldn’t lead us into social disconnections, and if it does, we will know because whenever we do happen to take a glimpse back at our life decisions during those times it will make us cringe.

Game changers are the worst

Many people could barely handle even watching “The Last Dance”, a documentary on the Chicago Bulls dynasty with Michael Jordan. If you dreamed of being on a winning team like the Chicago Bulls in the 90s, sooner or later you would conclude that it would be hard to handle. In doing some research, I’ve noticed that the highest performers and most capable players are not automatically friendly or nice with others. This comes from a drive within themselves that isn’t derived from nice feelings; they tend to build a tension within themselves that drives their outward performance. Most of us have settled to get ourselves to a comfortable place. What goes on inside the minds of most ‘settlers’ is goal-setting, not the angst of a tension-building competitor.

From what I’ve gathered from my research, people like Michael Jordan, Winston Churchill, Tom Brady, and Steve Jobs are seen as intense, often rude, and hard to deal with people. It’s only in retrospect that people see them as legendary geniuses. Forward-thinkers are often seen as "the worst". Our ideals of making a difference or doing something remarkable can be a picture painted in the most peaceful way. We often have dreams surrounded by this soft glow, so it’s no wonder when the reality of what it takes to move things forward ends up being more like a harsh light, one that the average person is unable to handle. They quit, they whine, and they throw shade. 

Another observation is that these forward thinkers didn’t have a lot of people around them because they were so mission-driven. They both needed and didn’t need people, if that makes sense. They had their own internal drive that they found different ways to fuel. Because they weren’t people-driven, but self-driven, they could have a low tolerance towards others. That might be part of why people don’t always get the best vibes from them; they are so vision-focused that people feel secondary. 

I don’t write this for the insensitive, unaverage, champion-level forward thinker. I am writing this to the people who might want to be a part of greatness, but who may not be mentally prepared for what they might find. The average individual has a strength in being more people-sensitive and caring inwardly about what they do—that is a good thing. They are that necessary heart that an intense forward-thinker needs in their orbit. I don’t want to suggest that average, caring people are not forward-thinking. I believe they are. It’s just the radical game-changers that have slightly different characteristics that make them who they are. And I don’t want to excuse the rude and harsh behavior that often stings the people who are a part of the journey with them. They should do better and be better to others. I just want to provide an understanding that game-changing forward-thinkers can be detrimental for your self-esteem but the best thing to happen to a sport or enterprise that you have had the privilege to be a part of.

I have time for that

Normally, people comment on what they don’t have time for. It’s usually things that they are too annoyed about to specifically address. Understanding the importance of time can revamp our thinking when we come to this realization. This new way of thinking may see us make a to-do list or set goals that give us much needed direction in our daily lives in order to make the most of our time. Think about it; all of us have been given the same amount of time in our day, yet all around us people are using their time differently. Some will feel like they have wasted their day, and others will hold their arms in the air like they just bossed their day.

So, what should you have time for? Making your time count is something we should all take some time to think about. If I want to enjoy life, I don’t think wasting time is the way to go about it. A time waster could be overdoing it on the entertaining things on our digital devices. A time waster could also be responding to every urgent thing others put on you to do. Start making time to think about your time, and what you would like your life to look like a month from now. 

Time spending tips: 

You should have time to personally develop yourself in a healthy way. A good book, a podcast, an article—any intentional educational learning experience is something beneficial you can spend your time on. 

You should have time to eat the right things in your day. The right kind of diet can add to your lifespan.

You should have time for spiritual progression. Specifying a time in your day to meditate on truth and connect with God will be worth every undistracted moment you spend. 

You should have time to create something that serves others in some meaningful way. Cooking a delicious meal, doing a small house or work project, or even organizing photos. Giving your time to invest in others will come back to bless you. 

You should have time to keep your financial life in order. Paying off debts, decreasing your spending, creating a robust savings account, investing in worthwhile ventures, and so on. 

You should have time to care for your personal relationships. Being together to catch up on what’s happening in another person’s world is important in maintaining healthy relationships. 

These things that we take time for should carry strong values, ones that can be positively transferred to the next generation. Our time well spent turns the time we cherish into timeless blessings. I hope that the time you took to read this shapes how you use your time in the right way.

Are you a Sorry Person?

I had just turned around for a second to set one child down, but by the time I turned around to resume the game I was playing with them, it was too late. The other child went crashing to the ground in front of me before I could do anything. We were playing the game where I catch them as they jump from the top of the stairs into my arms. I could see in the child’s eyes as I scooped them off the floor and into my arms that they were shocked that I didn’t catch them. I felt horrible. Although the child wasn’t physically hurt, I knew it was the pain of “I trusted you and you dropped me” that I saw in their eyes. Not only did I feel horrible, but I started to think of how this could happen and what I needed to do differently if I wanted to earn their trust again. Being sorry was an understatement. I was mortified.

I’ve noticed a growing group of people in the world; that group is made up of people who are sorry a lot. They are sorry for what they said, or how they acted, or for that thing that happened to someone else -- or that they got caught. They are ‘Sorry People’. It’s rare to find people who are not sorry, but they are out there as well. I think it shows heart when people are sorry. It shows they feel bad about something. But sorry doesn’t change anything. Well, maybe I should say sorry doesn’t really change anything in the long-term.

If you want to change for the better from something that went wrong it’s going to take more. I’d like to present to you a familiar concept for the faith community, though it’s extremely rare even in the faith community to see it practiced. It’s the concept of repentance. Simply stated, it means to change one’s mind or to turn from going further in a certain direction. What may look like repentance can often be just a person feeling sorry. It can be hard to tell at first whether a person is just sorry or if they are repentant. So we just give it some time. Time allows for us to see how they sustain the actions that go into being repentant. 

Tripping your friend as they walk by you can be funny. But when that friend hurts themselves we feel bad (at least I hope we do). Saying sorry is our reaction. We learn nothing if we go right back to tripping them two days later. Repentance changes our mind about tripping our friends so much so that we keep our foot from extending itself. We change our mind about tripping being worth the risk of hurting someone we care about. We learn from our mistake by making up our mind that we don’t want to be known as Jack the Tripper (that’s a little jokey joke).

‘Sorry People’ live in a cycle of misery. They don’t understand why they keep doing what they don’t like to do, yet they only realize they don’t like to do it every time it affects them or others negatively. Prior to that, it’s almost like they forget how their sorry actions would be received. Repentance causes us to alter behavior long before we are tempted to give into that behavior. The power in repentance is that it breaks the miserable cycle. Sorry is short-term guilt. Repentance is key to long-term health and transformation from our temporary trip ups.