Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

What is right?  What is good?  For me, I have always tried to not allow others actions to influence my resolve to do what is right.  So many times I see people (including myself from time to time) who choose to react to other people’s actions toward them.  I can’t say that this isn’t human nature, or even a basic law of physics, but is it right?

If I have a standard of living, then that standard is mine.  I chose it.  Standard is a funny word, in that it has two meanings.  The first came about in the 12^th century, which connected the words ‘stand’ and ‘hard,’ which literally means to stand fast or firm*.  This is where we get the term standard as it used today to describe a moral or ethical boundary.  I love this meaning, because it speaks to the nature of what standards should be in our lives.  They are boundaries that we are to set and hold fast to, no matter what comes our way.  I have a favorite saying that I coined during a particularly stressful time: “The sensible decision has already been made.  Anything outside of that decision is just insensible.” 

            I don’t mean that you can never change your mind, or that you can’t replace decisions you’ve made with better ones.  But, what I am saying is that if you have set in your heart a boundary or a standard while you were unemotional about the said topic, it is insensible to change it due to your circumstances only.  A standard is something you are to hold fast to.  The picture that is associated with this word, is a pole which has its foundation in the ground, set and secure.  The sole purpose of this pole is to signify that the position it is placed in is a rallying point for military forces.  When we stand firm in our decisions and chose not to be swayed by winds blowing us to and fro, we serve as a beacon, a rallying point for others to look to.

            I was recently reading the Bible and the Lord placed something upon my heart.  I was reading in Revelation (this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone  who attends Connections Church), specifically the letter to the church of Smyrna.  The Lord really started to show me that we, myself included, associate ‘doing the right thing’ with discomfort or cost.  Now, I am by no means saying that doing the right thing won’t cost, but perhaps I may paint it in a different picture for you.

            A man goes to the doctor complaining of a lump he has noticed on his abdomen along with other miscellaneous symptoms such as weight and hair loss.  The doctor biopsies the lump and when the results come back, they find the tumor to be malignant.  The doctor then offers the patient the proposed treatment saying, “We will have to operate on this immediately.  You’ll have to go under the knife, but I am confident that we can remove the entire thing.  But the sooner we do this, the better as the cancer is rerouting all of your nutrients from your body to the tumor, and the symptoms are just going to get worse.”             Most of us would probably take a day or two to process, alert loved ones, etc., but I am willing to bet that few of us would actually decline the doctor’s purposed treatment and hope the tumor goes away on its own.

            This picture so accurately describes what happens when we are at a crossroads, deciding whether to do what is right or wrong.  We’ve been presented with the facts and the ‘treatment’ and it is now up to us to make the call.  We can either choose to be operated on and remove the tumor from our lives so that things can be restored and placed back in working order, or, we can continue on, knowing the tumor is there and pretending like it’s not devastating our lives, killing us slowly.

            You see, the pain and the discomfort, and all of the other things we associate with doing the right thing, really should be associated with doing the wrong thing.  Sure, the operation, the knife, the anesthesia, etc., are all unpleasant processes, but in comparison to a tumor that is swallowing you whole, the pain is minute.  But we forget about that most of the time.  We focus on the pain of the knife and forget about the pain of dieing, and that is enough, most of the time, to divert us from getting the operation, from removing the tumor.

            Right is right is right.  Right may not be for you what it is for me and vice versa, but the right thing is right.  We all make mistakes and occasionally knowingly walk around with tumors, but I believe that if you are seeking to do what is right (and I mean really seeking), the fear of the knife dulls and you will give up the tumor freely.  Once you do, you become a beacon or a rallying point for all others who have not mustered the courage to face the knife.  You somehow stand apart from those who are riddled with cancer and stand for what they can choose to have also…what is right.

             Don’t allow the circumstances in your life to change you.  You are the person who sets the standards, and you are the person who is responsible for keeping them firmly in the ground.  All others will have to deal with their own tumors at their own time; so don’t let their symptoms effect you dealing with yours.  Choose today who you are and what you stand for, and let that beacon be a rallying point for others and ultimately, yourself.

*http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=standard&searchmode=none

Jesus, My Coping Mechanism

Ever since I have gone back to school (if that’s what you can call dropping everything I thought I was going to do and switching majors and schools) for counseling, I have unearthed things I had never meant to.  There is something about putting your ‘all’ into a matter that makes things come alive to you.  I truly think that I have found my niche and that this is what I was created for, because I can’t help but let it consume my thought life.  Mix that with the supernatural events that have been occurring and you have a neon blinking light that says “Jordan Lee, Go This Way!”

But what is truly interesting about this whole thing is the fact that in the process, I have begun to see what I am studying portrayed in the actual people in my life…namely, myself.  For example, in the midst of a conversation with my friend, Olivia, the other day, I realize that I was, through the course of conversation, deflecting.  So I said it: “I’m deflecting now.”  Thank God that I have friends like Olivia who can deal with me during my self-discovery and understand that I am a verbal processor and some of the things I say are in complete rhetoric.  But it is events like this that are just a byproduct of what I am ‘filling’ myself with, if you will.  In that same conversation, I started seeing not only the fact that I was deflecting in that scenario, but that I deflect in many settings in my life this same way.  It’s a coping mechanism.

Avoidance and conversion are my two mechanisms of choice, with a particular specialty in rationalism.  I don’t like to handle something I perceive to be outside of my own values or tolerance so I avoid the issue altogether, or converge it into something else in order to make it digestible, and then rationalize it on the way down.  Furthermore, as I am noticing this about myself, I realize that a coping mechanism doesn’t actually benefit you in any way.  It, in fact, creates the pretense that the issue I am facing is dealt with, or more importantly, never coming back, but yet it always does.  Unless you actually face the issue that is staring you down, all the coping mechanism really does is delay your confrontation for a while.  You see, herein lies the problem: now the power of my coping mechanism is unveiled.  I feel like Dorothy unveiling the Wizard of Oz…it’s all smoke and mirrors and altogether disappointing.  It’s like my conversation with Olivia, the power of deflecting is rendered powerless to deviate me from the issue when I see it for what it is: the prolonging of that issue that I didn’t want to face in the first place.

How then, am I to cope? If my coping mechanisms no longer work to deter me from the stress of facing the issue, which I deem to be intolerable, how then can I ever manage?  The answer?  Jesus.  The Bible says that He died to take all of my cares and burdens and in turn replaced it with His load that is easy and light… manageable, tolerable, digestible.

I am not going to lie, the mechanisms I’ve implemented and practiced for so long aren’t going to just disappear like a cheap magic trick.  I have to learn to spot and disarm them when I see them, and that takes time.  But the greatest thing about my discovery is the point of this whole article – I don’t have to be alone while doing it.  I don’t have to go searching for these issues and exterminate them one by one like some freak Freudian self-help book would have you do.  The Holy Spirit, who knows me better than I know myself, will do it with me.  He’ll be diligent to spot things when I am not, and He will be the one to give me the grace to overcome them. Then He will show it to me in doses I can tolerate until the problem is actually extinguished.

I’ve rearmed myself...locked and loaded.  Now, when something comes up that I don’t want to deal with or don’t think I have the capacity to deal with, I’m going to stick the Name of Jesus in front of me and let Him deal with it, which works out nicely for me.  I guess you could say it’s deflecting 2.0, although there is nothing about this new software download that prolongs my issues – just deals with them because it won’t pretend to make my problems disappear, they actually will.

Until next time, I’m upgraded and integrating…

The Birthday Experiment

Birthdays.  I have been ridiculed on a consistent basis for my views on this subject, due for the most part to the fact that I tend to extravagantly celebrate them.  I understand the argument against the matter; it’s just that I don’t agree with it, simply stated. 

            Ever since I was very young I have valued my own birthday.  I don’t believe that is uncommon.  What can be more exciting to a child than staying up past their bedtime, eating cake, and receiving boatloads of presents?  Really, nothing compares.  But as I have gotten older, I have realized that a birthday is much more than a party with fattening food and worthless, last minute gifts.  It is about having a celebration of life.  That may sound corny, but I believe that it is so true.   It is a time when you take inventory of the people in your life that are worth celebrating.

            I have recently concluded a yearlong experiment in regard to this subject.  Announced only to my family, I began to really search what I believe to be true on this matter via Facebook.  Now, I know what the reader is thinking here, most likely anyway; that this is a blog on the benefits of facebook.  Not to worry my skeptical friends, it is not so.  I simply used Facebook as a vehicle to find the truth.

            One year ago on my birthday, I started to tally all of the well wishes that I received and look at each one of them individually.  I realized that since I love being well wished, that surely everyone else does also.  So, on October 30, 2010, I stated silently, and just to myself, my scientific procedure.

1.The problem: What do I really value in my friends and do they mean enough to me to take time out of my day to wish them happy birthday, even if that is the only correspondence I have with them all year long?

2. The Hypothesis: If I cannot, or do not want to wish them a happy birthday, then they aren’t actually a friend and I should reconsider my relationship with them. 

3. The Procedure: I will wish every single one of my friends a happy birthday on their respective days for a year.

4. The Data:  I didn’t always get to do it on they’re actual birthday, but I did not miss one person all year long.  I received thank-yous from most people and even some private messages from others, and some people didn’t even acknowledge my posts at all.

5. The Conclusion:  No matter how people responded or who responded, the conclusion I drew was that I, not them, am somehow changed because of it.  The experiment forced me to log on to my facebook and think about other people first and examine, even if just for a minute, what those people meant to me.  It was really a humbling experience, because I realized that there are so many people who mean something to me in their own right and I have the privilege of helping them to celebrate their lives on their birthday—even though I may not be physically able to do so.  I think more than anything, it created a sort of continuity of humanity for me and has just strengthened my birthday convictions all the more. 

I have heard people say that birthdays come every year and that if you make too big of a deal of them, that you make them common.  I disagree; your birthday is the commemoration of another year of life that can be anything but common, especially in the present world we live in.  The other more frequent argument is that it is selfish and inconveniences everyone else to celebrate on such an excessive level.  Again, I wholeheartedly disagree.  If you have people who care about you, your life is not an inconvenience to them, and celebrating you as a person is anything but excessive.

            Wherever you are in life, you should take time to celebrate your birthday as well as the fact that there are people out there who care about you.  Your birthday should mark the life before you, not tally the life behind you.  Celebrate what has been done and hope for what is next!  A yearly reminder for you and all of your friends and family that you are a living, breathing human being with thoughts, dreams, wishes and hopes – there is no greater reason to celebrate than that!  No matter how big the celebration, or how few people attend it, you can celebrate that you are alive!

There's a Fly in My Room

I’d like to preface the subject of this blog with this tidbit of information, which I deem to be extremely relevant: I rarely spend time in my own bedroom.  I use it for its intended purpose, which is to sleep, change, and occasionally do laundry (stress occasionally).  With that said, I will proceed.

In my absence, there has been an invasion.  Now, I hold it to be self-evident that most people hate flies.  They are, afterall, part of the pestilence of Egypt. 

My 1^st Encounter:

Unassumingly I was lying in my own bed, somewhere between fully conscious and REM when I hear a faint buzzing in my ear.  I awaken to no tangible evidence of foul play and therefore chalk my experience up to a dream.  I now know that I was wrong, devastatingly so.

2^nd Encounter:

I awaken in the morning to the sound of light rain on the roof.  As I am laying there being lulled back to sleep by the steady beat, I hear it-the buzzing sound again and its getting closer and closer.  I frantically wave to and fro to locate the cause of this irritating sound and….whack!  The fly dive-bombed me!  It is then that I realize this fly has a death wish.

3^rd Encounter:

A day has gone by.  No word from the opposing force.  Unguarded and unaware, I descended to my room to sleep.  The noise.  The awful noise reminding me of my pesky problem arises in my ear.  Finally I see my attacker for the first time in my bed!  Assuming control of the void space in my room is one thing, but I equate this grievance to that of assuming a king’s throne!

Now it has occurred to me that this fly may have mistaken my absence in my room as the abdication of my throne.  Honestly, I can see that.  It’s not altogether absurd; it’s just not the reality of the case.

I asked myself, how long do these dastardly life forms live anyway?  I looked it up.  Two weeks to a month!  Oh no, no, no.  It is time for this imposter to go now.  Excuse me, cyberspace, I must go recapture my kingdom…where do we keep those fly swatters anyway?

A Little About Miss Little Green Eyes

I think every blogger starts their first blog with the exact same phrase..."I never thought I'd be blogging but..".  So in every effort to be unique and inspiring, I refuse to follow suite.  I'll jump right in, because let's face it, that is how I do most things in life.  I'm a jumper.  That is one thing I see through my little green eyes. Here's a look at some other things I see through them... 


I'm very intrinsic lately...even to the point of actually listening to and liking Coldplay, which yes, by the way, is to blame for my blog title, albeit highly ironic. 

I'm a lover of the comma.  Not that I am actually writing to anyone, but if you have happened upon my blog, you may notice my overuse of the punctuation.  I attribute that to voice and apologetically refuse to change.  Read the words, pause at the commas, and move on.  I hope we understand each other.

Jesus is my source.  He is my everything.  From the breath that I breathe to the dreams that I dream, He is there with me, moving, guiding, changing, reshaping.  You can't separate me from Him.  If you see me, you see what He has done with and in spite of me.

Office supply stores are like my Disney World.  I have literally spent hours of my time touching, feeling, oo-ing, awe-ing in those stores.  There are so many gadgets and things I can touch...it's a kinesthetic's dream.

Lastly, Starbucks.  It's liquid sleep.  How can anyone say 'no' to that?  Is it an unsafe, addictive drug?  My question is, who cares?

So, this is my first blog.  It's a little all over the place, but then again, so am I.  It fits me. I think I shall blog again soon.