Thank you for your service

Costco Wholesale Warehouse is an absolute gold mine around lunch time. Vendors set up 
tables all over the mammoth store, hawking all sorts of samples ranging from vitamin juice 
shots to mini crab cakes. I used to make sure that I would go there with the kids so that we 
would have at least one day when we didn’t have to meal plan.

    
I don’t shop there all the time because we simply can’t afford to. Not that the prices are bad, 
it’s just that I don’t know when to stop. Instead, I will go every month or so to stock up on bulk 
supplies of juice boxes, salsa, pizza rolls, peanut butter, and whatever items I am convinced 
that my family cannot live without. 

     
Perhaps the biggest, if only, drawback to Costco is that it is always crowded. Every aisle is 
clogged with shoppers pushing oversized carts full of their choice of essential goods and, 
while no one is necessarily rude about the rules of the road, it can get pretty dicey navigating 
tight corners and attempting to cross from the snacks to the pasta section. 

    
Whenever I encounter an aisle that’s a little too congested for my comfort, I will backtrack and 
take an alternative route, as if I have some secret shortcut that no one else knows about. Not 
long ago when I was shopping for the next few week’s worth of supplies, as I wheeled my cart 
filled with a 120-count box of granola bars and enough gummy bears to choke a small elephant, 
I encountered a roadblock that had me quickly throwing it into reverse into a detour down the 
next aisle. It contained socks and men’s off brand running shoes, so it was a much safer 
passage.

     
Rounding the corner that would allow me to bypass this latest obstruction, I paused for a 
moment to take in exactly who it was that had caused this latest inconvenience. There in the 
middle of the adjacent aisle was an older gentleman, possibly in his 80’s, hunched slightly at 
the waist and using his shopping cart as a walker. He was traveling at the speed of slow, which 
for him was just fine because he was in absolutely no hurry at all. 

     
On his head he wore a baseball cap, one of those military hats that veterans of wars and armed 
conflicts wear with obvious pride. The insignia on the front told me that he had served in the 
Korean War. My grandfather operated the radio on a B25 bomber during World War 2 in the 
Pacific theater and I knew all about those islands he flew over and the enemy he fought.

I have read books about Guadalcanal and Bougainville and other exotic sounding places where 
our American GI’s fought tooth and nail against the Japanese for what amount to nothing more 
than isolated plots of land made mostly of coral. On these islands we began to win the war 
against Japan, keeping them from overtaking Australia and the rest of the Pacific region. My 
grandfather never spoke much about his time over there, but I know he must have seen and 
experienced some incredible, and horrific, things.

The war in Korea I admittedly knew very little about. I know that we tried to help South Korea 
hold the communists at bay and eventually were successful in doing so, but that’s really about 
it. Nevertheless, I have a great amount of respect for anyone who has served this country in the 
military and I learned a long time ago that it was a good and right act to thank those servicemen 
face-to-face whenever you saw them. Especially if they were wearing those special kind of hats. 

As this elderly hero made his way down the aisle, I purposefully stood in his way so that I could 
garner his attention. I wasn’t all that concerned that he would run me over with his cart because 
of his lack of momentum, but I was careful all the same to watch out for my toes. Right as he was 
about to bump my cart, he stopped and looked up, staring me straight in the eyes. I quickly 
gathered myself and told him in the strongest voice I could muster, “Thank you for your service.” 

Without missing a beat, he replied, “It was my honor to serve you and my country and, if I had 
the chance, I would storm the border of Korea all over again in order to make sure that you 
stayed safe.” Instantly I felt my eyes start to sweat and any response that I could have made 
was stuck in my throat as if I was choking on a piece of steak.

Mesmerized by his response, I stood frozen in place, unable to reply. Here was this weathered 
and worn veteran who could no longer tie his own shoes, now declaring his desire to re-defend 
this country if that’s what it took. Shaking off my stupor, I was finally able to feebly respond to 
him, thanking him again for his service, words which now seemed pathetically inadequate. This 
genuine hero offered a satisfied smile and began to shuffle on his way towards the peanut 
butter and honey section. I in turn quickly turned my cart in the other direction to head toward 
the ice cream and fruit punch.

As I padded my way, avoiding more carts and the glut of consumers, I could not help but admit 
with a bit of sadness that they simply don’t make men like that anymore.

Give me those old time relationships

When I was a kid the world around me was unique and often intimidating. The mall where my parent's shopped was this huge complex of endless stores and easy places for kids like me to get lost. Fast food restaurants were exotic stops reserved for special occasions where I could peek over the counter as the workers whipped up a milkshake for me while steaming hot fries awaited me beside a fresh made burger. Even my backyard appeared as big as a football field on which I could wear my little self out everyday running and playing with my brothers and my friends.

As easy as it is to romanticize about the "good old days," it's also easy to realize that those places and events weren't so exquisite as I once believed. I can now walk from one end of the mall to the other in a matter of minutes and there are virtually no stores in which I would choose to venture, much less get lost in. Those milkshakes, fries, and burgers are certainly not a treat anymore and the older I get the more I realize that meals from those places did not constitute special occasions; rather, they were convenience stops when life got too busy or mom had not gone grocery shopping yet. That old backyard is still pretty awesome, but it's really more the size of a tennis court than an NFL stadium.

Perspective is everything when it comes to assessing the experiences from our youth. I still choose to romanticize those early days of my existence because those times were so essential to my formation as a young man. Even when those good old days turn out to be not as sacred as I remember, I still find benefit from clinging to a version of the past that causes me to pause and smile, pondering simpler times and experiences that appeared bigger than life. No harm in that, right?

Don't you wish all of life's experiences were that way? Unfortunately, reality has a way of smacking you in the face as you approach adulthood and you realize at some point that living in the past isn't going to get you all that far. This doesn't mean that you have to grow up as a cynic - life is still pretty sweet and the new experiences that you face everyday can be just as good as the ones in your past, ones that you will probably romanticize about ten or twenty years down the road.

Some of my fondest memories are of sitting beside my grandfather on hard wooden pews in a small Baptist church as he gently nudged me to stop fidgeting during the sermon and then listening to his deep baritone voice as he belted out the chorus to I Surrender at the altar call. I don't remember all that much about the content of what I heard or the organizational structure of that little church, but I do remember the people there and how special they made my experiences in Sunday School and at church fellowships. It was those humble beginnings that fueled the fire within me to serve the Lord full-time in vocational Christian ministry.

As good as those times were, I knew that they could not last. Today, that little church is a shell of what it used to be. Most of those congregants from my early days there have either moved on or gone home to the Lord, while the church never was able to move on beyond those simpler times in the 1970's. Those traditional ways were eventually eclipsed by the inevitable shift in our culture with people today preferring a more modern approach to their Sunday experience. Debates have been raging for decades over whether the traditional style church has its place anymore or whether the contemporary structure is what we should all embrace.

Yet if we take a really close look at what is going on in the churches around us, we will see that it's not really about stye or structural changes that are getting people all worked up. Instead, it is the radical change in relationships that so many are experiencing as life gets more complicated and families have less and less time.

Today, people are hungry for real "I-get-you-and-you-get-me" relationships - but they always have been. That's what held that little Baptist church together for all those years, the men and women who "did life together" and invested so much time in each other. Having the pastor preach a sermon that was rooted in the truth of God's word was and still is essential, but even when he had an "off day" those members still had their community rooted in faith to stand upon.

Those memories of people who loved and invested in me are the ones that I cherish the most but they also remain my deepest desires. I honestly no longer have all that much of a preference of style when it comes to church because I believe that when the men and women of God are seeking His face above all else and intentionally engaging in meaningful relationships with one another, all of that pans out in the end. I'm not so sure that we need to "rethink church" or craft newer expressions of worship. Maybe it's as simple as reevaluating the relationships that we have with each other regardless of the size of our gathering. When Christ is central and we are seeking to meet the needs of each other, I will romanticize about that all day.

The good old days are alive and well

Yesterday Chris Cornell, an icon from my younger days as a seeker of real music, died. I remember when his band Soundgarden first came out with their heavy, grimy guitar riffs and his unmistakable voice driving their songs all along the spectrum of vocal abilities - it blew my mind! I will admit that my air guitar game was strong in those days. The early 1990's were a time when bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Stone Temple Pilots were swooping in to rescue all of us from the nefarious clutches of hair metal and the really bad 1980's electronic stuff that they tried to pass off as music. I'm not too biased, am I?

As I get older I will inevitably experience the loss of those who not only entertained me in my younger years but also those whom I knew personally. Many of my friends have lost one or both parents and all of my grandparents have already passed on. Every once in a while social media lets me know that someone I knew in high school or college has succumbed to cancer or died from some other cause. Every single time that happens I pause and reflect, trying to conjure up memories of these old friends and acquaintances from places in the far corners of my mind.

This is not intended to be a sad or depressing post. Rather, this is celebration of memories if not all out nostalgia. I find my self consistently referring to the experiences of my younger years as I converse with my children (can you feel their eyes rolling through your computer screen?), realizing that I have become "one of those" adults who believes that everything was not only simpler but better back in the day.

It's not that I - nor any of my contemporaries - are going kicking and screaming into the future. I love today's technology and depend upon it just as much as today's generation does. The fact that I haven't had to walk across the room to manually turn the television channel in years has been life-changing for me. My life today has the ability to be so much more efficient than it was when I had to write all of my college and grad school papers on an electric typewriter. Can you imagine trying to type anything today without spell check?

But I have to admit, my fondest memories come from when I was younger and life for me WAS simpler. Sure, I didn't have to carry the weight of a job or family responsibilities (which I love, by the way), but the whole process of experiencing life for the first time was exhilarating. My mind wasn't cluttered with worries and anxieties like it sometimes is today, and relationships were at the forefront of everything that I pursued. That's why when I read of someone from my younger years passing on, it causes me to stop in my tracks to reflect on what, for me, will always be the good old days.

There is no doubt about it, life is short. I recently turned 47 and I can't believe how stinking old I am. Yet instead of living in the past, I relish seeing my own children create their own futures right before my eyes. Other than leading a life that points my children to the truth of Jesus, my highest goal is to live in the moment with them as they experience relationships, heart aches, achievements, and failures. As sad as it can be to see others from my childhood pass on from this earth, it's even more exciting to watch my own children and those around me blaze their own trails into the future.

Oh, one more thing. Today's music can't hold a candle to the songs of the 1990's. Thank you Chris Cornell for the memories and for Eddie Vedder and the other remaining old rockers who are still keeping it real for us today.

What the 1980's are teaching us about our future

What is going on with all this retro stuff that America is going crazy with? Everywhere you look, someone is trying to kick it old school and go back in time. There is the 1980's-ET-sythesizer-inspired Stranger Things show on Netflix (which is awesome, by the way) that pretty much everyone I know who graduated high school in the 1980's is gaga about. The newer Progressive insurance commercials are all now filmed as retro 1970's spots. Then there are movies - how many remakes of older movies are we gonna see? Hello Ghostbusters and Poltergeist, not to mention War Games, Commando, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids which are just a few that are in the process of being remade.

And oh my word, there are the clothing and music styles. The 1980's absolutely haunt me at times, not because it was such a bad decade but because my style was so pitiful. I had hair then, amazing blonde hair with a natural wave to it. But I parted that hair down the middle and heavily hair sprayed it, preserving for decades horrific yearbook images that I still can't escape.

And yes, I owned and often wore a pair of acid washed jeans. I even tight rolled them at the bottom as I paired them with my favorite Stan Smith Adidas shoes. And yes, my musical tastes were often driven by synthesizers, although I did buck the trend by dabbling in some punk rock music and what became known as early alternative rock. Sounds and looks a lot like today, huh?

Why do find ourselves coming to roost in the nostalgia of the past so often? When we get all caught up in reminiscing about how amazing the past was, what we are doing is looking negatively at our NOW while believing that we really had it figured out in our PAST. And there is nothing wrong with reveling in the past, as long as you don't convince yourself that nothing in the future could ever be better. If we can't do that, then we are guilty of violating the golden rule of history: Learn from it or you are doomed to repeat it.

Nostalgia should fuel our desire to do greater things, not keep up mired in mediocrity. I sincerely believe that many of us are paralyzed by the shrines of the past that we so readily build. But what if we could take what the past has taught us and use it to propel us to make our future memories better than what history could ever teach us? Can we even do this?

God's word says that we can. Psalm 119:92-93 tells us, "If Your instruction had not been my delight, I would have died in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts, for You have given me life through them." The guy who wrote this is happily reminded just how much he has learned from the past and how grateful he is that what God had formulated in eternity had changed the course of his life in the future. The past can be awesome, but only if it causes us to go further and deeper and greater into the future. If not, then all we are left with are just some stale memories and an inability to move beyond the equivalent of high school greatness.

Brush the dust off of your letter jacket and put your cassette player away. Stop waiting for MTV to actually play music videos again. What God has in mind for your future could be amazing if you will only let Him have his way.

Summer Memories: The pool

I didn't sleep in much during the summers when I was a kid, not when there was so much to do each day. From the moment I finished my bowl of Froot Loops in the morning until the sun went down and I knew to come home when I heard my mom hollering for me, summers were made for playing outside. My neighborhood was filled with other kids close to my age, so there was never a shortage on things to do and places to explore.

But without a doubt my fondest summer memories involved the Sandihill Swimming Pool that we joined when I was in kindergarten. Sandihill was unlike any other swimming pool on the planet. It wasn't Olympic size or some luxurious, gated private club. Instead, it was a pool tucked away in a neighborhood next to ours that felt like the best kept secret.

What made that pool so special was the people and the memories that were made there. It was there that I learned to swim, not because I took lessons but rather because I jumped into the shallow end one day and figured it out. Every fifty minutes the lifeguards would blow their whistles and shout, "Kids out!" which was the open invitation to our parents to take over the pool. All of us kids would sit on the edge of the pool counting down those eternity-long ten minutes until the lifeguards would blow their whistles again and we would crash the party while the adults would frantically swim for the ladders to avoid the onslaught of bodies.

The snack bar at Sandihill was always stocked with the unhealthiest of options that parents today would never dream of feeding their children. Frozen burgers and pizza slices were heated up in a dial-operated microwave, to be topped off with Big Otis ice cream sandwiches, Boston Baked Bean candies, and Lemon Heads which in turn were all washed down with Sunkist soda from the drink machine. Somewhere in the corner a radio would be playing an endless loop of classic rock music where the cooler older teenagers would be hanging out around the picnic tables.  

If my brothers and I didn't have a ride to the pool, we would pony up on our light blue ten speed bikes and pedal the short - but dangerous - distance on Bolton Street, avoiding oncoming traffic and trying to maneuver properly with goggles around our necks and towels trailing in the wind. There was no bike rack at Sandihill, just a mesh of bikes strewn all over the front lawn, abandoned in a hurry to be the first one in the water. If you were late, you might miss the first game of sharks and minnows in the deep end.

Thursday's the pool was reserved for swim meets. I wasn't allowed to join the team because I had a heart condition, but that didn't keep me from being a lane judge or raiding the cooler that mom would pack for my brothers and eating all their snacks while they were swimming their races. The best part were the pool parties that would take place the nights of those meets where we would cook out, fight for greased watermelons, and dive for 50 cent pieces in the 14-foot diving area while our ear drums rebelled against the water pressure. 

Nighttime was my favorite time to swim because I would usually have the place to myself. Sometimes after dinner, mom and dad would pack up the leftovers in Tupperware containers and take them to the lifeguards, who in turn gave me and my brothers free rein of the pool while they chowed down on meatloaf and mashed potatoes. A full belly often made up for their frustration of having the work the evening shift while all their friends were out on the town. When the lights in the pool came on, we would dive for quarters and nickels at the bottom of the deep end, imagining we were Jaques Cousteau finding treasure on the ocean floor.

35 years later, life doesn't seem as simple as it did when I was kid swimming at the pool almost every day. Yet there are those moments when I see that same glimmer in the eyes of my own children as they splash around our little neighborhood pool with their friends and play hide-and-seek in the neighborhood long after the sun has gone down. And there are still those moments when I find that I can't resist the urge to play sharks and minnows or dive for coins that might be enough to buy a Coke in the machine, yet to the imagination of a little one is the next best thing to buried treasure.