Out of the Box: Friends

I'm sitting here waiting for the movers and thinking about leaving my home.  I'm not talking about this house.  After living at 19 different addresses in the last 20 years, I have gotten over mourning a move.  I'm talking about leaving Orlando.  Ever since I fled South Florida (the region, not the university) for UCF back in 1992, I have seen Orlando as my home.  In my adult life, I have lived in Tampa for four years, Tallahassee for two, Jacksonville for one, and Orlando for fourteen.  I love this city.  I love the vicious afternoon storms that have numbed me to the fear of a "real" tropical storm.  I love the close proximity to a major university, a decent downtown, and even a tourist mecca.  I love being within reasonable driving distance to ever city in the state I would need to go to.  I even love that our unofficial city mascot is a cartoon mouse, even though I think said mouse would get his tail kicked in a fight with Bugs Bunny.

The point is, Orlando is awesome.  We have loved it.  We have had to move before, but there was always the expectation that we would be back very soon.  This time is different.  This feels final.  We know that there really is no way to move back for at least seven years.  Residency is three years and Heather's fellowship is another four - something they don't even have available in Orlando.  At that point, Josiah will have graduated from high school, Natalie will be in high school, and Gabe will be entering middle school.  (Did you just have a panic attack at that?  Me too.)  The even bigger thing to consider is that Heather is entering a specialized field of pediatrics.  She is going to be a pediatric pulmonolgist who works with kids with cystic fibrosis, severe asthma, and premie babies.  There are entire states without a single doctor of that type working there.  Orlando has several practices located here.  Isn't there some responsibility to go where people need the physician instead of just where the physician wants to live?  We think so.  That means that this move is most likely NOT going to have a return relocation. Sure, we will be back to Orlando.  But not as frequently as we would like.  Heather has limited vacation.  My mom is moving back to West Palm Beach.  Heather's parents like outside Jacksonville.  If we are coming to Florida to visit, those two cities are the most likely landing points.  We recognize all of this and have accepted it.  But that is why this has been so hard.

I spend a lot of time talking about restaurants and churches and stuff like that.  Yes, I will miss the ability to go to Four Rivers BBQ any time I want (except Sundays - unless they cater a church event on Sunday).  I will miss Tijuana Flats and Tenders and Jeremiah's Italian Ice.  I will definitely miss our church.  I will miss being close to THREE Apple stores.  But, that's not the real reason it is hard to leave Orlando.  I had planned on writing about jobs I had here and churches we attended here.  But the thing that kept popping up was the collection of friends we made over the years.  I have some truly amazing friends that I love dearly.  Leaving them stinks.  I know we all have Facebook (except for Aaron, who is reading this thanks to the link on Google+).  And I've had people helpfully offer, "You'll make new friends."  That's what I tell my kids to make them feel better.  But it never works on them either.  I don't WANT to make new friends.  I WANT to pack all my friends up in this truck in my driveway and take them with me.  But I don't want to be negative or sad.  So I am going to celebrate my friends instead.

I feel like I have had several different eras in Orlando.  First, there was the overarching UCF experience.  Within that, there were actually two distinct experiences.  There were the first two years when I was in Student Government.  Then there were the second two years when I was in the BSU/BCM/BSM/BCU/Baptist Group and attended FBC Oviedo as a student.  Totally different groups of people.  I still keep up with some of the SG guys, mainly through Facebook.  But the BCM people have been my friends for nearly two decades.

• Matt and Sarah Sharp - I have known Matt since Kindergarten.  Literally.  We were good friends at King's Academy together.  I used to go hang out at his house and play with his Star Wars toys when I wasn't allowed to watch the movies.  He left TKA after 2nd Grade.  But we still would see each other at various academic competitions ("Nerd Games").  Then we went to 9th grade together.  We ran into each other visiting UCF in our junior years.  And we roomed together in our freshman year of college.  We were in honors classes together and he invited me to BCM.  He was in my wedding.  We have been friends for almost 35 years.  He is one of the most brilliant people I have ever met.  He is hilarious and always good for a discussion on sports or movies or comic books.  And his wife Sarah is very giving and kind.  She had done our family photo shoots for years.  She brings us clothes for Gabe when her son outgrows them.  She has done tons of special things for us and our kids over the years.  Great friends.
• Allen and Candy Turner - I became good friends with Allen during my junior year in college and  roomed with him my senior year.  Way before they started dating, Candy used to be part of the cadre of BCM students who would come to our house to watch Magic games on our big tv.  Allen has been one of my very best friends over the years.  I was in his wedding; he was in mine.  He was my co-best man.  The funny thing is that over the years, Candy became one of my wife's best friends.  They got close when we attended church together about seven years ago.  We watched their son all day when their daughter was born.  We have babysat each other's kids.  We would hang out together ever New Year's Eve.  We would play Dutch Blitz together.  Their kids went to the same preschool as ours.  I cannot even list all of the ways they are special to us without tearing up.  Their family is one of the five hardest things to leave about Orlando.  I must move on.  It's getting dusty in here.
• There are other BCM friends that I still see around town like Byron and Bern Kirkpatrick, Mark Dao, Jeff Kipi and his family, and Jamie Waters.  That is one of the really neat things about having decades of history in a city.  You go to Target, go to Publix, go to church and run into people you know.  We have common friends.  If we ended up at a party with any of these people, I could spend hours talking to them.  That familiarity is hard to match.  

After I graduated from UCF, I moved to Tampa and then Jacksonville.  After about five years, we moved back to Orlando where I worked at First Baptist Oviedo for over four years.  There were some overlaps with my BCM crew at this point.  But I also forged dozens of new friendships from that staff experience.  It is actually hard to believe how many people I know from this time of my life.  This is the Target crew or Mall crew.  I go to Target on a Wednesday afternoon to kill time in between getting the kids and run into someone from FBC Oviedo.  It happens about twice a month.  They may be from First Years Preschool, from the staff, or a church member who I knew from a project or event.  These are people like Ron and Dana McKay, Shannon Chambley, Marlene Olsen, Diane Strathdee, Jim Wadley, Cheryl Pavuk, Debbie Ellison or Schmidt, Randy and Donna Moore and family, Jill Myers, the Mannas.  I also taught college Sunday School for years there.  I had tons of students that came through those classes that have now gotten married and had kids.  I watched them start as freshmen and blossom into brilliant and tremendous adults, workers, parents.  Some of them have ended up as teachers in the area, some are ministers, some are counselors.  I have had kids in preschool with their kids.  One of my favorite things as a teacher is to see the end result of a student.  It isn't the frustration you have when they are learning.  It is seeing that person as an adult out there and changing the world.  That is such an amazing feeling.  I also became very good friends with Tiffany and Erik Wieder.  I worked with Tiffany at the church.  I remember when she first started there.  Her life had been so tumultuous and she seemed shell-shocked.  It was a friendship of mutual teaching, though.  I would talk to her about some things, and she would talk to me about others. She helped me to understand how wrong my worldview was when it came to issues of compassion and social awareness.  I helped her to realize meat was worth eating and there was hope for a better future.  Once she and Erik got together, I had the pleasure of watching that relationship blossom.  I did their premarital counseling and performed their wedding.  I remember having a broken heart when their first child nearly died after being born early.  Heather and I were in Jacksonville for Christmas and just desperately wanted to drive to Orlando just to hug them.  To see this boy now, you would never know he was ill.  He is thriving and rambunctious.  They have a beautiful baby girl, in addition to Tiffany's stellar teenaged daughter.  We love their whole family.  We can easily kill hours and hours talking.  I'm almost disappointed to go to a movie with them because we miss out on talking.  

Thanks to FBC Oviedo, I became friends with Charles Wise.  I remember the very first time I sat down with him was when he took all of the secretaries out to lunch.  (What?  I was a secretary.  Want to fight about it?)  I heard about his counseling ministry and was blown away.  I went home after work and told Heather, "I met this guy today who run a counseling ministry.  He was awesome.  I know it is strange to say this, but I really want to work with him at some point."  At first, I did some freelance graphic design work for him.  As years went on, we talked more and more.  In 2006, we ended up starting Defender Ministries together.  For the next seven years, we have ministered together and grown to be very deep friends.  I can't count the number of lunches we have had together. (But I can count the number I have paid four.  Five.)  We have traveled all over the place to speak at Defender events, run seminars and breakout sessions, and scout locations for future projects.  There is very little that we don't share with each other.  I don't know if I have ever had a deeper friendship.  He knows almost everything about me and I know tons and tons about him.  He encouraged me so much to develop my skills in writing and design and speaking.  We have worked together for over seven years and we have never had a fight.  We have had maybe two disagreements.  We don't always see eye to eye.  But I believe there is such a mutual respect that we still value what the other person says even if they are wrong.  Through the Defender experience, I became much closer friends with Brad Crawford, the BCM Director at UCF.  We would drive the vans for him to National Student Week.  Brad had me come and speak once a year at BCM.  He would make me pulled pork, although not as frequently as he should have.  I also further cemented my friendship with Aaron and Jill Morrison.  I knew Aaron as a student in BCM and worked with Aaron at FBC Oviedo.  We became good friends through our time working together.  But our friendship got deeper after those years while I was working at Defender.  It was probably because we didn't "have to" see each other and "chose to."  I ended up performing Aaron and Jill's wedding.  When they started going to Summit with us, we again intensified our friendship.  They came over twice to help us pack, just because.  They went to Islands of Adventure with us just to help us have a better (and cheaper) time. Two of the most giving people I have ever met.  

The last four years we spent in Orlando seem like an entirely different era.  We had this huge history with FBC Oviedo, BCM, Defender which all blended together because they pulled from the same pool.  Then things shifted.  We stopped going to FBC Oviedo and ended up at a church plant.  I had to get other jobs to subsidize my income from Defender.  I started working at International Community School and Apple Retail.   Heather was preparing to go to medical school, which meant we were "on a clock" of sorts.  Our church still had some familiar faces - the Kirkpatricks, the Turners, the Sharps, and Randy and Susan Gillis who we were familiar with, but not super close to.  It turned out to be a wonderful shift of experience.  Our friendships with the Turners, Kirkpatricks, and Sharps got a jolt and developed a new dimension, with Heather getting to know all the principles better. We got to realize the Gillis family was a blessing sent from God.  And I got to make a whole new group of friends that had nothing to do with my college years.  Apple was a wonderful experience.  It ranks as one of my favorite jobs ever.  I still would go back and work there part time if I could.  I loved just about every day there.  Plus, I got to meet people like Neil Otto, Chris Anenome, and Veronica Fish.  ICS was a great place for me.  I got to teach and invest in the students there.  I also got to know the teachers and become friends with them - Carrie Baker, Wendy Bowerman, Shelly Uner, William and Jessica Eggleston.  I also spent time with the parents like Wendy and Steve Kreidt.  And I met Greg Willson, the most bizarre example of "It's a Small World" of them all.

When I got hired to teach Bible, the class originally was all taught by "Mr Willson" who I assumed was an old man who would hate me.  The kids were all hacked to get split up.  The administration decided to have half of the class with Greg, and half with me.  The half with me was mad.  I figured I would be walking into a landmine.  When I met Greg, I realized I had guessed severely wrong.  He was younger and awesome.  I loved getting to school early for my class just to talk and joke with him.  He was a part-time minister and a musician and an Apple fan.  I kept telling Heather how much I liked Mr Willson.  One day, she picked me up from school and he was walking by.  I said, "There goes Mr Willson."  She looked up and said, "Wait.  What is his first name?"  I told her it was Greg.  She asked if he was from Middleburg.  I said that quite frankly I didn't know.  He had indicated Jacksonville.  She told me she was in band with him.  Uh, what?  I walked over and got him to come to the car.  It was true.  They had gone to high school together and been in band!  Their moms had been friends.  His wife had been in high school with my brother-in-law Mike.  Bizarre.  After our year at ICS, I moved to Tallahassee.  But I always managed to have lunch with Greg when I was in town.  We kept close when I moved back, mostly by eating at Four Rivers or Chipotle.  He was on church staff and he told me that they were planning on relocating to a church in Columbia, SC.  Then we ended up matching in Columbia.  So we are both moving up there at the same time.  Our counselor also turned out to be one of Greg's best friends.  It truly is a small world after all.

Upon our return from Tallahassee, we again were in a new place.  We had med school friends that came back with us.  Even though they were mostly Heather's friends at first, they became my friends too.  It was hard to say goodbye to these people at graduation, knowing Facebook was going to be the main contact point with them since we scattered all over the country.  Zach and Jasmeet are headed to Michigan.  Katrina is going to Louisiana.  Sheallah is staying in Orlando.  Even our dinner club - a group of couples that ate at ethnic restaurants monthly - have splintered.  Mark and Shannon are staying in Orlando.  We are going to South Carolina.  Richard and Meagan and their soon-arriving baby are going to Baltimore.  We also ended up at Summit Church for our final stretch here.  It was unlike any church experience we had ever had.  I got to serve by writing, something that is extremely rare at a church - to have a lay person writing.  I also made some tremendous friends like Michael Murray, John Parker, OJ Aldrich, and Brian Hogan.  One of the best things about Summit was the Gillis family.  They have always been a part of my Orlando story, but it seemed in a "close call" way.  Randy was in the UCF BCM, but he graduated right before I started going and went to seminary.  Then he was a college minister in Gainesville when I was a college minister in Tampa.  We went to the same conferences frequently and became familiar with each other.  They moved back to Orlando just after we did.  Their oldest daughter is the same age as our oldest son.  At a birthday party for Allen Turner, they showed up with their infant second daughter, who was a week older than Natalie.  They enrolled their kids at First Years just like us.  We went to church with them at the church plant and Randy and I were on staff together there.  They had a third daughter by that point.  We started to get close as a family during that time.  What really solidified things, though, when they had their fourth child and first boy less than a month after Gabe was born.  Those two have been friends since birth and now are best friends.  They play together all the time.  In fact, our families both play together all the time.  The kids are all matched up in ages.  Randy and I play the same computer games.  Being at Summit together gave us even more opportunities to share experiences, which was awesome.  Randy and I wrote together for the kids' service.  Since Gabe and their youngest were at First Years together, I saw Susan all the time.  We would pick up each other's kids, watch the kids for each other.  During some family events for the Gillis family, we had all their kids spend the night.  We even shared a babysitter!  All four adults are all friends with each other.  It has been a truly amazing family friendship.  It also is one of the five hardest thing to leave in Orlando - if not the hardest.  I know my kids shed many tears about leaving the Gillis kids.  It was heartbreaking to see Gabe broken up about losing his first best friend.  I've got to move on again.  Stupid dust.

All in all, I count myself supremely blessed to have had the friends I have.  They have refined me and defined me.  They have helped me to grow into the man I am and have had patience with me as I did.  They have encouraged me and lifted me up.  And each one of them holds a treasured place in my heart.  In response to the answer to finding new friends, I may be able to find new ones.  But they can never replace the crop I have now.  They are gifts from God.  I firmly believe that.  And I thank God that I had them for whatever time I did.  So thank you all.  You can never know what you meant to me.  I love you guys.  

Going Home

At the end of the week, we will load our stuff in a truck (shudder) and drive back home. Well, I guess that is what to call it.  I consider Orlando my home.  I was born in West Palm Beach and lived there full time for eighteen years, and during the summer for another year.  So, I suppose people would call that my "hometown."  Honestly, though, I detest West Palm Beach.  I hate South Florida in general.  It was different when my parents still lived there.  But my dad passed away twelve years ago and my mom moved and lives in Tampa.  I still have family down there, but I don't think I've been down there since my Grandma's funeral almost seven year ago.  Hard to call that "home."

I spent four years in Orlando during college.  Heather and I moved our little family back there in 2002 and we stayed there for seven years.  I think that part of the problem is that we moved around so much during our time in Central Florida.  We have lived in Winter Park, Orlando, Oviedo, and now Winter Springs.  In college I lived in six different places.  During our second stint in The City Beautiful, we lived in five different homes.  So, as we begin our third go round there, this will be the twelfth different location I where have resided.  (This not counting the four different addresses in Tampa I had, one in Orange Park, and one in Tallahassee.)  That makes it rough to really connect - when you are constantly having to pick a new Publix, a new pharmacy, a new gas station.

But there is just something about Orlando that resonates with us.  I remember when we lived in Tampa, we used to drive over to Orlando - just for the day.  We didn't go to the parks or anything.  We would go to a Super Target or walk around City Walk or Downtown Disney.  It was our place.  Going back this past week to work on the new house, it just felt familiar.  That is NOT to say that it is the same place we left.  You may think that not much can happen in an area in two years.  But that is very wrong.  As we drove around, we had to take stock of what was still in business and what wasn't.  There is an entirely new massive apartment complex with parking garage across the street from UCF.  Multiple restaurants have changed hands or closed down.  Our hot dog place closed down.  The Beef O'Brady's we used to go on Sundays after church is gone.  The Oviedo Mall is even more of a corpse than it was when we left.  One word that cannot be ascribed to Orlando is "static."  It changes more than any other area I've ever frequented.

Orlando is such an unique city.  It really is three cities.  You have the tourist Orlando on the West side.  That is where you find Disney, Universal Studios, Sea World, International Drive, the Florida Mall.  You have whole communities that have popped up and grown due to their status as support to the tourist areas - Kissimmee, St Cloud, Lake Buena Vista, Celebration.  There are residents out there.  But there is also a constant massive coming and going of tourists.  We like that side of town as a place to visit - but we hardly ever go there.  It's too crazy, too busy, too expensive.  It's humorous - when we talk about moving back to Orlando, people invariably mention Disney.  In the eleven years I've lived in Orlando, I think I have been to Disney a handful of times.  And, I have only paid for tickets myself maybe one or two times.  I had friends who got me in, or someone else bought me tickets.  Those places are just too expensive to go a lot - unless you can manage annual passes.  But we will go over to the surrounding features a couple of times a year:  the Lego store, the giant McDonalds, the big movie theatres.

Heading east, the next area is Downtown Orlando.  You have the big buildings, the government offices, the giant courthouse, the arenas, the performing arts center, museums, SoDo, Baldwin Park.  It is the arts, sports, and cultural center.  This area is similar to many other large, but not massive, cities in our country.  Again, it has its residents and its normal traffic.  And people in the other areas only go there when they have to.  If they have to go to a government outpost, a hospital, a lawyer, a basketball game, a play.  There is a night life, but it is hardly as robust as the city wishes it had.  They are constantly trying to boost the area and renovate areas of it.  I know they have been trying to get more traffic (and fewer homeless people) to Church Street since I got to UCF in 1992.  It is a constant battle against urban decay.  But some people love this area of town - and it certainly has its purpose.

The farthest east is the UCF area.  The University of Central Florida is considered a metropolitan university, since it is housed in a large city and was built after the city was founded.  It is not in a town that grew up with the school - like Gainesville or Athens, GA or Knoxville.  But, in many ways, UCF is actually a college town.  The East side of Orlando was nothing until UCF started.  And as the school has exploded, so has that area of town.  I know that Oviedo bristles at being called part of UCF's reach - but it was a horse farm until UCF boomed.  Now the college is massive.  It is the biggest in Florida and the second largest in the country.  It probably will pass Arizona State before long.  I has an amazing campus with more and more opportunities.  It has a Medical School, a football stadium, new basketball and baseball stadiums, a great concert venue.  They are starting a Dental School.  It is a great place.  And that whole area of town has benefitted from its growth.  This is the area where we have always lived.  And we really like it.  Everything you need is right there.  And if there is anything else you want to do, it isn't hard to get out to it.

[There is a fourth district developing over at Lake Nona - partly due to the new Medical School.  It is called the Medical City - with the school, new hospitals, research facilities, all that stuff.  In a few years, it will deserve its own paragraph.  Right now, it is still in process.]

Lots of people have asked how we liked Tallahassee.  Honestly, we hated it.  I know some people are fiercely defensive of our state capitol.  Those people are called Seminole fans.  Seriously, though, much of what makes people like Tallahassee is exactly why we disliked it.  They talk about the great stuff they did in college.  Exactly.  We are not college kids.  I have told numerous people, if you are a student whose goal is to party and drink and have a great time - Tallahassee is a great place.  If you are a politician who needs to go to the office in between running for re-election and whose goal is to party and drink and have a great time and hit on college girls - Tallahassee is a great place.  For families, it is a rough place.  It was oppressively hot.  There were not a lot of options that didn't cost a ton of money.  It was not a great experience.

That is not to say there are not some great things about Tallahassee - or the last two years.  The city administered recreation facilities put anything Orlando has to shame.  The kids were able to join gymnastics programs, go to water parks, or join sports leagues for minimal money.  Those were great things.  The school the kids attended was a great experience - but that was more due to individual teacher than the school as a whole.  We have had some good things happen.  Heather had a great time at the FSU Med School.  I lost a bunch of weight.  The kids and I have a stronger relationship now.  We return better people, to be sure.  But there were not many tears about leaving the city.

I think one thing we like about Orlando is the potential.  While we probably will not go to Disney or Universal often (or at all), the potential is there.  We could go there, if we wanted.  On a Saturday when there isn't anything to do, we could go to the science center or walk around one of the shopping villages. In reality, our day to day lives are not much different in Orlando and Tallahassee.  But they could be.

The biggest thing about going back to Orlando, though, is the people there.  I think that is what really make Orlando feel like home.  We are going back to people who love us and who we love.  Yes, we have people that fit that bill in every city we have ever lived.  There are friends and family in Jacksonville and Tampa and West Palm Beach and Rock Hill - and even Tallahassee.  But the quantity of people in Orlando who are close to us is so much larger.  That is what hurt so bad about leaving.  It wasn't the Magic or Mickey or Super Target or Del Taco that made leaving Orlando so bad.  It was leaving those people.  It was knowing that for two years that we would rarely be able to see them.

Facebook makes things like that easier.  But it is not a suitable replacement to sitting in their living room and laughing and holding their baby.  It is not the same thing as eating together and watching your kids all run around a play place.  It can't take the place of standing next to them in church, or going to a movie together, or sitting at a table and talking for hours.  I know that on our trips back during the last two years, it was always stressful to try to fit in time for all the people who wanted to see us.  There are friends from Lifepointe Church, First Years Preschool, International Community School, UCF, the Apple Store, First Baptist Oviedo, Defender Ministries.  I think that is what makes the thought of coming back to Orlando so sweet.  It is like they all are standing there with their arms open, waiting to hug us.  That is actually the picture I have in my head as I think about it.  I see hundreds of individual faces smiling and saying, "Welcome Back.  We missed you."

In the back of my head, I know that there is a good chance that this is only a two year return.  When residency comes, we may have to move again.  And that time it may be for good.  I know that.  It lurks back there, haunting the trip back.  For the next few days, though, I am going to ignore that thought.  I am going to dwell on the fact that I finally get to go home.  And I can't wait.

National UnFriend Day

There isn't a category picture for this post because, really, it falls into most of them.  On November 3, Jimmy Kimmel proposed a new holiday.  November 17 is being known as National UnFriend Day.  On this day, he is urging people to unfriend some of the glut of friends they have accumulated on Facebook.  He makes some good points.  Friendship is a special thing that should be treasured.  Instead, Facebook has minimized the importance of that word by calling anyone who you know "a friend."  To help us identify "true friends," Kimmel came up with some questions.  Would you loan this person fifty dollars?  If you posted you were moving, would that person help?  If the answer is no, unfriend them.

I can understand the thought behind Kimmel's semi-serious rant.  I love Facebook.  It has allowed me to reconnect with people who I had lost track of over the years.  But there are tons of people that I don't really  know that well.  Right now, I have 650 friends on Facebook.  How many of those are "true friends?"  I have no idea.  I have people on that list from just about every major phase of my life.  There are people from my high school years - both my school and my church.  Then there are people from college - old Student Government friends, classmates, BCM pals.  I have people from the church at BCM I worked at in Tampa, people from our year in Orange Park, friends from our time up in here in Tallahassee.  And there are tons of people from Orlando - Apple coworkers, students from ICS, friends from church.  I also have a good number of ministers and students that I met at Defender Ministries appearances.  So, would I consider them all good friends?  Not at all.  In fact, some of them I don't know very well at all.

So, according to Kimmel and others who think his idea is super, I should jettison most of those people.  In a kind of funny twist, I had a completely different plan.  I had no idea about Kimmel's idea until yesterday. Instead, while I was driving down to Tampa this past weekend, I had a lot of time to think.  And I found myself drifting back into the dark vortex that a combination on loneliness, fear, and lack of adult interaction leads to.  At that precise moment, I honestly felt that I had nothing to offer anyone.  I was worn out and beat down.  It is a pretty ugly feeling, honestly. I was trying to think about how I have fought that in the past.

The greatest weapon to that feeling of emptiness and hopelessness, to me at least, is to try to minister to other people.  It is one of the great mysteries of life.  But, even when we are completely empty in our own tank, we can find fulfillment and refreshment by giving to others.  In those times when I allowed myself to be an encourager, an edifier, a positive influence I would always find myself better off as well.  This is part of God's plan for mankind.  We are not build to be loners.  We need each other to encourage and strengthen us.  In addition, we are built to need to provide that for others.  It seems a little strange - we need to give ourselves away to be truly full.  But, the big problem for me right now is that I don't have a whole lot of people to bless that way in person.  I am with the kids all day.  I don't know a lot of people up here in Tallahassee.  I could make food for Heather's study group at FSU.  I could call or email a few people I know here - maybe 10 or 15.  But it isn't what I was thinking.

As we were driving, I came up with a way to minister to others and told Heather my idea.  (And keep in mind that I had no idea what Kimmel had proposed at this point.)  I thought about the fact that I had these 650 Facebook friends.  I decided that I was going to begin reconnecting with every single one of them.  These people have all been brought into my life for a reason.  It may have been nearly twenty years ago in Mr. Trotsky's English class.  Or it may have been at a workshop four years ago in Ridgecrest, NC.  But that person still connected with me enough to create a Facebook link in the first place.  So, what better way to start this process?

Think about how much you love getting an encouraging note from someone?  I could give that to people.  I have the time to get on Facebook.  And writing is something that comes naturally to me.  So I could probably put together a few of these letters every day.  I don't mean write some lame cut and paste memo either.  I mean to write a personal letter - thanking the person, reminiscing about how that person is important to you, offering to pray for the person.  I thought it was a pretty good idea.  Of course, after the weekend I kind of suspected the idea would just float away like many others.

That was until I saw Kimmel's proposal.  I watched the clips from his show and read his twitter feed.  And I knew for sure that I needed to follow through.  Instead of removing people, I am going to try to minister to them.  I'm sure some people won't appreciate it or care.  They can unfriend me and we'll move on.  But I would wager that it will instead be something positive for a lot of people.  I'm not sure how quickly I'll finish this.  But I am going to get started as soon as I can.  So if you get a note from me at some point on Facebook, you'll know why.  And I hope it will make your day better.

Live Together; Die Alone

The wife and I were watching the Golden Globes the other night. (Don't you hate it when people use the phrase "the wife." It seems so calloused and insensitive. Like she's just an object in the house. "I was sitting The Couch with The Wife and The Dog watching The Television and eating The Dinner." I'm going to start over.)

My wife - my beloved gift from God and object of my affection - and I were watching the Golden Globes the other night. Well, we were fast forwarding through them and catching snippets. We didn't do to well when it came to rooting for our favorites. Neil Patrick Harris and Michael Emerson got robbed by John Lithgow. Arrogant genius James Cameron won twice. Meryl Streep won - I just get tired of her winning everything. Lost got shut out. (How does this show not even get nominated?!?) But there was one bright moment before we ditched the show. Glee won best comedy show. I'm sure there were people all over the country who were up in arms that 30 Rock didn't win . . . AGAIN. But we were thrilled.

But what I like most about the show is the realism. I know some people (like my brother in law Mike) will laugh at that - saying that no musical show or movie can ever be realistic since it is a musical. I am, however, talking about the story lines. It shows teens, teachers, and parents alike trying to make it in the world. The teen stories are very close to what I have seen in working with students: overly concerned about sex and relationships, social standing issues, dreams to "escape" their hometown. And the show itself is pretty uplifting in its messages and atmosphere - even thought I certainly don't agree with all the statements and positions offered up.Glee has quickly become one of our favorite shows. We have been watching the first set of episodes again, since new ones won't show up until March. And we have both CDs from the cast. For those of you who don't know, Glee is a show about a glee club in a high school in Ohio. As you would expect, the glee club is not the hippest spot on campus. It is mocked and kicked around by both the nationally ranked cheerleading squad and the abysmal football team. Things begin to change when the star quarterback joins glee club, eventually causing several cheerleaders and football players to follow suit. The music is fun. The acting and performing are top notch (unlike ABC Family's lame teen shows like Secret Life of an American Teenager).

One of the biggest story arcs is the quest to belong - to have a place where you can be yourself and to have friends who will love you no matter what. It drives just about every episode. The first group to sign up for glee club were, as you might expect, like the Island of Misfit Toys. They wanted somewhere that they could feel special - somewhere that their disabilities and weight and sexuality wouldn't doom them to a life of getting tossed in dumpsters, locked in port a pottys, and doused with slushees. And as the season went on, these kids provided this safe place to each other - for the most part.

Does this struggle ever really end? In Glee, we even see the adults searching for acceptance and love and a place to belong. Everyone in the show totes some level of insecurity or scarring - just like in real life. And, just like in real life, the people who seem the most confident and put together are often the most messed up. In one very well shot scene, one teen girl puts her own agenda first and shuns those students who had helped her. In her moment of greatest success, a teacher tells her, "Congratulations. You have gotten everything you ever wanted. Enjoy." And we are left looking at the girl as she has a devastated look on her face, more miserable than she ever had been.

It is amazing what a social creature mankind is. We hear people say they want to be loners. "I am a rock. I am an island." But I have not really met too many people that wear that too well. We all want people to love and accept us. We need that. Why has Facebook exploded so rapidly? People love being able to connect and interact. They love being a part of something. Companies that are succeeded are ones that foster this mindset. I worked for Apple for nine months last year. I honestly think that Apple's most brilliant innovation was not the iPhone or the iPod. It was creating a sense of community. Look at how people describe Apple and the people who love the company. The call it the Mac Cult. There is a definite culture fostered by Apple for its customers. For those people, it becomes something they are proud of being a member of. Think that is crazy? Look around at how many Apple logos you see on cars. Do you see Microsoft stickers around? People are proud of their Apple gear and their affiliation with the company. (The fact that Apple actually is just that much better is beside the point.) And you know? That same exact mentality is generated for employees of the company. It is one of the most attractive things about working there. You belong. You are special. You are accepted just the way you are. Trust me, it is an amazing place to work. It isn't perfect - name a place that is. But it certainly works very hard to make its workers and customers feel special.

We all desire that kind of camaraderie. People need it. We need to know that someone will miss us, that someone wants us to be around. It is essential for us to survive and thrive. Eventually, it has to be more than swapping status updates and wall posts. We want to be able to truly open our hearts and know that someone else will still see all the crazy spill out and not run screaming. Finding a true friend, a true place to belong is a lifelong quest. Stockpiling Facebook friends won't cut it. There are many times that I would gladly trade the 600+ "friends" on my Facebook account for one person to go to a movie with or have a good chat with at Bagelheads.

The title of this post comes from Lost - another of our favorite shows. On the surface, it is about survivors of a bizarre plane crash on a very special island. You can dive into the many different stands of mythology and philosophy and the like. But even the creators have said that the heart of the show is relationships. They are all broken people who are struggling to fix themselves and find how to interact with those around them. It doesn't matter who they are and when they got there, each character has to learn how to relate to the people and world around them. They aren't just faces getting eaten by a smoke monster, like so many sci-fi offerings. They feel like real people with real struggles. It doesn't matter if you are trying to open hidden hatches, fight off tropical polar bears, or survive tenth grade - we can't do it alone. At least not very well. We need to have others to help us on our way. And if you find people that you can harmonize a kicking choral version of "Bust Your Windows," even better.

32 Most Obnoxious Things I've Done to Greg Ramer

Todays is my good friend Greg Ramer's birthday. He turns 32. I have mentioned Greg several times over the last few years in ye old blogge. He's a great and generous guy. His blog postings are inspirational. His photography is amazing. We have had lots of fun over the years. But I think the greatest testimony to the faithfulness of Greg Ramer is the fact that he is still my friend. Once you read this list, you too will understand why that is such a big deal. Happy birthday, Greg. This is in honor of you.

32 MOST OBNOXIOUS THINGS I HAVE DONE TO GREG RAMER

1. I instigated a wrestling match between Greg and Melvin McColloch, who ultimately rubbed Greg's face in the carpet.
2. I instigated an incident where Greg crushed Michael Carter's chips. Michael subsequently punched Greg fifty times in the arm.
3. A few years back, Greg told me how a girlfriend (I think they were dating) had ended their relationship. He told me, "Yeah, she doesn't know what she wants." I responded with the following sensitive statement. "She knows she doesn't want you."
4. When I asked Greg to help me learn how to play golf, he was kind enough to really try. I got angrier and angrier at the entire process - and at him for being there. At one point I finally said, "Unless you want this golf club stuck in your forehead, don't come back over here." He complied.
5. I relentlessly ridiculed Greg for his purple truck. He insisted the color was "Radar Blue." I insisted it was purple. This process repeated about 300 times. He hasn't even had this truck for years, and I still bring it up.
6. One time when Greg was arguing with a bunch of people about how his truck was not purple, he said, "It . . . is . . . radar . . . blue." I responded with, "His next truck will be pink. Only then, it won't be pink, it will be Radar Red." That never was lived down.
7. We were driving some people back from Daytona Beach. After dropping them off, we went by the Florida Mall in Orlando. This was after I had graduated from UCF in Orlando. I had spent many days at the Florida Mall. When we got into the Mall, I walked up to a directory and said, "Hey I need to see where this one store is." I stood at that directory for at least 10 minutes just staring. He finally realized what I was doing and walked off, mumbling to himself.
8. His mom makes awesome brownies. She used to have them every time I came to their house. One time there were no brownies. To make up for this, I guilted Greg into making me brownies every time we came to his house. We live down the street now, and when I come in I still say, "No brownies?"
9. One time, I invited Greg to something that required him to come down to Tampa from Tallahassee. I did not realize it was Mother's Day weekend. So he missed Mother's Day. Somehow I got blamed for him missing Mother's Day. Of course, I also will frequently remind him of the time he bailed on his mother - that same mom who was in labor with him for 23 hours.
10. Greg went with me in Tampa to pick up my sister from the airport. On the way back, I really have no idea what happened. He told us he was going to take a shortcut. It took at LEAST 15 minutes longer. From that point on, whenever I would be following him, or if he was giving me directions, I would have to mention, "Don't give me a shortcut" or "don't take any shortcuts" or "Man, that took forever. Was that a shortcut?"
11. This next chunk will be from when we roomed together. We would be watching tv. I always had the remote. We would be watching golf. When a golfer putted, right before the ball went in the cup, I would switch the station. This was irritating.
12. I would frequently turn the tv to the Catholic station and leave it there for long annoying stretches. This was also irritating.
13. I would call the house from my cell phone and impersonate another church member and ask for "Greg Ramer." Our roommate would go and get Greg to get the phone. Then I would bust out laughing. Usually this would happen during Sunday nap.
14. I would sing opera outside of Greg's door. Usually this would happen during Sunday nap.
15. I would set an alarm clock and hide it in the bathroom outside of Greg's door. It would go off and he wouldn't know where it was. Usually this would happen during Sunday nap.
16. I would set random alarms on his clock and cell phone when Greg was not looking.
17. I would take pictures with Greg's phone and set them as his wallpaper. This included one of the inside of my mouth that looked very strange and disturbing.
18. One time, Greg was sitting at his desk. I ran into his room and dove in between the mattress and box spring and then wiggled all the way to farthest point in. I have no idea why I did this. It was just the weirdest thing I could come up with.
19. On April Fools Day, I ran into Greg's room at 6 in the morning, yelling, "Greg get up! The barn is on fire and its spooking the horses!" He sat bolt upright in his bed, then said, "We don't have any horses."
20. I would sit in Greg's car and randomly push all the buttons and change all the dials. Yes, I did this to everyone. But I did it to Greg a lot. I still do, now that I think about it.
21. I used to call Greg when he was out doing deliveries for work. I would ask him where he was taking me for lunch. I really don't know how many lunches I scored - quite a few actually. (I do really feel bad about this thing. Maybe that is subconsciously why I have Greg over for dinner so much - to make up for it.)
22. I sent this card out to over 40,000 homes. I had Greg's permission to use the picture. And ultimately the church did not want to use this campaign - feeling it was insulting. And, really, they were right. But, still. It is kind of funny.
23. When Greg first launched his website, he would change it a lot. A LOT. Except, the content didn't change much - just the layout. And he would ask for feedback. For like two years, I sent him an email through his feedback link. They all were different, but basically said, "Your website sucks." Two years straight.
24. When Greg first launched his photography site, it included an option to book a photo shoot through the site. Under a fake name and email address that I have set up (what? you don't have one?), I sent him a photo request for him to come and spend the weekend at my house and take a series of, um, boudoir shots. And I think I hit on him in the email. Oh, yeah, my fake person was a dude. Greg never replied.
25. I used to call Greg's phone and leave long and obnoxious messages using various accents, pretending to be law enforcement officers, hillbillies, Scottish clansmen. All of these messages lasted for minutes. And they always lasted like 1:05 or 3:07 - just to make sure it cost an extra minute.
26. I would send Greg long, drawn out, pointless emails all the time. They would just ramble and ramble and go off on huge tangents. Sometimes they would have a point; sometimes not. It was always an adventure.
27. Greg worked at a small Christian bookstore. It was not always the first to get new products - or the fifth - or the tenth. After several times asking about new products and hearing, "We don't have that yet," I started to take it to an extreme. "Hey Greg, I was wondering if you guys had anything by this band yet. It's a newer band - so you may not. It is Petra. Heard of it?" or "Hey Greg. There is this book I want. I doubt you guys have it. Do you have Pilgrim's Progress?" This happened about twenty times a year.
28. I think I used this exchange from Tommy Boy about 100 times with Greg. "What? Lots of people take a decade to finish college." "Yeah, they are called doctors." But I am proud he finished!
29. Back before you could port your cell phone number between companies, it seemed that Greg had a new phone number or pager number every three months. He would send out an email about it - and then another email a week later - "I changed my mind. My old number was already taken, so here's my third number within a week." He also changed email addresses frequently. It got to be where he hated telling anyone because he knew he would hear something rude back within twenty minutes from me.
30. I would frequently take my pointer finger and stick it into Greg's food - usually a sandwich. Mostly this was accompanied by, "You gonna eat that?"
31. I introduced Greg to the Wheelhouse burger at Bennigan's. This was a burger that actually had a big circle of fried mozzarella on it. It was amazing. But I think it alone was responsible for taking three years off of both of our lives.
32. A group of us were talking about Matthew McConaughey. Actually, I think we were talking about different famous guys that various girls found attractive. Someone was gushing about McConaughey. Greg, who had been working out and losing a lot of weight, said, "It's okay. It won't be long before I look like him." Without thinking, I said, "Why is McConaughey gaining a bunch of weight for a role?" What made this even worse - besides me making any weight-related comments to anyone - was that it happened this summer. And I thought I had really outgrown making those comments.

Greg - thanks for being such a great friend, and for tolerating me. Even if you mom never enjoyed you as a child, I have enjoyed having you has a friend. Have a super birthday.

Jessica

I have had several friends over the years named Jessica. This post revolves around three of them. I have never had anything like this happen before. Over the course of one month, all three of them lost a family member. On March 23, Jessica C lost her father after a long battle with cancer. On April 14, Jessica S lost her mother after a long battle with cancer. And on April 25, Jessica H lost her baby through a miscarriage. Each one of those stories have their own circumstances to make it extra painful. Jessica C's dad died on Easter, which is also her oldest son's birthday. Jessica S is only 21 years old. And I did the pre-marital counseling for Jessica H - her first anniversary is in June.

I have lost all four of my grandparents - at 11, 13, 16, and 28. My father passed away when I was 24. We lost a baby in between Josiah and Natalie. So I have felt both of those pains - which only makes me more aware of the pain these sweet women are feeling. In each case, I felt like I was punched with grief for them. When you see your friend crumble to the ground when they get the phone call, or when you read their pained expressions of grief online and you know that they are desperately trying to cling to hope --- those situations make you wish you could take the pain on yourself. You want to hug them and pull that hurt out of them. And as you watch them moving forward, knowing their lives are forever changed, you can't help but ache.

All three of these women are incredibly sweet, generous, and wonderful people - people I treasure and am glad to have had in my life. They bless people all around them and radiate the love of God. Not that we would ever wish pain on anyone, but people like these sweet women - those are the people we never want to see get hurt. I was thinking about how weird it was that all three of them shared a name. Curious for a moment, I looked up what Jessica meant. It is a Hebrew name that means "God Sees." What an incredible thought that is.

God sees. He sees the pain. He sees the loss and confusion and hurt. He sees it all. He is not blind or asleep. It doesn't say "God Saw" or "God Will See." It is God Sees. He always sees. He sees everything. In the darkest night or brightest day, in the coldest season or sunny vacation. God always sees. And He sees in a way so unlike we see. He sees our hearts and sees our pain. I know the temptation is to ask Him why He didn't stop it. I have asked that before. It reminds me of the song "Hard to Get" by Rich Mullins. The whole song is basically asking Jesus why he lets the pain go on, since He was human and knows what it feels like. At one point he sings, "I know it would not have hurt any less, even if it could be explained." Even if we understand the whys and hows, the pain is still real.

I take comfort in the fact that God sees. That means that this did not go unnoticed. He was aware, and that means He can come to our comfort. He can heal those wounds, and draw the hurting ones close to Himself. He can provide strength and peace. He can show that we are not alone, that there are friends who will help us through. And He is always there. Always seeing. And He saw our loved ones, and saw them enter into His rest - free from pain and complete. That is the essence of the hope of the Gospel. No matter what, God sees and is an ever-present help in times of trouble and sorrow. It seems like such a small thing to offer someone when they are hurting - but it is all we can do. We can hold them, pray for them, and remind them that God sees.