A Very Yoda Christmas

Time for an informal readers' poll - assuming you have a Christmas tree, how is it decorated?  Are you all about themes?  Does everything match?  Or are you a believer in what I like to call the Christmas tree as a catch all?  There is a little bit of everything on your tree and you like it that way.

We are most definitely part of the catch all clan.  Don't get me wrong, thematic, symmetrical, and color coordinated trees are not bad, it is just not what I grew up with.  Our trees have always been a testament to our...how to say this...eclectic nature.  Yeah, that's it, eclectic!

At this moment our tree is covered with ornaments of all shapes, sizes, colors, and textures imaginable.  There are glass globes, shinny (oooh, shinny) metal snowflakes, felt ribbons, as well as ornaments made from ceramic, plastic (some of them light up and move) and various paper and clay projects constructed by our kids at school.

Each year we carefully (meaning don't let the kids touch the fragile ones) unwrap our ornaments and hang them on the tree.  Within the first two and a half minutes someone (usually me) is asking where a particular ornament came from.  It is truly amazing how my wife or children can remember, in great detail, the events surrounding the acquisition of a particular ornament, events I was supposedly present for, but I have absolutely no recollection of.  There are days when I wonder if they are making it all up to mess with me, but then I realize that it would require more time and effort than they are willing to invest just to prank me.  So, I take them at their word, nod along as if it is all coming back now, and silently search for an ornament that looks familiar.

Some of our ornaments were bought in the store (often after-season clearance), while others came as gifts from friends and family.  Some are filled with memories, some remind us of long-standing jokes, and a few we keep around because our children made them in preschool and we are not sure how to get rid of them without hurting someones feelings.  There are a couple, however, that no one knows where they came from or why we continue to put them on the tree.  One of such ornament is a 4-inch tall plastic Yoda.

I like Star Wars.  A lot.  So do my kids, which fills me with all sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings.  Still, I return to the key word here, like.  You know, I like you as a friend but not as a boy/girl friend sort of thing.  It is cool that we hang out and stuff, but I don't see us picking out china patterns and raising a family.  Yes, we own all the movies, and of course I have most of the dialogue from the original three films memorized, but let's put things in perspective here.  I am not obsessed with Star Wars and even if I did have a problem (which I don't) my favorite character is not Yoda.  So how did this replica of Yoda leaning on his walking stick end up on my Christmas tree?

I have this weird vision that a thousand years from now some archaeologists will be digging up the remains of what was our house and discover our Yoda ornament (perhaps they will be ape-like creatures and someone who looks like Charlton Heston will be walking around in a loin cloth as well).  From this one artifact, this one cast-off item, these archaeologists will begin to tell a tale of me and my family, one that involves Yoda, an alter, a liturgy designed to win the favor and blessing of master Yoda, and perhaps even animal sacrifices.  No one will know, or probably even care, that Yoda was not a deity (at least not in our house) but an ornament that we hung on a tree in the month of December every year.

Objects can tell stories, but not always the right ones.  How often do we look at the kind of car a person is driving and make assumptions about who they are and what they do for a living?  We do the same thing with clothing, houses, shoes and various other items (including Christmas trees).  I like to go for walks in the evening when it is quiet and I can think.  Often people will have their blinds or curtain open and their television sets on.  Try as I might, it is really hard not to see a 48 inch plasma filling up a living room and not make some ill-informed observations about the people who live in that house.

There are a number of people in this world who seem, on the outside at least, to have it all together.  The perfect job, family, friends, house, car, etc...  Yet, inside, they are really hurting.  And, there are people who do not have much but are very happy and content with their lives.  And folks who are happy and wealthy, poor and in a lot of pain, and everything in between.  My point is that possessions, or the lack thereof, are not always a good indication of need.  To really know what is going on in someones life we have to make and take the time to get to know that person.  And that is so hard in a culture that values owning things over making time for other people.

This is the season of giving.  Let me encourage you to give something very important this year - your time to someone else.  Get to know them, what they long for as well as what they fear (you can even learn if they have a 4-inch plastic Yoda hanging on their Christmas tree).  And if they are willing, let them get to know you.  Learn someone else's story and allow it to transform your life.  For that is the power in the gift of relationships.  Our joys become complete when we share them with someone else, our pain can be eased by the loving care of another.  That is what Christmas is all about, God's willingness to enter into our lives and allowing us to truly enter God's.  It is what life, true life, abundant life, is all about.  What a gift!

Copyright © 2010, Roger Burns-Watson, All Rights Reserved

Evil (or not so evil) Ex's

I finally got around to watching Scott Pilgrim vs. the World a few weeks ago.  Yes, I know, it came out over the summer but I have been really busy.  Besides, that is why God invented DVD's.  If you have not seen Scott Pilgrim I highly recommend it.  It is one of those rare films when Hollywood fantasy actually nails human reality. 

The "hero" is a bit of a loser, a twentysomething who plays bass in a band, has no place of his own and is dating a high school student.  That is until he meets the girl of his dreams.  Literally, the girl he was dreaming about suddenly shows up in his life.  There is one small problem.  In order for Scott to make this relationship work he has to defeat, in mortal combat, his dream girl's seven evil ex's. 

The fantasy part of this flick is that every time Scott duels it is like a video game, complete with his adversaries turning into game tokens whenever he defeats them.  The reality is that Scott, and his would be girlfriend, each come with a past that has to be dealt with (yes, even one of Scott's old girlfriends shows up to create problems).

Call it "baggage" or whatever pop psychology term you like best, but all of us carry around the effects of previous relationships on our lives.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, for some of our relationships have been healthy, happy and a very positive influence on who we are and how we relate to other people.  Love, trust, respect, and compassion are not just ideas, they are lived and learned in relationship with other people.  Sometimes.  Suspicion, selfishness, indifference and even hatred are forged in the fires of dysfunctional and unhealthy relationships (and middle school).  And they linger around, ready to make a mess of any relationship at any time.

Perhaps you are one of those rare and fortunate individuals who has not been involved in a bad relationship.  Your parents loved and cared for you, your siblings got along, your teachers nurtured and encouraged you, you have not been stabbed in the back by your boss or coworkers, and you heart has never been broken by a lover.  If so, congrats!  You are most blessed (resented by many, but blessed). 

The rest of us...well, we have not been so lucky.  We know firsthand about abusive or absent parents, brothers and sisters who don't get along, educators who spent a lot of time telling us what we would never be able to accomplish, really messed up work environments, and love affairs that ended in a great deal of pain.  Truth be told, we have not just been the victims of bad relationships, but on a few occasions have been part of the reason they did not work out.

All of this - the good, the bad and the really ugly - impacts how we relate to other people in the here and now.  What I liked about Scott Pilgrim was the movie's playful, yet really insightful acknowledgement that we have to deal with other peoples previous relationships if we are going to have any sort of meaningful relationship with them ourselves.  Granted, most of the time we will not have to mortally wound the evil ex's (or parents, teachers, or coworkers) of those we care about.   But there are days when it feels like you are in pitched combat with old ghosts, ones you cannot see and don't always understand.

Scott is so smitten with his fantasy girl that he keeps fighting, even when he gets his butt kicked (check out the scene where Scott has to battle the vegan rock star.  Classic).  Yet, something about this girl makes it worth all the hassle.  In true Hollywood fashion, when all the dust settles, Scott emerges victorious and, of course, walks off hand in hand with his dream girl.  Oh, if life were so neat and tidy!

As I was watching Scott Pilgrim I kept thinking, "Would I really go through  all of this for a girl?"  Forget the girl, is any relationship worth fighting for?  Am I worth it to someone else?

I can, in all honesty, say that yes, I have spent the past 17 years dueling it out with my wife's evil ex's.  And she has been battling for me just as long (though I am sure there are days when it seems more like a million years).  Since we are being candid here I have to confess that there have been more than a few relationships that I failed to put up enough of a fight for.  For whatever reason (and I am sure at the time I thought I had a least one really good reason) I did not feel that the person was worth the effort.  It is cold and crass, but true.  There have been a number of people who have bailed on me as well (and one occasion when I got back into a relationship simply to pay the person back for dumping me.  Not one for the highlight reel).

What makes a relationship worth fighting for?  How do we determine whether someone is worthy of our strength and patience?   Is there a time when a relationship with another person is simply not possible, no matter how hard we work at it?  Are we always worth the effort?

There are truly abusive relationships that one or both parties should walk away from for their own health and safety.  Yet, on the whole, I think that the answers can be found in God's relationship with us.  Or, to put it another way, perhaps we should do to others as it has already been done to us.  I know, this sounds like the inside of some cheap greeting card.  And that is where it should stay, except that I can bear witness to the fact that God has indeed hung in there with me far longer than I could have ever hoped to imagine.  Through all of my miscues, mistakes, and out right stupidity God has refused to abandon me.  God continues to reach out to me, use me, call me, love me, "baggage" and all.  God keeps sending people into my life to help heal the wounds of past relationships and provides me opportunities to make right the people I have hurt.

In return, God asks that I extend the same willingness to battle to my relationships with other people.  And not just the people I love and care for, but also the ones who I just really don't like.  Especially the ones I really don't like.  It is not easy, but it is worthy it.  For I have discovered that it is often in the relationships that I truly want to bail on that I found love, hope, and compassion in greatest strength and measure.

Copyright  © 2010, Roger Burns-Watson, All Rights Reserved

A Real Passion For Family

A few days ago John Grimes passed away after 92 years of living and being on this earth.  Many of you who read this blog never met John, so an introduction is in order.  John was born and raised and lived his days in west-central Indiana.  He was a farmer, and later in life a salesman.  He and his wife, Lil, had three children and their second child, their only daughter, is the mother of my wife. 

John's life will not, in all likelihood, be the source of a bestselling biography or a Hollywood blockbuster staring George Clooney, or even spawn a reality TV show.  This is not to say that John did not make a mark on his world.  He did.  It is just that our culture does not tend to elevate to the status of celebrity a man who taught Sunday School for decades, was an elder of his church, a Mason, a Gideon, and for a number of years was active in a prison ministry.  Even Jimmy Cater had to become President before he got noticed for doing many of the same things that John did.

In so many ways John was just an average man, a product of his time and place, a solid representative of his generation of Americans.  His passing will be celebrated and mourned by his family and friends and then he will fade into obscurity like so many average people do.  If so, that will be a real tragedy.  John may not have saved the world from a nuclear holocaust or invented a life-altering medical procedure or even left behind a body of work that people will read or watch or listen to for decades.  But John had a passion, a deep, real, burning passion for something that all of us need - family.  John did not talk about family he lived it.  And in his own way he taught his granddaughter, and her husband, just how valuable family is.

In the back room of his home John had something of a study.  In it he keep a number of books, the kind that make professional historians and theologians roll their eyes.  They were popular books, not the "serious" work preferred by those of us who make our living writing "serious" books that men like John have no use for.  His study also contained his collection of Native American arrowheads he had found throughout west-central Indiana, some records and tapes, a least one calendar he got from a farm implement company every year, a desk, and a couple of chairs.  It also was home to his most prized possession - his family genealogy.  John had traced his family history back, way back, to Europe at the time of the Reformation.  He knew the names of his fore parents, where they lived, and that some of his kin were leaders in the newly created Protestant church.  This genealogy was a labor of love and a source of great pride to John.  I am not sure, it has been 18 years after all, but I believe that I was introduced to this genealogy on my very first visit to his home - when his granddaughter and I were still just dating!

John's passion for his family history infected my wife.  I am not even sure where some of my cousins, first cousins, are living, and yet John's granddaughter can tell you about people who lived hundreds of years ago.  And mind you, I am the professional historian!  That genealogy has always humbled me.  It reminds me how I have allowed myself think that the world begins with me, or goes back no farther than my parents.  So often in our culture we forget that we do have ancestors.  And while we are not restricted to follow in their path, we are a product of those who went before us.  Not knowing their story only impoverishes our lives.

If there was anything that exceeded John's obsession with his ancestors it was his love for the living members of his family.  John needed to be surrounded my his family.  For a number of years he organized a yearly Grimes Family Reunion.  He knew all the family gossip and certainly had his favorites.  But if you did not make it to the reunion you were missed (and made to feel no small amount of guilt.  Trust me.)  What always amazed me about John was that he seemed to genuinely be glad whenever family came by.  Even when my wife and I were dating he welcomed me into his home as a long lost relative.  His face would light up when you came to the door and then we would reach out with his old farmers hands, place one on your shoulder and with the others grip your hand so tightly and strongly that you thought your bones would break.  This greeting was not a display of power but a authentic expression of his joy at seeing you.

John would talk your ear off, telling you about what was going on with other family members, show you any new photos he had of his ever growing family tree, and still find time to tell you a story from his past that you had heard about a hundred times before.  And yet, he always seemed interested in what was going on in your life.  He wanted to know how things we going.  Part of this was paternal caring, but a good bit had to do with his need to keeping adding to the family lore. 

John redefined for me what it means to be gracious and welcoming.  Never once was I in his presence and made to feel like an outsider.  John made me feel loved and important from the first moment I meet him until our last visit on Thanksgiving night.  He taught me that family is not a burden but a gift.  And he lived that belief out in his own life.  He and Lil were more than grandparents to my wife.  They helped raise her and would even drive her back and forth to college (and eight hour drive each way).  John made time for family.  Nothing, short of his faith in God, was more important to him.  Family was an expression of his faith in God.

I miss John already.  I am so proud to be part of his family and so grateful that my children will benefit from his wisdom and example.