Putting Two Cats In A Bag And Living To Tell About It

Today convenes the inaugural online meeting of the CAA.  As founder and President, I am happy that you have all chosen to attend.  As a nod to both brevity and my own crazy number obsession, we shall dispense with the planned recitation of our 7-step program for recovery, and get right to business.

Welcome to Conflict Avoiders Anonymous.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been averse to conflict.  My older brother and I never fought, even when he beaned me with a baseball in our back yard.  When kids mocked me with their time-tested “I’d rather be dead than red on the head” comments, I told them my mom dyed it for me to keep me in the witness protection program.  When the guys would break out the boxing gloves for a neighborhood Battle Royale, I would use them as puppets.  When I found myself accidentally enrolled in Speech and Debate my senior year in high school, I immediately signed up for the humorous duet competition.  My partner and I made it to the regional finals where we proudly earned second place.

Out of two teams.

But no debate.  Debate = Conflict, and I wanted none of that.

Fast-forward to Tuesday, May 10^th.  I sat in my hotel room, musing about what to post as my Facebook status.  Tell folks what I ate for dinner?  Pithy comment about my kids?  Proclaim my loyalty to the Oklahoma City Thunder?

For some reason, I skipped over all of those, and chose instead to share something totally innocuous.  You know.  Like announcing my support for the Presbyterian Church’s decision to permit the ordination of gays, lesbians, and transgender people.

For a brief moment, all sense fell out of my head and rolled under the bed.  I later found it curled up next to that list of stuff that conflict avoiders like me should never post on Facebook, including:

1. Homosexuality
2. Religion
3. War
4. Gun Control
5. Abortion
6. Welfare
7. Disparaging comments about one’s mother or Justin Beiber

And I had blended the top two.  Sheesh.

If you’re a regular reader to the blog, you’re probably thinking “but you talk about religion all the time?”

Sure.  But my God talk is akin to the job applicant who, when asked, “What’s your greatest weakness?” answers,

“I tend to expect too much of people.  I also have a hard time saying ‘no’.  Oh… and I almost forgot, sometimes I work too hard and get a bit too passionate about my job.”

Not too risky.

I usually talk about how God wants us to be more and do more and give more to help the little guy.  The folks on the margins of society.  Who can argue with that?

But here I was, sticking up for folks on the margins, and taking it a step further.   I was advocating for the rights of homosexuals to become pastors.  Not a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.  Openly gay folks.  Needless to say, my little post, accompanied with a link to the article outlining the church’s decision, garnered a bit of attention.

The first comment was from an atheist friend of mine giving a giant thumbs up.  The very next comment was from a Christian friend quoting scripture, which, if taken literally (and some argue ‘how else can you take it?”) explicitly calls homosexuality a sin.  Giant thumbs down.  It’s like I just put two cats in a paper sack.  Closed it.  And shook it.

Hard.

* Don’t you dare put anyone else in here.

The comments started rolling in.  Friends of mine who had never met each other were sounding off in one direction or another.  Expressing opinions.  Challenging each other.  But it wasn’t just them.  Some questions and comments were directed at me, and I was expected to respond.  To share my faith out in the open and explain the rationale for what I believe.  The musings of my soul.  My reason for living.

I should have posted about breakfast.

The debate eventually got to the heart of the matter.  Ultimately, it wasn’t about homophobia or left-wing liberals.  The debate was over a deep chasm of difference.  Allow me to over-simplify.

On one hand, there are those that read the Bible literally.  It is the Word of God.  Written by God.  The heart of God.  It is inerrant and infallible.  You may not like what it says, but if you believe in God, you must believe the book.  The Bible is where you go to find the right answers.  Then you pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide your life.

On the other hand, there are those that read the Bible as a book to be interpreted.  Written by Divinely inspired men.  But fallible men with a sinful nature.  A book that tells us as much about the time in which it was written as it tell us about God.  It is nuanced and confusing and contradictory at times.  The Bible is where you go to find the right questions to ask.  Then you pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide your life.

As you might imagine, these two views of the Bible produce very different interpretations about what is a sin, who should be able to get married, who should be able to lead a church, and how we should lead our lives.  And these interpretations tend to take root in our souls and become part of us.  So here was a debate, raging on Facebook, where, in some small way, people’s very sense of self was being challenged.  But settling this debate is not the point of my blog post today.

Comments continued to roll in, and opinions strengthened.  I got scared.  I closed my eyes and tried to go to my happy place.  But when I closed my eyes, I saw a little movie playing on the backs of my eyelids.

It was a screen, continuously populated with comments.  The venom increasing with every semi-anonymous post.  Clicks of “Like” and “Dislike” popping like gunfire.  Facebook then created a “Love” and “Hate” button.  But that wasn’t enough.  Soon appeared a “ Did your mom drop you on your head when you were a baby?” button.  Then lots of four-letter-word buttons.  Some posted that I should be the next Presbyterian Pope, if there was such a thing.  Others said that I was going straight to Hell.  In ALL CAPS.  With lots of exclamation points!!!! Then I replied that I’m OK with that, since, while hot, at least I could expect Hell to be tastefully decorated, with exceptional theater and a fantastic women’s softball league.  LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!!!!

But that was only in my head.

What appeared on screen was something much more civil.  It would have been easy for those commenting to launch into biting comments and personal attacks.  Instead the debate was about ideas.  No doubt the people behind many of the comments were fighting the urge to judge, because that is surely how I felt.  Reading someone’s position which was different from mine felt threatening.  But something kept me grounded.  Kept all of us grounded.

And that was the beauty of the comments that day.  A measured debate.  Honest, yet reflective.  Refusing to cross that line between weighing ideas and verbal warfare.  Each person leaving a tiny door open to the reality that none of us truly knows the answer.

Do I believe that anyone’s position was changed?  No.  But that wasn’t the point.

The point is that people, God’s people,  shared their hearts openly.  Willing to risk themselves without harming others.  Willing to defend the God they love, or the one they don’t believe exists.   Proving that in today’s hyper-sensitive, polarizing culture, there still exists a safe place for conflict avoiders like me.

Shelter under God’s umbrella if we choose love above all else.

Garage Sale Glory

This past weekend was Garage Sale Saturday in our neighborhood, and my wife was positively giddy.  But not for the reason you might expect.

There are people who are garage sale addicts.  They love to wake up early on a Saturday morning, visiting the homes of perfect strangers, combing through their junk in hopes of finding the perfect doily to slide under the life-sized porcelain cat they picked up for fifty cents the Saturday before.  But that’s not Gabby.

She loves hosting garage sales.

I know it’s hard for some of you to imagine.  If so, you’re probably like me.  A procrastinator.  Disorganized.  Blind to details.  Lists make you nervous.  Planning makes you nauseous.  I’m all that, coated with a delicious frosting of irrational sentimentality for every item I’ve ever owned.

Gabby is the exact opposite.  Streamlined.  Efficient.  Organized.  I once thought of buying her a label maker for Christmas, then stopped myself after having a nightmare of waking up to find all of my body parts appropriately tagged.

And the woman adores lists.  She’s the person who, if she completes a task that is not on her list, she will add it to the list just so she can cross it off.   Heck, she started keeping track of her favorite potential baby names sometime in high school.  Stored the journal in her night stand for well over a decade.  I presume this was so she could have it within arm’s reach just in case she had one of those “surprise births” you hear about on the Learning Channel.  The baby name list would have scared the daylights out of me when we were dating had I not been so distracted by the gleaming shelves in her refrigerator.

Garage sales are my Kryptonite.  But they are Gabby’s Nirvana.

Her preparations started months ago.  While you were busy decorating your Christmas tree, my wife was clearing some space in the garage as a holding pen for wayward household goods.  Since December, anytime she would walk through a room and stumble upon some item we rarely use, she would haul it out to the garage, banishing it to purgatory.  She would emerge with a wide grin and a double-dose of satisfaction, both for reducing the amount of nonsense in our house, and getting a jump on the spring sale.

This past Friday night, she shifted into high gear.  She disappeared into the garage wearing her “pricing uniform,” which consists of comfortable clothing, a colorful menagerie of Sharpies clipped to her shirt collar, and a roll of painter’s tape encircling her forearm – her bracelet of choice.

I have learned to stay away from her during this time.  I’ll never forget our first garage sale after we were married.  In Brady Bunch fashion, we had merged two households into one.  However, to look at our driveway, my belongings were the ugly stepchildren.  My La-Z-Boy was parked where our Ford Explorer usually sat.  It bore the signs of numerous sleepy Sundays watching football.  The upholstery was pregnant with so much snack residue that it could be boiled and strained to make a junk food soup.  It was now tagged with the blue tape.

Twenty bucks.

I screeched in horror.  My couch, selected when jewel tones were in fashion, was also marked for quick sale.  My artwork, side tables, and bedding all suffered a similar fate.  I looked to my dog, Dexter, to try and rally support for my protest to save long-cherished items, but he was busy nibbling away at the blue tape stuck to his right paw.  The sticker said $5, marked down from $10 due to his loss of bladder control during thunderstorms and his propensity to chew the wood trim by the back door.

Cute will only get you so far in my house.

I approached Gabby with caution, for fear I would emerge from our conversation with a “Free to a good home” label affixed to my forehead.

“Hey hon.  Why are we selling all of my stuff?” I said sheepishly.

“You mean OUR stuff,” she replied.

Huh?

I was lost.

“When we got married, MY stuff and YOUR stuff became community property.  OUR stuff.  So, WE are selling the things that just don’t fit.”

“But what if I want to sell OUR prom dress from 1987 or OUR 27 pairs of shoes?” I quipped.

“Then YOU will have to go get the items, bring them to the garage, get your own pricing tape and start labeling.”

Ouch.  Did I mention that I rarely do any actual work during garage sale time?

Gabby was only kidding, of course.  She took me aside and we had a good conversation about “stuff.” She asked me why I was so attached to all of my shiny and comfortable junk , and I regaled her with stories of fantastic naps, fabulous prices, and long searches for just the right this-or-that.

And when I was done with all of these stories, I realized that the items themselves still had little-to-no usefulness in our home.  They would be the eyesores and space hogs that never get used.  But now they could be used by someone else, who would find some practical value beyond stoking a memory or two every twelve to eighteen months.

Then I looked down and spotted a stray coffee mug that was the black sheep of the dinnerware set.  It bore no resemblance to any other cup, glass or plate in our home.  Now decorated with a stripe of blue tape reading “.25”.

I picked up my grandfather’s mug.  A reminder of a man whose visits to our house happily dotted my childhood memories.  I removed the tag and walked the mug back into the kitchen.  I have long since given away the Canary Yellow 1977 Lincoln Continental that he had given me.  A splendid car to be sure.  One that carried all of my college roommates on road trips.  Filled with great memories.  But I never had the space for it, and there were other family members who would treasure it and care for it more than I would.

But there was room for the cup.  It carries hot tea and a connection to a fun-loving, life-of-the-party man that helped shape who I am today.

Fast forward to this weekend.  Due to previous years of purging, there were scarcely any of my own items in the sale.  But Gabby had Jake and Audrey sift through their own toys and encouraged them to part with the ones that just didn’t matter anymore.

Jake gave away his Cozy Coupe.  The first “car” he ever owned.  Audrey parted ways with her pink scooter, complete with ultra-loud annoying music and spinning princesses.  This wasn’t easy for either of them.  But they were learning, little by little, that there’s value in pruning away the distractions of life.  The trinkets and treasures that keep us stuck in the past, fearful of the future, and ignoring the beautiful present that’s right in front of us.

On Monday morning, the kids and I sat on the floor of Audrey’s room.  The big sale was over.  Leftover items had been taken to Goodwill.  We had pocketed $82 and a couple of nice deck chairs that another family had all-too-hastily pitched into our post garage sale neighborhood refuse pile.

Some folks call it Dumpster Diving.  I call it “being Green.”

As we sat criss-cross-applesauce style, contemplating the lessons learned from the weekend, Jake asked,

“When can we plant the pretty bushes we bought with our garage sale money?”

Ah yes.  The next family project.  Planting bushes that will bear witness to many backyard baseball games and water balloon fights.  The ones that will probably outlive me.

I answered, “As soon as the ground dries out, Jake.”

And then we got back to the important stuff of life.  Leaning against the side of Audrey’s bed.  Listening to the rain hit the window.  Sitting with our arms wrapped around each other.  Staging my own dramatic reading of The Cat In The Hat.  Sipping from my favorite warm mug while the cool rain fell outside.

Pruning away the distractions.