The honor of listening.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to drive a student home from Large Group.  I'm really glad I did because spending time with her struck a familiar chord in me:  how much I love listening to people share their stories.

If you know me well, you know that I really dislike small talk.   What's your name?  What do you do?  Oh?  What are you studying?  Where do you live?  I hate that I often have to collect the basic pieces of information before I can dig deep and get to the more valuable stuff in a conversation.  I want to know what you're passionate about, what you're frustrated with, who you want to become, and what issues you're struggling through.  I want to know your story.  I want to know the real you.

It takes practice, and it takes courage.  It takes practice to think of questions to ask that could nudge the conversation in that direction, to try and read the person in the moment, and without making the person feel awkward or uncomfortable.  It takes courage to ask the deeper questions, to share some of your own real stories, and to actively listen without judgment and without automatically trying to fix problems.

It takes patience, and it takes resilience.  Not everyone you talk to is willing to go very deep right away or at all.  And just because it works out or doesn't work out once doesn't mean others won't share or that the same person wouldn't be willing to share their stories next time.

I don't always attempt to practice or pull together the courage.  I don't always have the patience or the resiliency.  I'm not always intentional.  I'm not always satisfied when I am.  To love someone that way often means you put yourself out there for the other person without expecting anything in return.

The conversation I had with this student I drove home last night was the first I've had with her.  All I did was ask her in what ways God has been challenging her through InterVarsity, and she shared with me about how difficult it is for her to trust people lately.  She shared with me about how she thinks that struggle has come about, with some difficult family situations she's witnessed and has experienced.  She shared so openly without my prompting, all in just a few minutes.

She didn't have to.  She could've answered the question differently or avoided the question altogether, saying, "I don't know."  Instead, she took the brave opportunity of sharing some her story, the real her.  And I felt loved to receive that gift from her.

The story of the Happy Book.

Once upon a time, there was a high school girl named Tammy.  She had wanted to be an author and write a book since she was nine years old, so she often perused websites that would help her with her writing and her writing life.  One day as she was looking through articles on the Writer's Digest website, she came across an article titled, "Create a Happy Book!" in the Personal Writing section.  She was inspired to make her own, so she picked up a small spiral notebook and started to write.  Thus, the Happy Book was born on January 19th, 2006.

Tammy thought the Happy Book was a brilliant idea.  It was small enough so that she could carry it around with her without adding much extra weight, which meant she could write down things that made her happy when she needed a quick break from homework, was waiting in line or at a doctor's office, was bored on a bus or car ride, or just needed to focus on something that would help pick up her spirits. 

One day, she noticed that she would run out of things to write at the moment, and since she was sometimes in the presence of friends and others, was curious about what made others happy.  So she came up with another idea.  She decided to try sharing her Happy Book with her friends, family, and even strangers!  She asked others around her what made them happy and would proceed to write their initials or name next to it so she could remember who said what and to remember that it wasn't her own entry. 

The Happy Book was bursting with good things.  With her friends and family, it sparked great conversations and brought people together.  She got to learn more about what made her friends and family happy, and in doing so, they were creating happy moments!  Tammy found that the Happy Book created opportunities to make new friends and meet new people because she or someone else would ask what made him/her happy and invite him/her into the conversation.  She also found that the more she and others wrote, the more she saw how the Happy Book documented where, when, and with whom she was interacting and the memories created in that period of time and space.  It was becoming very much like a scrapbook of happy things that bound together memories, common ground, new ideas, the building of old relationships and creation of new ones.

Tammy and her friends and family wrote so many happy things that the list reached 1,000 entries.  But of course, they kept going.  Soon enough, they finished the entire spiral notebook with 2,999.  But of course, they didn't stop there.  Tammy and her community went on to fill 3 1/2 small spiral notebooks with 9,196 happy things!

As the Happy Book began to produce a whole family of Happy Books, Tammy's life was moving on.  She graduated high school and began to make it through her first year of college.  She kept writing in the fourth Happy Book all throughout her first semester, since there were so many things in her college life that made her happy.  But soon she discovered that there were so many things to be happy and joyful about that the space the Happy Books created that she once appreciated was now already built into the contexts she placed herself in and the people she was surrounded by.  She was immersing herself in living out the happy things, not just writing about them.  And in that way, along with probably many other reasons, the Happy Books were almost obsolete and became artifacts of a season Tammy once had in her life. 

I share this story with you, dear blog reader, because there has been very recent consideration that perhaps this is not the end of the story.  Perhaps the Happy Book series is not entirely dead as many thought they once were.  Perhaps is it not 'The End,' but more accurately, 'To Be Continued...'

I leave you, dear blog reader, with this - the inscription written on the first page of each Happy Book on the other side of the title page:

All the things 
that make me happy,
my friends happy,
my family happy,
the world happy

to keep going,
reminding ourselves 
how many little blessings
and BIG blessings
God graces us with
to conquer all the sad things
that burden our hearts.

I've forgotten how to make friends.

There are not many things I expected or clearly wanted in a "potential husband."  I didn't create this customized soul mate for myself in my head because I knew "the one" didn't exist.  However, one of the few things I whole-heartedly (and still do) believed was that it was possible and it was okay to want my husband to be my best friend.  And friendships don't just pop out of nowhere - they need to grow and mature if you nourish them and let them go through trials.  That's how I concluded that if I were to enter a dating relationship (which, from my perspective, is for the purpose of working towards marriage), it would stem out of a solid and somewhat deep friendship I had with a brother in Christ.

And that's exactly what happened.  But I think Nathan and I did a pretty good job making it clear while we were dating that we weren't going to be each other's entire world.  We knew our significant other wasn't going to fill our emptiness, meet our every need, or make us never feel lonely again.  Other people are very important to me.  Friends and those in need were my top priority for most of my life, and a boy wasn't going to come in and mess that up. I've always needed and wanted different circles of friends, and because of this, I knew that that aspect of moving to Rochester was going to be difficult and that being married wouldn't be enough.

I don't have any friends here.  I'd like to make some.  The only problem is, I've practically forgotten how to make friends.  During my college years I was more often than not surrounded by people I knew, and even if there were new friends to be made, I made them together with my home base of friends there with me.  Nowadays I get shy or just don't open up as easily or quickly because it feels so new.  And I don't have a solid base of friends to retreat to when new relationships don't quite hit it off the way I'd hoped.

This old feeling has returned where I feel like I'm barely hanging on to my relationships from back home.  Ever since my college years I've always found it very difficult for me to develop my relationships with those who weren't within my immediately community.  It becomes a nasty tug-of-war within myself because it takes a lot of work to develop my immediate community around me, and it takes a lot of work to develop the community I grew up with, and finding a balance is like walking through some thick, pitch-dark woods without a flashlight or anything else to survive the night with.

I want my friends and family back home to know how important they are to me and how much I want to be there for them, but I know that I can't be there for them the same way I could if I was living near them.  Maybe it's been like this for a while or it's a long time coming, but the reality that I'm not going to be the first person anyone would call for help or advice has been sinking in.  No one's going to expect me to comfort them through this difficult time they're going through and ask me to pray for them right now.  I'm not going to be asked for my opinion about which color to paint their room or if they could borrow one of my dresses.  No one's going to say, "I'm so glad you picked up your phone because I really needed to talk to you."  I'm not going to be at the forefront of people's minds because the reality is that people are busy, I'm not in a dire situation (like a soldier or missionary serving overseas), and I'm not by myself.  I'm married now.

Well, I got what I asked for: my husband is my best friend.  It just never sunk in as to how, after gaining this best friend of a husband, moving to Rochester would be at the cost of so many other relationships.  The rubber has begun to meet the road where I'm working through the losses of stepping out of a community that has loved me, encouraged me, and supported me for many, many years. 

I've been thinking and blogging a lot lately about the concept of living a good story.  And as I wrestle within the tensions of moving to the fringe of one community and what it means to move deeper into another, it forces me to think about the God I serve - the God who calls us to develop and steward community as we go to the places God leads us.  The move to Rochester is a threshold I'm forced to make a decision about:  I can either constantly look back over my shoulder at what could've or should've been, or I can look forward to the opportunities I have before me to live a better story.  So I'm choosing to embrace the new stories and relationships God invites me to participate in and I'm looking forward to sharing these stories with those in both the community of my past and the community of my future.

Hands full.

During the week after my honeymoon I felt useless.  Nathan and I couldn't really dig our feet into unpacking all of our things and setting up our new apartment because we had a conference to attend at the end of the week and another conference to attend the following week.  And with traveling everywhere and doing all things wedding related, I was pretty slow at getting into work mode and preparing for the new school year on a new campus.

Reflecting on that week with some co-workers during our Regional Staff Conference (the latter conference) revealed how much I was hiding behind the craziness of the wedding planning and the limbo and stress of transitions.  Doing so reinforced the idea that I was strong enough to handle being busy with lot of things on my plate.  But now that the wedding was over, all of my things were in Rochester and I was adjusting to married life just fine - there were no major conflicts to justify my worth to others or excuses to say, "Life is hard."  I realized that I felt guilty for "not doing anything" that week after the honeymoon, that it was somehow wrong to rest or slow down by choice.  I wasn't being productive.  I wasn't planning, cleaning, organizing, or crossing anything off lists of things to do.  And it felt weird.  I felt empty, like I had nothing to show the world.  I had the subconscious mentality that I needed to be doing something worthwhile to prove that I deserved to exist another day.

A few weeks ago, the church Nathan and I have been visiting for several weeks made an announcement about the need for someone to help once a month with the powerpoint on Sunday mornings during service.  It seemed really simple.  They'd even teach you how to do stuff, and it would only be once a month.

It was so tempting to throw my hand in the air and say, "Me!  Me!  Pick me!  I can do it!" or, you know, just walk up to the person in charge after service and talk to him about it.

Thankfully, in a matter of seconds, I came to my senses and realized that Nathan and I had not actually committed to this church, so it would be silly to commit to something once a month if we weren't sure we would be around next week, let alone the next month.  It also occurred to me that we had made the commitment not to serve in any church capacity for an entire year.  It was a piece of wisdom we received as newlyweds from a number of wise couples we know, to give our marriage the attention it needs particularly in our first year together - which totally makes sense.  But it still feels really weird not to volunteer for things I think are important that I'm perfectly capable of doing

Things have gotten crazy again in my life, but there's a part of me that's hungry for more, as if I'm still not doing enough.  Part of that comes from having so many desires to do things:  I want to keep up with my out-of-town friends and family, build relationships with my neighbors and serve my community, try new things to feed my desire to learn and create good stories...they're not bad things to pursue.  But I think there's a subconscious part of me that cunningly takes all those (and more) desires and says, "Well, you're only really occupied vocationally right now, and most people don't understand how much work you do on a day-to-day basis with InterVarsity, so you need to commit to this, volunteer with this, and find more ways to stay busier than ever so that when people around you can see how important you're making a difference in this world and aren't just wasting you life by doing nothing. 

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who does that.  And I'm not saying we necessarily do it on purpose, either.  I think part of it comes from growing up in a culture where the message is "more is better" - the more you're doing, the better you are because how much you do says how worthy and valuable you are.  I think another part of it comes from our need to be needed and wanted.  Volunteering and committing to work sometimes gives us a sense of purpose and security that we're doing something important.

And I think there's a healthy tidbit in there.  God designed us to build, to create, to work - and it wasn't always a dreadful thing.  But that's the kicker, right?  Since we are broken people part of broken cultures who dwell in a broken world with broken systems, we in America have twisted work into busyness and allow it to distract us from giving the proper attention, time, and parts of ourselves to the people and causes that are sometimes more important in the grander scheme of things.  It is our busyness, not our work, that has become the definition of our value and worth, justification of our existence, and excuse from facing more difficult, though meaningful, conflicts.

But if we truly believed in our hearts and our minds to the very core of our being that we are loved by God and there's nothing we can do to add to it or take that away, then what are we doing?  Why are we perpetuating an idea that steers us in the wrong direction?  I guess I'm just saying (mostly to myself) that we need to keep the proper perspective of why we do what we do and be thoughtful about the things we commit to and not feel guilty about resting.  We need to be careful about how we reinforce for ourselves and others the vicious cycle of overworking and need to encourage rest even more.  We need it not to be lazy or idle, but to take the time to reflect, gain some perspective, and remind ourselves that it's not where our identity lies when we are God's people.

Things are crazy, but no more hiding.

My hunt for a 20-mile march.

I attended a couple of conferences almost back-to-back in the middle of August.  First was the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, and the second soon after that was the InterVarsity NY/NJ Regional Staff Conference.  There were a lot of things I immediately gleaned from the prior, but it's been a bit tougher trying to figure out what I've soaked in from the latter.

However, there was something from the staff conference that I've been thinking about recently.

If I remember correctly, Bill Sweeting, our speaker for the conference, quoted something from John C. Maxwell who said, "The toughest person to lead is always yourself" (read about it here).  In the midst of a million things to do, goals to work towards, and feeling like I'm just moving backwards and will never achieve great things or simply do things I like or want to do, I recognize how incredibly undisciplined and faithless (unreliable) I am.  It takes me a long time to do things, especially when it comes to processing things that feel like they're really important or are really important to me.  And a lot of times in the process of pursuing those things, I end up completing the minimum to get by with what I can or it begins to look like a hanging carrot I just cannot physically reach.  

It's probably why I've always felt like I never had any big dreams.  Maybe the reality is I probably don't want anything bad enough to keep at it, or somehow I'm afraid of actually succeeding (isn't this sounding ridiculous and not at the same time?).  Here, take a look at some of the things I could potentially pursue:

Since I was nine years old I've always wanted to write and publish a novel.  It's a big dream, but not impossible.  But over the years I haven't been willing to practice writing.  I haven't written any short stories unless I had a deadline for a creative writing class, I haven't entered any contests, I haven't submitted any pieces for publications or just wrote some chapters or story ideas for fun.  I've been limiting my writing to blog posts.  I don't give my writing the time or space to grow and develop.  It's like any musical pursuits (which, by the way, I also don't really work on at all) - if you want to get better, you need to practice.  You need to make mistakes and learn your craft and cover the basics.

Look at my big dream to own and run a cafe/bakery/bookstore/gift shop/inn/community center combo thing.  You don't see me reading books about small businesses/non-profits, baking or designing greeting cards at every opportunity I can get, or asking questions to those who may have experience in those areas.  I can say, "I want to do that!" all I want, but if I don't actually put anything into motion, it's not going to happen.  I don't have a lot of drive or discipline.  And I'm aware of that.

But I want that to change.

During the Leadership Summit, Jim Collins gave a great talk based on his new book, Great By Choice, which addresses why some companies excel despite chaos.  One of the concepts Collins focuses on is the idea of a "20-mile-march," which encompasses the evidence that successful companies "embrace a paradox of control and noncontrol."  They're disciplined in their commitment (i.e., marching no more and no less than 20 miles) everyday, whether or not the circumstances are beneficial or not.  Collins provides the example of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, two adventurers who were on the quest to be the first to reach the South Pole.  While both explorers experienced the same uncontrollable climate issues, Amundsen "adhered to a regimen of consistent progress, never too far in good weather...yet pressing ahead in nasty weather to stay on pace," while Scott "would sometimes drive his team to exhaustion on good days and then sit in his tent and complain about the weather on bad days."  Amundsen stuck to his 20-mile-march and successfully reached the South Pole.  (Collins explains it a little better his article here)        

And so I've been thinking about I'm the toughest person I'll ever lead, and how if I'm going to leading others on a constant basis, then I need to really learn to lead myself.  And if I'm going to lead myself, I need to accumulate the discipline to really, truly pursue something.  I've also been thinking about what it means to live a good story, which requires wanting something enough to overcome conflicts.  The problem is, I don't know what I really want.

So maybe I should figure out what I really want first, but I can't help but think of some daily 20-mile-march ideas...  

• Write one blog post.
• Memorize one Bible verse.
• Practice guitar/singing for 30 minutes.
• Read a novel for 30 minutes.
• Run x miles (every week?)
• Bake something (every week?)
• Read 5 news articles.
• Write and mail a letter to someone.

I would say, "Feel free to pipe in with your vote/opinion on which one I should pursue or suggest your own," but I guess that's going in the opposite direction of trying to figure out what I want.