There's More Than One Way To Tell a Story

There's more than one way to tell a story.

For example, Randy just took me on a "surprise" vacation, which I could describe like this:

We left on motorcycle around 1 p.m. The sky was thick with smoke from neighboring forest fires. Even with the smoke the temperature pushed 95 degrees. I was uncomfortably hot in the jacket and helmet Randy insists I wear. Damn him for caring so much about my safety. As I struggled against the sweat and smoke, I cut my finger on a loose tooth of the jacket's zipper just as a bee flew into Randy's chest, somehow finding its way under his shirt. He had no choice but to kill it with his bare hands at 70 mph, but not before it sank its stinger multiple times into his chest. Shortly thereafter I heard a snap. One of our straps broke, sending a saddle bag flying into oncoming traffic. I looked back in time to see it explode all over the highway, along with all of its contents. Before we could land for the evening we ran out of gas in a town that had only one pump, which had been shut down for hours. (It was Sunday, after all.) We eventually found our way to a historic hotel, the kind with no TV or internet and creepy pictures of your great-grandparents on the bedroom walls. What kind of omen was it that we would literally be shaken out of bed the next morning? An earthquake. Rattling those creepy pictures on the wall. We should have seen that snowstorm coming...

Or I could describe the vacation like this:

Randy and I stopped on the side of the highway to take a selfie at the California/Oregon border. Sixteen months before he had flown to Philadelphia to meet me as my plane from Madrid landed on American soil. We went out for Philly cheesesteaks, making Pennsylvania the first U.S. state we had experienced together. Now, 16 months later, Oregon was officially our 16th state. What a season of adventure! We welcomed the cool air of Oregon. Skies were overcast and a bit rainy, a nice change from the California heat and drought. It also meant Sunriver, the resort where Randy had booked our stay, was much quieter than normal. It had the feel of having it all to ourselves. We didn't encounter a single canoe, kayak or paddleboard as we coasted down the Deschutes River, though some bikers along a nearby path did get to witness a flock of geese buzz our heads. We enjoyed the river so much we often paddled upstream so as to make our 3-mile journey last as long as possible. As we began our 2-day journey home we stopped to view Pauline Falls and were delighted by the few snowflakes that fluttered through the air. Delighted might not be the word to describe how we felt when we reached the visitor's center at Crater Lake National Park, however. Drenched. Colder than we've maybe ever been. But I soon discovered what an opportunity it was to show love. I was freezing when we got off the bike to run in for a cup of coffee. But when I saw that Randy too was uncomfortably cold, my attitude changed just as quickly from "I'm miserable" to "how can I make this easier for him." When I asked him what he needed he said he needed me to be okay. So I bought a fleece jacket for myself and two cups of coffee. As much as we were ready to check-in to Crater Lake Lodge and hunker down for the night, we quickly discussed it and decided what we really needed to do was to get off that mountain as soon as possible. Some of the other visitors told us the snow had just started and wasn't likely to stop anytime soon. Within a few hours we were clear of the mountain and even dry thanks to the 70 degree temps in Medford. When we finally did check in to a room for the night we met an older gentleman who told us of a 17-day motorcycle ride he took through Alaska. "It rained for 12 of them," he said. "My son was with me. I wouldn't change a thing." He obviously understood the beaming smiles on our faces from our latest adventure. 

All of the details from both versions are true. What's different is the attitude in which they are told. The first focuses on the negative, the discomfort, the "bad omens". The second focuses on the positive, on our relationship, on gratitude.

I am so grateful that Randy and I share the second focus. When we lost our saddle bag in the middle of traffic he wasn't even phased. When we ran out of gas it was an excuse to talk to the owner of the Saloon who just happens to keep a gallon of gas on hand. When we were safely down that snowy mountain Randy took the time to tell me that my calm strength and trust in him just made him fall a little deeper in love with me.

Reality is that we don't always get to choose when bad things, unexpected things, challenging things happen to us. But we always get to choose the attitude with which we confront them.

Love Doesn't Keep Score

Last night while we were watching the finale of Last Comic Standing, I got a cramp in the bottom of my foot. I was tempted to ask Randy to massage it for me and then I thought, "I should give him a foot massage."

When we were in Spain it was an everyday ritual for us to massage one another's feet. A necessary ritual, because 20 kilometers a day, with 40 pounds on your back, day after day (this sounds like a joke we'll tell our grandkids one day -- ending with "walking uphill in the snow with 5 euros to our name") takes its toll. But the foot massages since that trip haven't been nearly as frequent.

This is the part of the story that is important though -- I not only thought I should give Randy a foot massage, I actually gave Randy a foot massage.

How often do we think of nice things to do for our loved ones, or nice things to say, and never follow through? 

So without a word I grabbed Randy's foot and began to rub. He made some appreciative noises and said, "What did I do to deserve this?" And I responded, "Nothing."

Which is both true and not true.

Randy does special and ordinary things for me every single day. Which makes it easier for me to do special and ordinary things for him every single day. But the things he does aren't the reason I do the things I do. And the things I do aren't the reason he does the things he does. If they were, then they wouldn't be born of love, and the one of us would stop as soon as the other of us failed to follow through.

First Corinthians 13 says, "Love keeps no record of wrongs." Another version says, "Love doesn't keep score."

Some of you may have a chore chart on your refrigerator where your kids earn stars or smiley faces for following the rules, getting good grades, doing their chores or simply being nice. 

But sometimes I think we have the same kind of chart in mind for our partners. Each day we "keep score" of the things they did to make us feel loved by giving them smiley faces, and each day we scratch out those smiley faces with permanent markers when our feelings get hurt or we don't get what we need or think we deserve. Then how we treat our spouses at the end of the day depends on whether we've given them more smiley faces or more black marks. And our charts are nothing like Verizon where your minutes disappear at the end of each month, but more like Sprint where those things carry over for the lifetime of your marital contract. 

This way of loving is completely out of line with our Bible verse above. We may not agree with the new rules in tee-ball where no one keeps score and everyone wins. But that is exactly how God tells us to treat our marriages.

If you've found yourself attached to this idea of a chore chart for your marriage, I encourage you to do this: imagine (or create one if you are a visual person!) a smiley face next to your partner's name. Not just today, but every day. And don't wait until tomorrow to put that smiley face on his/her chart. Fill in that chart for the rest of the year with a smiley face, because love doesn't keep score, love is not easily angered, love always believes the best, and love never fails.

Today, as we remember 9/11/01, we are especially mindful of how important it is to tell the people we love how much they mean to us. But let's not relegate the lessons of that day to once a year. Let us honor September 11 by asking God to help us love our partners in this life every single day.

100 Yards of Faith

Last night Randy and I went to the movies to see "A Walk in the Woods," about two old guys who walk the Appalachian Trail. There were so many moments that brought up memories of our Camino, walking across Spain, 18 months ago.

The movie was hilarious. If Bill Bryson and his walking companion were anything like Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, it must have been a real trip.

SPOILER ALERT. Skip down to "My friend Mark" if you don't want to know how the movie ends!

But the ending seemed a big abrupt. And more than abrupt, a bit disappointing. Why? Because they didn't finish. After all they had been through, the mountains they had already climbed, the fears they had overcome, one day they just pack up and go home. And as an audience you feel let down. You were fighting for them, these two old, out of shape guys, and you wanted them to make it all 2,160 miles. Because if they could do it anyone could.

But the moral of the story was not that to win you have to finish. Maybe the moral is that to win you simply have to start.

My friend Mark began his walk across Spain in mid August, but had to return two weeks later to deal with some issues at home. Before walking my own Camino I might have seen this as a failure. But not today. Today I can see that he took the leap of faith needed to begin. And he learned so much in just two weeks! In his own words...

If I had to write a story about my Camino, the title would be "Do You Have 100 Yards of Faith?" Several times I was convinced I had taken a wrong turn and either backtracked or waited till I saw others for my answer. One time I was walking thru a forest and suddenly realized I was all alone. I stopped for at least 15 minutes, listening and watching. I heard nor saw no one. As soon as I started to go back, two guys came down the trail and I asked if this was the way. They said it must be, it was the only way they could see. So I started again in the direction I had been heading and not more than 100 yards down the path, at a bend in the trail, was a signpost. Wow. I stopped dead in my tracks. Overwhelmed by the realization that all He was asking of me, when I thought I was lost, was to have 100 more yards of faith. - Mark Kirkwood

We are rarely able to see the end from the beginning. In our marriages, our careers, our health, or other opportunities. For some, that is reason enough to quit in the middle, or to never even begin. For others, it is reason enough to look to friends, family, the world, even strangers to tell you if you are going the right direction.

But faith isn't knowing how it is all going to turn out. Faith is not knowing, but being willing to keep moving forward anyway.

So... Do you have 100 yards of faith?

"Making Time" for What's Important

Randy and I are very lucky. We get to spend tons of time with each other. We never have to "make time" because there is always time. Sure, he has 20 hour work days, but this time a year those don't happen more than once or twice a week. And I always have writing to do, but 6 hours of intense mental work is really the maximum my brain can do in a day. Which means on average we have 8 or more waking hours a day with each other.

Some of you would love to have that kind of time. Others would probably go nuts. But we cherish it. Maybe because our relationship has always been that way -- our first month together spending 24/7 walking and talking and eating and drinking and deciding who gets the top bunk and who gets the bottom.

But last week we were faced with the dilemma that most couples face -- having to "make time" for each other because our schedules were so jam-packed.

My brother was in town from Texas for work and arranged his schedule so he could stay with us for a few days. We had the most amazing time! Visiting museums, panning for gold, trying out new restaurants, introducing him to our local brewery, and ending each evening with a game of Parcheesi.

He stayed with us from Sunday to Wednesday, and then on Thursday I hopped on a plane and headed south to Newport Beach for two days of working and walking on the sand. I came home late Friday night and Randy had to get up early Saturday morning to cater a wedding. And then on Sunday he had to do wedding clean up and I had to meet my weekly writing deadline.

On paper there was no time for us to be together, just the two of us. And we could have easily said, 'no big deal, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled 8 hours a day together next week.' But we don't want to get into that kind of habit.

So, on Wednesday, when we took my brother to San Francisco in the morning to catch his flight home, we decided to stay in the city for the day. We wanted to give all of our attention to my brother's visit, and we hadn't worked the entire time that he was here. So there was plenty of work to go home to, but we decided it could wait another day. "We" were more important.

The decision was a fairly easy one to make initially, but it was harder to stick to when suddenly a deadline was breathing down my neck. While we were standing on Pier 39, listening to the sea lions bark, my supervisor emailed me asking if I could turn my work in on Friday instead of Sunday (the downside to email alerts on your smartphone!). The only way that would happen was for us to get in the car right then and head home. So for the first time in my 3 years of working with him I said "no." His response? "Okay. Sunday will be fine." How about that! No disappoint, no manipulation, no love lost. And Randy and I went on to enjoy our day together in San Francisco.

The next morning it was Randy's turn to have to choose between us and work. He wanted to take me to the airport even though he had a busy day of wedding prep. Tables and chairs and a dance floor were scheduled to be delivered to the wedding site and he planned on being there to receive it. They were supposed to come late morning, but moments before we were going to leave for the airport they called and said, "we'll be there in 5 minutes."

I told Randy I understood if he needed to go and I was fine to drive myself to the airport and leave the car there. I was only going to be gone for one night after all. "No," he said. "I want to drive you; I told you I would drive you, and I'm going to drive you." And he did.

While I am very happy to go back to our 8 hours a day together and not having to "make time" for our relationship, I'm glad that we were faced with this challenge and were able to show one another that our relationship really does come first.