My Christmas Presence

I have a secret. A Christmas secret.

For year after year I have lived under the belief that I knew exactly what Christmas was about.  I believed that I understood why we do the things that we do in December. (I work at a church and know that “Jesus is the reason for the season”, but fundamentally what he DID is celebrated at Easter.  He showed up at Christmas and we celebrate and practice what the three wise men did.)  I believed that there were two underlying themes to Christmas, the giving and the receiving.  Boy, I couldn’t be more wrong.

I have had 2 Christmas epiphanies over the years, this year would be the third. 

The first goes back many, many years.  The first few years of Christmas are foggy at best, and I can recall SOME interesting moments like my Mickey Mouse drumset, a ping-pong ball gun battle that got my brother and I in trouble on Christmas morning.  I can remember some of the decorations (some of which I still have) like the glass bulb Santa Claus, the bird ornament with the obnoxious song, and the Jesus-free manger sets that would be scattered around the house.  My mom always waited until Christmas morning to put Jesus in the mangers. : ) 

It starts to clear up somewhere around my 8th birthday, and like any normal small child, it is the receiving that is the first thing we REALLY understand about Christmas.  We make lists, we behave, we wait and we wait and we wait and hope for that big cash in moment on Christmas morning.  Over the years, it begins to dawn on us that no matter what we do, how good we are, how much we plead…we never get everything  that we want. (For good reason.)  For some people, me included, it sours us on Christmas.  Because we don’t understand what Christmas is all about, we get confused about this most magical time of the year.  Ideally, the giving would show up first, but alas this is not the case.

So, for many years, I was Scrooge.  I loathed Christmas…hated the exchange, the work, the decorations…it was all so exhausting.  I carried this for year after year until that magical year when the tables turned, the year when the burden of Christmas became the joy of providing Christmas.  It was 1999 when I had my second Christmas epiphany.

This is where it gets a little tricky.  Because what I thought was giving, was merely providing.  Heather and I had been blowing out the Christmas for our family for several years trying to make it everything we wanted it to be and everything our kids hoped it would be.  The late nights, the decorations, the toys, the food ..we tried to make everything perfect.  And what I thought I was doing was GIVING.  “Look ma, see how all my kids have all the toys, and they’re in all the pictures”  I’m GIVING them all of it.  Oh, really.  What I was doing was providing, I was doing what I am supposed to do…with much love, mind you…but it’s not like I could NOT do it.  This is what we as parents sign up for…we absolutely love it…still do, but to me this never completed Christmas.  I always have felt like something was being left out.

I’ve given money to charities, worked in a soup kitchen 18 years ago, donated coats and presents to kids in need, all the things that are supposed to make you feel like you are GIVING Christmas.  And none of it seemed to change me, none of it seemed to fundamentally make the difference in my heart.

So this year has been a productive year, economically, spiritually and most other ways.  But the way I made the most strides this year was professionally. I took on more challenges than ever before and really made advances that I could really be proud of.  I also did something that I had wanted to do for many years but relented for several reasons, I took on an intern.  In my particular line of work your success or failure is directly proportional to your ability to handle the job under tremendous pressure.  The only way to gauge whether or not someone will be successful in that line of work is by putting them under tremendous pressure.  So, needless to say, it has to be the right person to become an intern.  But there was someone that had been volunteering on my team for 8 months and had really made strides at “understanding” the job.  So I asked, she accepted, and she continues to make steps towards becoming a tremendous director.

Well, about a month ago her family went through a tremendous crisis and our relationship of director and intern began to change to a friendship.  I aimed to be available to listen to whatever she needed to talk about and just have a “safe place to go”.  As Christmas approached, Heather and I invited her and her family to our house on Christmas day.  I knew she was apprehensive, as anyone would be, but hoped that they would come over…for their sake.  So on Christmas afternoon I was quite suprised to get a text from her asking if it was okay if they stopped by for a little while.  “By all means,” I said.

They came over, and stayed a lot longer than I had expected.  And it was GREAT.  No pressure, just hanging out.  And I started to realize that afternoon that THAT was the part that was missing.  That was the giving that I hadn’t reached yet.  The gift of presence.  Not the gift of money, which they didn’t need.  Not the gift of things, which they don’t need.  Just the gift of presence, just the ability to let someone know that you are THERE when they need you.  And THERE when they don’t.  I have no idea if they got ANYTHING out of it, and that’s OK.  But I did.  And it changed me profoundly. 

It helped me to realize what I believe to be my Christmas formula.  RECEIVE graciously, PROVIDE abundantly, and GIVE selflessly and exorbitantly.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Nashville … at least that’s what they told me.

Flew to Nashville Sunday night with the Senior Pastor and 3 of my video colleagues for a quick video shoot. And boy was it quick. Left Vegas at 7:05 Sunday night, got to our hotel at 1am Nashville time, up at 630am for an 800am shoot. We were done by 1015am. Sat at the local Starbucks digitizing footage and was at the airport at 4pm for a 605 flight back to Vegas.

Here’s some pics.

The hotel I kind of slept in.

 

Justin and friend

**sings** "Nashville International Airport"

A,A,A,A,A,A,A,A,A,A,A,B,A,A,A

Those are my 3 son’s grades combined for the end of the first card marking.  I am so proud of all of their hard work and accomplishments!!  Keep up the awesome, awesome work!!!!

Apologies in advance…

As you know, Heather and I are hip deep in the sports season right now with Conner and Jacob.  (For all of my Mid-Western readers, Fall is when sports heat up ’round here as the temperature heads to more reasonable levels, like today for instance, a beautiful 78 degrees : ) )  Now, I try to go to everything I can involving the kids i.e. practices, games, recitals, concerts and all the rest.  Unfortunately, work prohibits me from attending alot of Conner’s football games and some of Jake’s baseball games but I make it to most.

I consider myself a fairly vocal parent.  Not too loud and never rude, but loud enough that they can hear me cheering for them and, in the case of Conner, giving them little pointers.  What I never want to be is the parent that’s always screaming at their kid, telling them what they are doing wrong, or at the referees. 

But, I wanted to avoid being another kind of Dad as well.  Let me set this up.

On Saturday morning, Heather and I were sitting at the park watching Jake’s baseball game and he was to be the second batter in the inning.  We were sitting behind the fence behind home plate.  Jake was in the on-deck circle taking his practice cuts.  As he approached the plate, I stood up and took two steps and said to Heather, “I wanna get in position to see this.” It was then that I had a flash, a vision if you will, and it looked like this:

          *************I’m 12, standing at homeplate in my yellow and black “Rangers” uniform, my ”Dave Parker” model Louisville Slugger in hand.  Out of the corner of my eye, behind the fence behind homeplate is my Dad, I see his red tie with the gray diagonal stripes and his black pants and white dress shirt.  His salt and pepper hair parted on the left, his eyes hidden beneath his PhotoGray glasses.  His arms folded at his chest.  The pitch comes, snaps in the glove, strike three…and faintly I notice his head fall a little, like “How could you take THAT pitch and swing at the other two?”***************

Oy.  I stopped myself and said, “Oh, man, I just became my Dad.”  Now I know what everyone is thinking out there and you’re totally wrong.  I love my Dad, I love the fact that he came to all of my games, it could be worse, like every other game I go to with kids with no Dads around.  But there was something there.  I guarantee it was my problem not his, but I never wanted to disappoint him.  He put no expectations on my performance, never said I had to do this or that to play, just wanted me to have fun and get better.   But there was something in that head bob that shook me up. 

I try to give my kids the space they need out there to make mistakes and improve.  There are plenty of times where I have to remind myself to keep quiet, to let them fall and make errors.  I find Conner looking at me after every play and I hope and pray that he’s not looking for approval, and not looking for the head bob.  He looks at me, I clap, and tell him to pay attention to the coach.  Look at me as the water boy that drives the car.

Dad, if you’re reading this, the title is for you.  I love the fact you were always there…I believe that 99% of what I felt was self-induced.  I just wanted to make you proud.  A lot of the times, sports was (is?) all we talked about and all we had in common.  But it wasn’t all head bobs and shakes.  There was this time, too.

It was 1984.  I was on the ”Rangers” again, this time with are red, white and blue jerseys.  We were playing at Carter Junior High on the field facing the school.  We were playing the Expos and their phenom pitcher, Darrin Gryzwacz. (Yes, I remember his name, my mind is a steel trap!)  He had an explosive fastball and they were undefeated.  He struck out kids after kid.  I managed to get the only base hit, a blooper down the firstbase line.  And I struck out twice.  We lost 13-0 and as we headed to the car, I just exploded in tears. (I know, I get emotional about baseball.)  My Dad asked me what was wrong, and I said, “I tried and I just can’t help us win!!  My Dad put his hand around my shoulder and said, “Sport, you did everything you could, you tried hard and you lost.  Sometimes you just lose.  And it’s gotta be ok to lose sometimes.”  He tussled my mangy hair and I remember thinking that that is something that I would tell my kids someday.  Which I have.

So thanks Dad, for helping me to realize what I don’t want to do with my kids.  For being the role model of attendance for games, and for helping me to understand that it’s ok to lose.

And He lifted her up on eagle’s wings…

Today marked the 4 year anniversary of my mother’s death, and whether conscious or not, I avoided blogging all day until the last minute even though I thought about it repeatedly during the day.  As many of you that read this blog know, I was very close to my mom and think about her and reflect about my days with her very often.

In addition, some of you know that I am a fairly avid birder.  I figured that I would tell the story of how I got that way, and weave together some recent events into a nice, neat little package.

When I was a little boy, my family and I used to do a lot camping.  The majority of our trips were into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  During these trips I used to notice that my mom took a very keen interest in birds.  I remember her being excited when a chickadee would flit through the trees or a hawk would be perched on a fencepost.  I began to recognize that it wasn’t just on camping trips that she followed them.  We had a bird feeder on our back patio that she kept filled most of the time that used to see the usual suburban residents; cardinals, blue jays, sparrows, mourning doves and the like.  At the time, being an impressionable young boy of 8, I would take my mom’s field guide (which is still on her bookshelf) and circle the birds I had seen, and write love or hate under each bird, most likely heavily influenced by my mom’s opinion.

Our mutual interest crystallized when, on a long walk near Muskellunge State Park, we spotted an Indigo Bunting on an electrical wire.  It was the brightest of blues, sparkling out against the green of the forest around it.  She was so amazed by it, so overwhelmed by the beauty, that we just stood there and watched it for 10 minutes until it zipped away.

Over the next several years I approached adolescence and I forgot about that link that we had.  During those teenage years I would make fun of her a little bit and wonder out loud about why she put forth so much effort to care for the hummingbirds and other birds that frequented her yard.  She would just smile and say “You used to like ‘em”, and walk away.  I would scoff and walk away myself.

Fast forward to 2004.  I had driven up to my parent’s house to visit her for the last time.  It was an extremely emotional visit, and at one point I had to go outside and catch my breath from all the crying.  I sat down on the swing and took a deep breath.  I noticed a black capped chickadee fly by and head to one of the feeders near the beach.  I watched his erratic little dance as he fed and swooped to a nearby tree.  Another one flew in and out and repeated the dance.  Soon, a white headed nuthatch joined the party and quickly I was overwhelmed with sense of calm and peace.  I smiled to myself and realized that THIS is what she was after and what this hobby provided, peace.

After my mom passed, I turned my backyard into a bird feeding oasis.  At one point I had 6 feeders, attracting goldfinches, nuthatches, woodpeckers, orioles, cardinals, purple finches, and at last count from that house, 20 other kinds of birds.  Some people thought I might be becoming slightly obsessed with the whole birding thing, but I tried to reassure them that I felt this was the best way to continue her memory in my head, to carry on something that she cared about.

So a week ago, I had an afternoon off.  I had made my lunch and had pulled the curtain on the kitchen door.  I noticed some movement in the shrubs off the patio and squinted in to see what was there.  It was a tiny bird and I was having some trouble getting a good look at him so I could identify him.  What ensued was a 90 minute battle of wits between him and I.  I sat at the doorwall patiently waiting to take a picture and remembered again my mom’s lesson about calm and peace.  I smiled and waited for him.

My Quarry

And there he is…the Green Flycatcher, native to the Great Basin area.

I think about my mom pretty much every day and am trying like hell to make sure my kids know what an amazing person she was.  She had so much to teach us, so much to share, I just hope I do her justice.  The title of this post is from a well known catholic hymn called “On Eagle’s Wings” that was played at her funeral.  It was one that we always used to sing together at church and the one that opened the proverbial flood gates for me at the funeral.

                                             “And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings,
                                             Bear you on the breath of dawn,
                                             Make you to shine like the sun,
                                             And hold you in the palm of His Hand”

Rest in Peace, mom, Rest in Peace.

Is there ever a bad day for golf?

Had a rare day off today.  So, I took advantage of it knowing full well that although it’s only October 27th, the holiday season is staring me right in the face.

I lazed around for a couple hours this morning after almost missing the school bus with Conner and Jake.  Got some new golf shoes and headed to Desert Willow Golf Course about 5 minutes from the house.  It’s a nice course…real short and catering more to the “experienced” golfer, i.e. retired folk.

I came to the conclusion on that round that there really isn’t a bad round of golf.  You can play poorly, get frustrated, curse and even throw clubs if you’re so inclined, but, it’s never BAD.  It was an absolutely gorgeous afternoon here in the Vegas Valley.  It was about 85 degrees, no clouds and just the whisper of a breeze.  How do you ever argue with a setup like that?

“It’s all about the family”

With regards to the overwhelming busyness that my family has encountered over the past month and a half, I thought I would update everyone with some pictures.  This will be part one of two as there are a few more items that I need to get stills for.  But this will do for now.

First is Jacob.  His baseball team is currently 1-1.  They played a great game last week.  As this was Jake’s first foray into any organized activity, we were pretty nervous.  But he is doing so great.  He walked and scored a run last week during the “Orange Crush’s” 10-6 victory.

 

Jacob taking the pitch

 

Jacob playing second base

Conner, as you know, is playing football.  The “Trojans” are 0-2 but have shown significant improvement over those two games.  This is Conner’s first year in football and he is on the 8 man team while the more experienced players are on an 11 man team.  Conner has gravitated towards the linebacker position and he is great at it.  He loves to hit and tackle and seems to be having a great time.  It’s a lot of hard work, but he has been sleeping like a baby and eating like a horse lately.

 

Conner on the very end with gloves

 

Conner : Post game relief

Last night was Christian’s symphonic band concert.  As far as junior high band concerts are concerned, this was one of the better ones.  He played Orchestra Chimes, Vibraphone, and suspended cymbals, and he has been making great strides in band.  Also, the previous week the marching band played at the high school football game.

 

Christian playing the orchestra chimes

I’m proud of all of my boys.  They are working so hard and I can’t wait to see what they will do tomorrow. Always an adventure!!