Grandpa Is Getting Old

I’m getting too old for this stuff . . .

This weekend the wife and I are babysitting our 14-month old granddaughter as her mother and father attend a wedding in the big city.  It was with great exuberance that the wife and I volunteered to take on this duty . . . we wanted to watch her.  We wanted to watch her in all of her non-ending youthfulness, non-ending energy, constantly walking, constantly wandering away, constantly getting into stuff . . . never wanting to take a nap . . . never wanting to go to sleep . . . and, constantly wanting to be noticed; yeah, we wanted to watch her . . . and, after one day we are wondering what we were thinking!!  We are getting too old for this stuff and she isn’t even a teenager yet!!

Now, don’t get me wrong . . . my granddaughter is the coolest and best thing that has ever happened.  I miss the punk when I don’t get to see her at least once a week . . . which probably prompted the wife and I into volunteering to watch the kiddo this weekend.  The kids moved to another big city in Montana a couple of hours away a few weeks ago.  I had not seen the kid since they moved . . . I was having granddaughter withdrawal.  So we volunteered . . . and, the adventure began.

The day began bright and early as we all heading off to the mountains to do a little “moosing”.  Moosing, for those of you who do not know what I am referring to, is cruising the back roads looking for moose.  To properly do “moosing” one has to get up very, very early . . . on the road by 6:00AM.  Without a complaint or even a whimper, the granddaughter joined us adults for a early morning of moose hunting.  She was a real trooper even though she was stuck in her car seat for a couple of hours . . . the reward was that we saw seven moose.  We saw three sets of momma moose and their children, and we saw one bull moose.  Unfortunately, at 14-months of age, the granddaughter will never remember any of it!

After a couple of hours of moosing, we headed to breakfast at one of the wife’s favorite eating establishment.  There the granddaughter was a blast.  Grabbing everything and anything . . . babbling away . . . flirting with people at other tables . . . and, demanding to taste everything that was on the table.  Constant energy . . . constant motion . . . and, constant noise.  I loved it!!  Who doesn’t like being with the cutest person in the room?

From there we decided to do a little walking around town . . . do a little shopping . . . after all, the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree, and daughter and wife seemed to think there was a need to do a little shopping.  Fourteen month olds really don’t care much for shopping.  Fourteen month olds want to explore . . . search and destroy . . . go on what they think are Indian Jone’s adventure worthy of the silver screen.  The granddaughter was up to the task . . . we walked around countless stores . . . we tested the limits of a lot of store owners . . . tested the limits of Grandpa.  The punk must have walked a couple of miles!  The rest, Grandpa carried her.  Needless to say, even though she is quite petite, Grandpa got tired.

We walked the streets . . . we petted dogs . . . we looked in windows . . . sat on park benches . . . wandered the aisles of every store within a hundred miles . . . danced.  Yeah, I said, dance.  This granddaughter likes to dance . . . she likes to boogey.  Doesn’t matter the music, when the spirit hits her to dance, she dances.  Of course my dancing is not much better than my singing . . . but, being a grandparent cuts a person a little slack . . . people expect grandparents to act like idiots.  I need a granddaughter thirty years ago!! 

Again, I was tired.  She wore me out . . . she wore her parents out.  But, they were lucky as they were heading out and going to a wedding rehearsal.  A tear entered my eye as they pulled away from the house . . . what had we gotten ourselves into!!  A 14-month old and a nearly elderly couple . . . someone was going to lose in the end.

From the time that our granddaughter’s parents left she was a constant blur of activity.  She was a ball of energy . . . constantly moving energy.  Her grandparents, unfortunately, were not . . . we were more like the immovable blobs that wanted to sit on the couch and reminiscence about the good old days when we just sat there and held our granddaughter.  It was low energy, low impact. 

I do want you to know, there were chinks in the granddaughter’s armor.  She did start to get tired . . . which meant she got grumpy . . . but we were under strict orders to not let her sleep until her bedtime at seven o’clock.  That was nearly four hours away when the parents left . . . the wife didn’t make it.  She crashed in her recliner for a “ten-minute” nap that lasted nearly an hour . . . much to my horror!  I did a whole lot of walking around the yard and house with the granddaughter . . . we picked grandma’s flowers . . . walked up and down steps . . . danced in front of the bedroom mirrors . . . ate a lot of Cheerios . . . and, basically wore Grandpa out.  It was then that Grandpa decided that he was getting too old for this stuff.

Yet, we survived.  The granddaughter has now been asleep for over two hours . . . sawing logs.  Grandma has already hit the sack.  Grandpa is drinking beer, writing a blog, and wondering how in the world he is ever going to survive tomorrow when Grandma goes grocery shopping for a few hours, leaving him alone with the granddaughter.  He is not sure, but . . . he will survive.  He always survives to see his granddaughter another day.

At the end of a day with the granddaughter there is exhaustion.  Yeah, this exhaustion manifests itself physically in my body, but it is a “good” sort of exhaustion.  I love my granddaughter.  I love her 14-month old sense of adventure and wonder.  I love her goofiness.  I love her dancing.  I love her babbling.  I love holding her in my arms as she clings to hang on.  I love her “honking” my nose.  I love her sharing her food with the dogs.  I love her constant motion.  I love her laughter . . . and, I even love her tears.  She is a hoot . . . the best hoot I ever get.  She reminds me what it means to live life to its fullest . . . because she does each and every moment she is awake.  Yeah, it is exhausting, but it is a good exhaustion no matter what age one might be . . . it is life lived with joy.

My granddaughter is a blessing.  I thank God each and every day for this blessing.  I am not too old, she is too young . . . but the blessings are numerous . . . too numerous to count.  She makes me smile . . . she makes me laugh . . . she makes me sing . . . she makes me dance, but most of all she makes me feel loved.  No matter how old I get, I will never get enough of that sort of stuff.

I Didn’t Know

Someone lied to me.  Someone lied to me when they told me that life was a race.  That life was a race that each of us has to finish . . . but, racing is competition . . . competition means that there are winners and losers.  If life is a race, and someone has to win, then it is a competition.  Life is a competition . . . that is what I have been taught since I was a little kid.  I was taught to strive to be the best . . . the best in my classes . . . the best in sports . . . the best at playing games . . . the best at everything . . . to be the winner . . . to be number one.  I was taught to be competitive.  That was what I was taught, and it is a lie.

I used to be competitive . . . I worked hard to be in the top of my classes all through school, but there were always others ahead of me.  I worked hard to be good at the sports that I loved, but someone was always better than me, faster than me, or stronger than me.  In my jobs I strived to be the best employee, show up early, stay late, do more work, but everyone got paid the same as me and usually got promoted before I did.  Even in the ministry there is competition . . . it is usually judged by the size of the church one serves . . . the bigger the better . . . sort of like church envy.  You can see it in the reaction of other clergy whenever I tell them that I have basically served small rural churches for the past fifteen to twenty years.  There is that look of pity in their eyes.  Typically, I have been told I am a nice guy, and everyone knows, nice guys finish last.

I bought into the idea that there had to be winners and losers . . . that only one could win.  That life was a race, a competition, something to be won.  Line everyone up and let’s see who is standing at the end . . . that will be the winner.  That is what we are taught as children by the society that we live in . . . by the world in which we live . . . and, the thing is, no matter how hard we try, most of us are pretty lousy at this competition thing.  But, that is the world we live in . . . schools are competitions, work is competition, recreation is a competition, even churches are competitive . . . there are winners and losers.  Someone has to win, everybody else loses.

But, I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know that that was a lie.  Life is not a race . . . it is not a competition . . . there is not one winner in the end with everyone else losing.  That is a falsehood . . . a lie.  I’m tired of living a lie.

Life is not a race.  It’s not.  Life is a great big present waiting to be opened . . . over and over again.  The problem is that we are too busy racing through life to discover its wonderfulness as a gift.  We are too busy competing to see the joy and blessing that life really is.  We are too occupied in trying to be number one that we miss that we are all number one in the eyes of God.  We are precious in the sight of God . . . and, yeah, I know . . . that is that mushy Christian crap, but it is true.  It is true, because God has a pretty high opinion of Godself . . . and, each and every one of us was created in the image of God.  At least that is what the scriptures tell us, and we know that the scriptures never lie! 

You see, being created in the image of God . . . well, that is pretty impressive . . . that makes each and every one of us gifted and talented.  Each and every one of us has been gifted and blessed by God with talents . . . again, another scriptural reference, and scripture never lie!  Each of us is gifted and talented in a particular area . . . the challenge is to discover what that particular area is, not to see who finishes first.  And, likewise, every single one of us has particular challenges . . . we don’t always do well in every situation or place in which we are placed.  The goal of life . . . this journey we are on . . . is to unwarp that gift of who God created us to be, embrace it, and live it to its fullest potential.  The cool thing about that is that no one else can be me or you . . . no one else can unwarp the gift and live it for me or you . . . it is yours and mine . . . one of a kind!  And, sometimes it takes a lifetime to realize it.

Buying into competition . . . buying into life being a race . . . does not help.  It keeps us from focusing on what is really important and that is discovering this gifted and talented person that God has made us to be . . . from discovering that we are a chip off the ol’ block of God.  There are no winners and losers in life . . . there is only you and me . . . and, we need each other.  We need each other if we are going to make it.

I will admit that there is still a competitive spark lurking around inside of me.  I see it come up when I commute to work every morning . . . I ain’t going to let anyone get ahead of me . . . just drive like a bat out of hell!  I don’t like it, but it is inbred in me to want to pass people, get ahead of them, and beat them to some imaginary finish line.  Usually, sad to say this, I give them the #1 sign when I whip by them.  It shows up in work . . . and, it even shows up in church.  It is not something that I am proud of because it defeats the purpose of unwrapping God’s gift for myself or others.  It is dropping into that lie.

So, I have decided to quit lying to myself . . . decided to quit living the lie . . . and, to quit buying into this idea that life is a race.  Instead, I am going to try and embrace the idea that life is a journey . . . a journey into discovering who God created me to be . . . a journey into discovering what Godly gifts and talents God has blessed me with . . . and, a journey into using those gifts to do God’s will.  That will, I believe, is to help others switch over to the real meaning of life and not to buy into it being a race or competition. 

Thus, I begin.  I begin by saying that we are all the children of God . . . created in God’s image . . . gifted and talented.  I begin by saying that our purpose in life is to discover who we are as the image of God, embrace those gifts and talents, and seek to do God’s will in our lives.  It is not an easy journey . . . there are good days and bad days . . . there are mountaintops and valleys . . . no one ever said that it would be easy.  And, I begin by saying, that we are okay.

We are okay.  A journey is not made in a single step or day.  It is a lifetime.  And, we are okay . . . as we are gifted and talented, we are also challenged . . . that is life.  Plus, we are never alone.  We have God . . . and, we have one another.  Together we shall succeed . . . we shall succeed because we are of God.  Don’t buy into the lie . . .

When Is Enough, Enough?

I might be a simpleton . . . but when is enough, enough?

I know a guy who is contemplating making major changes in his living situation because of the lifestyle he is accustomed to.  The problem is that he just isn’t making enough money to live the way that he and his wife are accustomed to.  Economic times have cramped their lives and lifestyles.   Basically the two of them have tumbled down into the middle ground of being middle class—basically where a lot of us are living our lives.  Neither one of them likes living in the middle class and misses the days when money was everything.

From my perch they live a lot better than the wife and I do.  They have a nicer house, bigger yard, drive more expensive cars, take monthly vacations, and live in a fancier and richer neighborhood than we do.  They like to hob-nob with the rich and famous, drop names of important people they know, and see shopping at the local Wal-Mart as one of the penalties they must pay for being among the middle class.  They don’t like it.  They want more.

Financially the wife and I are in the best shape that we have ever been in our lives.  We have what we both consider a nice life.  We have a home that is our own for the first time ever.  It is not extravagant, but comfortable and our home.  We driver older vehicles which get us wherever we need to go—they ain’t pretty but they function.  Our neighborhood is nothing to write home about—nothing fancy, but we have good neighbors who like us and we all would do anything to help each other out.  We have the toys we want—we have a stereo, flat screen television, computers, and even iPads.  We shop at Wal-Mart, clip coupons, and look for bargains.  We feel blessed—as blessed as we have ever been.  We are happy for the most part.

In fact, we are living better than a lot of the rest of the people in the world.  In the eyes of a lot of folks around the world, the wife and I would be considered rich . . . really rich.  But the truth of the matter, I guess, is that it is a matter of perspective.  Some think that we are rich, others think that we are poor, and we see ourselves as happy and blessed.  Whenever I am around this guy I feel uncomfortable . . . uncomfortable because I encounter people like him all of the time . . . people who always want more and never seem to have enough to make them happy.  They are never happy.

As I said, maybe I am too simple.  Maybe I do not understand economics . . . or business . . . or even money.  I cannot understand how a product like a loaf of bread now costs more (much, much more) than it did nearly forty years ago.  What used to cost fifty cents now costs close to five dollars.  It is cheaper and quicker to make the bread today—less people are involved in the process than forty years ago, and the cost has gone way, way up.  I have been told it is inflation . . . that it is the cost of running a business . . . but, the bottom line is greed.

When I was actively collecting sports cards with my children they would always ask me what a card was worth.  Of course, we would look the price up in periodicals that published the market prices based on demand.  The kids (and I, too) would get all excited when we would see that our little piece of cardboard was worth big bucks.  The kids dreamed of new cars, I dreamed of retiring.  The truth is that a sports card is only worth what someone will pay a person for it—typically, not much more than what the cardboard was worth . . . maybe a nickel.  Of course, we wanted more.  I now have my retirement plan sitting in boxes in the basement of our house.  I was greedy.

So when is enough, enough?  I want the oil manufacturers of gasoline to tell me.  I want those who are in the entertainment business to tell me.  I want those who push wealth on Wall Street to tell me.  I want those who go around hawking get-rich schemes to tell me.  When do we draw a line in the sand and say that we have enough . . . more than enough to live our lives comfortably.  Is having the most the only way any of us can find value in ourselves?

It is a matter of perspective and maybe most of us have too small of a perspective.  As I said earlier, in the eyes of the rest of the world ours is a very, very rich nation.  Most of us would be seen as wealthy in other countries.  I met another guy once who said that he grew up poor, but never realized he was poor until one day someone pointed it out to him.  Suddenly the wonderful world and family he had grown up in was inadequate and embarrassing . . . he was told that he needed more.  He stated that he had always thought of himself as being rich . . . rich in relationships, family, faith, friends, and especially laughter . . . he had always he had plenty to get him through life, but once it was pointed out that he didn’t have enough . . . well, he wanted more.  Then he said to me, “I was the one who lost in the end . . . I lost my family, friends, relationships, faith, and laughter chasing after more.  I was already rich.”

Oh well, this is a rambling piece that probably has no real answers.  I will be told that accepting that enough is enough is not a good answer to all the ills of our economic woes and system of business.  It is too simple.  To the guy who doesn’t like his slide into the world of being middle class, there is not much I can say.  I never really thought of myself as being middle class, poor, or rich when it came to my financial well-being.  All I know is that—for now—I have more than enough of the material wealth and things to keep me more than happy.   I don’t worry about them.  This gives me more time to appreciate the greater riches that come from family and friends.  Considering this I am rich.  I think that we all are if we take the time to see it from a different perspective.