Ruined

If I say the word "bars", what automatically pops into your head? Most people my age think of a venue that involves loud music, alcohol, dimmed lighting, and dancing bodies. Fun place to be. Except that for the sake of this blogpost, I'm talking about a different set of bars. Some say "well, he set the bar pretty high", or the automatic mental picture that pops up is the "uneven bars", only televised in the gymnastics portion of the summer Olympics. {i always wanted to do those}

When you think about life, you don't often picture it as a bar. Often it's a path, or a road, or era of time. Bars are just awkward when you are measuring something of distance. But what about quality? What's the purpose of living for 120 years if your quality of life is miserable and depressing?

"Ruined for the ordinary"

A phrase that I have heard every day, often several times a day. I now live in China, and although some would argue that this is detrimental to my quality of health, it certainly is raising the bar as far as my "quality of life." There is something about living in China that just ruins you for an ordinary life. There is something about living abroad or living/partaking in another culture that "upps the annie". Many who have been abroad can agree that they can never be content with an ordinary life ever again. How could you? Then again there are millions of others who have had cross cultural experiences, and lived for long periods of time in many-a-culture and have had no impact on their lives from it whatsoever. Why the two extremes? In my drawing of conclusions {you know, with all of my years of extensive research and abounding doctoral degrees} I've come to the conclusion that one little word makes all the difference: perspective.

But us being who we are, were we ever called to live an ordinary life? Can a Follower ever be called to a truly ordinary life? Because as far as I'm concerned, having Hope makes life a little extraordinary.

Loose Terms

Sometimes I get frustrated with the English language.

Maybe that's not completely true. Maybe it's the fact that I get frustrated with how people use the English language. You see there are all these words that we have, and we use them all the time. But so often people don't grasp the depth of what they truly mean or intend. They're loose terms.

Friend, love, thank-you, what is that?

What does it mean to truly be thankful and to express a deep and heartfelt gratitude? So many times we hear people say  (often with tears in their eyes or a smile on their face)  "oh, thank-you is not enough but it is all I can say." C'mon English, step up to the plate! Is it that our language truly fails us, or is it that we haven't mastered the use of the language we speak?.... I can't decide.

The other term that always bothers me is 'friend'. I'll just put that out there. Go check out facebook, apparently you have 500 {or more} friends. But if you were in a time of need, how many of those people would drop everything they were doing to come to your aid or to assist you? Those are the people I would call my friends, and I can guarantee you that you ain't gunna have 500 people rushin' to your side. I could name you five. But what does that make the other 495 people?...you tell me.

And then there's love, basically the meaning of life, but we throw it around so loosely that it has as little impact as "a", "and", & "the".

"I love this hat"

"I love that show"

"I love Ke$ha" 

(ew...no)

I don't have the mental capacity to trace it back to the three Greek meanings of love (you know, like the root of the word and actual meaning of it from thousands of years ago). Go check it out on Google. I DO know that there was the ability to break up "love" so that when something was really and truly loved, such as a spouse or child that it wasn't deemed with the same word as fully appreciating pizza.

So now what do we do? Theres this built up anger and frusteration with the use of English, but it's simply not practical to make up new words. Or to learn another language. But when we actually want our words to mean something, how do we go about doing that when society is already mentally flooded with noise and words? How do we effectively convey to someone that we are genuine in what we mean and say without contributing to the flood of words and noises they are bombarded with every day?

I really don't have an answer. Sometimes I just think about these things.

Why

I think it’s a fair question to ask…

“Why praytell am I in China?”

I’m white, our cultures are practically opposite in every way, and even though my odds are slim I could have certainly found some job at home that would pay me more than this gig.

Now, please note that this was not my attitude at all coming into this, although these were all certainly arguments brought against me by fellow Americans in opposition to this adventure. The point has been made: there will always and forevermore be the question of 'why'. We are no different than a curious child who continues to pursue answers with the same question repeatedly, trying to take the given answer to the next level, at which some point the parent/babysitter/guardian must simply respond with “I don’t know”.

Well, the other day one of our instructors, Sally, said something. She said something drastic that changed the question of ‘why’ altogether. She said…

“We become fully alive when our passions and purpose intersect.”

I don’t know about you, but I would love to be fully alive. Who wants to live half dead? So now we take this question of ‘why why why’ and calm it down a bit. After awhile we need to realize that it is not going to take us anywhere unless other questions are asked as well. I am in China, and I’m not going away any time soon. I’m here in China to be fully alive with my passion and purpose.

…excuse me, what?

Passion & purpose. What are those?? Our focus question has been changed from ‘why’ to ‘what’. What is my passion? What is my purpose? Is music one of them? None of them? What about teaching? If teaching is one and music is none then I am about to embark upon the biggest scavenger hunt of my life. If music is one and teaching is none then… well, I’m screwed.

This upcoming year will surely be the quest to discovering what those two ‘p’ words are for me and my life. And just maybe you will be taking some time as well to discover what they mean for you. How many 56 year olds are living without either, caught in the norm of life? The answers surely are not written in the clouds, or buried in a hidden treasure chest {although what great fun that would be}. It is encoded somewhere deep within, unreadable until the right combination clicks and the lock is opened.