A High Tolerance

“The good news is, you obviously have a high tolerance for pain,” said the orthopedic surgeon last Friday. I was happy he said it in front of my wife, Cyndi; anything that makes me look strong and manly in her eyes is a winner. He said it while analyzing my X-rays and calculating the angles of displacement in my knees. “The bad news is, also, that you have a high tolerance for pain. You’ve let this go on long enough.”

“Your left knee needs replacing; your right knee needed replacing now, as soon as possible, before the angle worsens and the ligament is stretched beyond easy repair.”

It’s comforting, actually, to get an authentic diagnosis from a professional based on real data, even when the result is surgery. It answers the questions in my head: Am I making this up? Do everyone’s knees feel like this and I’m just being a wuss about it?

The doctor gave his practiced speech with all the reasons why I should consider total knee replacement until he figured out I was already on board. In fact, I wouldn’t have been in his office if I hadn’t already committed to that plan. My worst case scenario heading into Friday was that he would send me home to come back next year.

We set an appointment for right knee replacement on June 24, and left knee replacement on July 22. Before then I have to see a physical therapist for a couple of times, and also get a CT scan so they can build a custom 3-D printed knee. How cool is that!

Needless to say, I won’t be riding the MS150 this summer. I don’t know about cycling in Ft. Davis for Cyclefest. I have no idea how quickly I can be back on my bike or putting in real miles.

However, don’t take that as a complaint. I’m ready for this next phase of life (knowing full well none of us are ever as ready as we think). I’m ready to discard what isn’t working and replace with something new. Living life means constantly shedding what we don’t need and accumulating what’s next. We learn new things and unlearn old things, embrace ideas for the future and shed artifacts from the past. We are constantly churning, usually ideas and practices, but occasionally body parts.

Here’s the thing: What haunted me after the doctor visit actually had nothing to do with knees. I wondered how often my “high tolerance for pain” caused problems. Maybe when I pretend to be tolerating pain I am simply avoiding confrontation, or glossing over serious problems. How often do I wait too long to fix something, hoping it will get better on its own?

There is more to tolerating than I first thought. At least I’ll have several weeks of recovering from surgery to think more about it.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Hope Dwells in Chaos

How many times have you heard or said, “I only wish things could return to normal.” As if there was such a time. As if there is such a thing as normal.

Yesterday I mistimed my elevator ride from the 19^th-floor to the basement, meaning instead of a peaceful quiet solitary ride all the way down we stopped four times to take on people. And to be honest, there was one gentleman already inside the elevator when I got in, so he had to stop five times. I interrupted his day.

If you hear someone joke that “no one in elevators talks to each other they just stare at the numbers” you are listening to a refugee from the 1990s. Nowadays everyone looks at their phone. Or, in the case of my building, they look out the elevator window to see what sort of weather awaits us outside.

But yesterday was different. For some reason, the elevator passengers started talking about how much they could’ve accomplished during the day if it weren’t for the interruptions. It was true for me as well. I had a long term study I hoped to make progress with, a temporary gas compressor installation south of Ozona and were we really making any money on the project, but I received a couple of emails from the home office that changed my day and my priority list. I didn’t get any work done on my original project.

But as I listened to the playful complaining on the elevator it occurred to me that the disruptions I worked on were more important, and solving them was more fruitful to the company. On my long trek to the parking garage I wondered: If it weren’t for interruptions would I even accomplish anything of significance?

Leonard Sweet wrote, “We should prize chaos more than order. Only chaos brings forth new ideas, new experiences, and new energies, because only chaos is open and receiving, ready for change.” (What Matters Most)

One of my favorite chapters from the Bible is Mark 5, and it tells about a series of interruptions woven together that made up Jesus’ day. Reading that chapter is a reminder that if it weren’t for interruptions we wouldn’t know much about Jesus actual ministry with people. The gospel writers didn’t write about day-to-day teaching, but wrote about the chaos that followed Jesus everywhere he went.

It has become a favorite phrase of mine, that “change adds energy,” and I rattle it off as if I have always known the truth of it, but it has taken most of my life to learn to stop resisting sudden changes to my perfect life plans.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t wallow in chaos. I don’t seek messes and I certainly don’t plan my life that way. In fact, I am always trying to sort through the chaos and find meaning, beat down the mess to find the true story, untangle the situations to locate the lesson that will help us all find our way through.

I also know that constant chaos is debilitating and draining. Even deadening. So we should find places and times for peace and rest if we want our lives to be effective.

It is in those moments of change, the transitions, the chaos, when the danger of making a mistake is the greatest, that we depend, finally, on God. During normal times, whatever that really means, there is no future. There is only more of the same old thing. The future hides in transition. Hopes dwells in the chaos.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

What Stories Do You Choose?

Last week I rode my bike on the White Rock Creek Trail located northeast of downtown Dallas, Texas. It was my first time to ride this entire trail, and my first time to circle the lake on a bike rather than on foot. After lunch on Friday I parked in the parking lot of Anderson Bonner Park, just south of 635, the northern trailhead, and changed into my cycling kit in the backseat of my Toyota Tacoma. Changing clothes in the car is something of a family identifier for us. Cyndi and I have changed into running gear in the parking lots of some very classy places. However, I must add, changing into cycling bibs and jersey was much harder than running shorts and T-shirt. There were several moments when I could have been arrested had anyone cared to look inside the tinted window.

My usual purpose for squeezing a run (or a ride) into a busy day is to reinforce an old memory. Memory is so fragile, and it changes over time in ways we aren’t aware, so I like to retrace old routes to reestablish the details.

It’s like rebuilding rock cairns on a mountain trail. They deteriorate over time, victims of weather, gravity, and animals, and they must be maintained to remain effective and mark the trail. It is the same with deep personal spiritual experiences. We have to reinforce them, remind ourselves they were real and not our imagination. If we don’t, they will deteriorate just like the rock cairns, victims of time, memory, and spiritual attack.

There are certain trails that I visit again and again, simply to rebuild the memories of a significant insight I had years ago. There are crossroads where I always stop and breathe the air and take in the view simply because God once spoke to me in that exact spot. There is even one trail in Prospect Park in Wheat Ridge Colorado where I once ran to reinforce my understanding of a friend; in this case, it was his spiritual encounter on the trial I was working on, not my own.

Penelope Lively wrote, “The memory that we live with is the moth-eaten version of our own past that each of us carries around, depends on. It is our ID; this is how we know who we are and where we have been.”

As a writer and as a teacher I often worry that I fall back on the same old stores time and time again. Surely I must be boring people in my repetition. Even worse, I find myself telling the same old stores to Cyndi, most often stores of our early days when we first fell in love with each other. And when I read back through old journals I am surprised how often I write about running at White Rock Lake or Lady Bird Trail, or about trips up the same old trails in the Guadalupe Mountains, or even the same stores from my Daily Bible. And, well, here I am, writing about those same things, again.

In his book, What Matters Most, Leonard Sweet wrote, “Just as the kinds of friends we choose decide the kind of person we become and the direction life takes, the stores we relate to most closely structure our identities. Some of the most important choices we make are our companion stories – the stories we choose to live with. It takes only a few basic stories, or what scholars call “deep structures,’ to organize human experiences.”

I suppose that’s why I love to write family stories. The more time I spend in them the more I see God at work in our lives. Each time I forage around in my old stories I reinforce the memory that God has been rescuing us all along.

What about you? What stories have you chosen to live with?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Who Would You Be If You Never Failed?

There are surprising advantages to growing older; each year is a slightly higher platform for viewing the past. And so, just last week, from my current vantage point on the threshold of turning 59, I captured a new picture of life. While listening to a Mosaic Podcast in which Hank Fortner spoke about faith and wisdom, I pondered a question he asked, one often used by motivational speakers and goal-setters: What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?

I thought about how personal failure has changed me and shaped our family’s life. I started making a list of what would have been different if I’d gone through life never failing.

Who would I be if I never failed? I …

…would be braver, knowing I couldn’t fail, but without the risk of failure what is the meaning of courage?

…would’ve never learned humility from having to start over being laid off so many times

…would believe our family destiny, safety, and success, depended solely on my economic decisions

…would’ve never experienced the restless heart that’s pulled me toward God

...wouldn’t have needed all those time-consuming and often painful training runs before each marathon

…would’ve succeeded in my first attempt at the Golden Yucca Marathon, never fully appreciating how difficult it was

…would’ve missed the deep spiritual meditations that came from those long training runs

…would have the same self-sufficiency I had when I was 20

…would’ve never experienced the strengthening, maturing, and seasoning, that comes from a failure-laden journey

…wouldn’t have sought out sages for wisdom and advice

…would still think success was all about me

…would have no patience with those who are suffering, for those who fail

…would have leaped up the corporate ladder moving to California, missing so many ministries and relationships in Midland

…wouldn’t know what it means to prepare

…would’ve jumped into teaching opportunities way too soon

…would’ve never needed, understood, or experienced forgiveness

…wouldn’t have learned to listen to advice

…would be worthless to anyone asking my advice

…would’ve never learned to give credit to others

…would’ve never learned to recognize bad advice

…would’ve never learned the details of why success happens

…would not understand or know risk; without risk there is no room for love, only conquest

…would’ve never learned that contingency plans are often better than original plans

…would’ve never learned how to learn

…would’ve never known anyone smarter than me

…would’ve never learned the joy of spontaneous improvisation in sticky situations

…would’ve never known how much I needed grace; never learned how to give grace away

We love to quote the movie, Apollo 13, “Failure is not an option,” but it’s wrong. Failure is not only a live option, it is a certainty. And if the oxygen tank in the Apollo 13 Service Module hadn’t failed, turning a moon landing into a rescue mission, NASA would never have had their “finest moment.”

But embracing the value of failure isn’t enough. Hank Fortner followed up his original question with this idea – that as Christ Followers safe in God’s embrace, failure shouldn’t scare us. A better question to ask ourselves would be: What would you do if you knew failure didn’t matter?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Reawakened

I wasn’t sold on skiing again; not even sure I wanted to try; afraid my arthritic knees would give out. And besides, our last ski trip was 15 years ago. I’d assumed skiing was behind me, something I used to do. But I couldn’t let the rest of my family go to Santa Fe without me, and our five-year-old granddaughter, Madden, was joining us for her first ski trip. How could I not be part of that? Everyone else including Madden skied three days, but I skied only the first day. I knew at the end of Saturday I was finished, and any further attempts would likely end in serious injury.

But what happened to Cyndi and me was surprising: this trip reawakened our love for skiing, and as we rode the lift together we started planning more family trips.

The reason for the surprise, at least for me, was how soon this reawakening followed a recent and pivotal conversation we had one noon at Rosa’s. The observation and question I usually hear is, “Why are you limping?” However, this time Cyndi’s sister, Tanya, asked, “Are you a candidate for knee replacement?”

“Yes.”

“When are you going to get it done? Why are you waiting?”

“I don’t know. I’m not ready to give up running, yet.” What I didn’t say, but knew, was that I’d only run six times since Thanksgiving, and none of those were pleasant. In truth, I’d given up running already.

Minimizing knee pain has informed almost every decision I’ve made in the past ten years. It’s kept me from doing fun things with Cyndi, like hiking in Verana or the Kalalau Trail. It’s pushed back too many of the dreams that once energized my life, and I want those dreams back.

I want to dream again of long dirt trails, of backpacking the Appalachian Trail or Continental Divide Trail, and as of this weekend, of family ski trips.

I’m fully aware that I may never run again after knee replacement, but I’m not completely convinced of that. We’ll see what happens. As Cyndi has noted, what I currently call running is “hardly running at all,” more like power walking, and surely I could keep doing that. My consistent prayer has been to ask God to remove the love of running from my heart whenever He thinks it is time. He hasn’t done that yet.

Thinking about knees and dreams has reminded me how important cycling has become. Not just as a form of vigorous exercise, which I love, but also as a vehicle for ambition and creativity. I need something in my life that pushes my own expectations. Carroll and Mark did me a big favor when they talked me into cycling, long before it was all I could do.

During one of my Santa Fe non-skiing days I was flipping through Penelope Lively’s excellent memoir, Dancing Fish and Ammonites, when I saw this comment about gardening: “The miraculous power of gardening: it evokes tomorrow, it is eternally forward-looking, it invites plans and ambitions, creativity, expectation.”

Her description of gardening is exactly how I want to live my life: forward-looking adventures, ambitions, creativity, and expectations. I want the important things in my life - work, sports, hobbies, ministries, and writing - to be forward-looking. I want to be engaged in things that make the future bigger, brighter, bolder, and smarter.

I want a life that spills over onto people and pushes them deeper into life. I know such a life can exist even with bad cranky knees, but thinking about new knees has reawakened me. It has leaned me forward. I can once again see on my horizon epic dreams of long distances and endurance adventures and moving on dirt with my guys.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

 I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Knowing When to Turn Back

Let’s just say that being a grandparent and being a grownup do not always have the same goals. Our plan for last Friday was to drive to Dallas, to DFW Airport, for an interview with Homeland Security for Trusted Traveler Program approval, and then on to Mansfield for the weekend to be part of our granddaughter Madden’s 5^th birthday party.

We left Midland at 6:30 AM, driving on slightly slick snowy roads, and made it around Loop 250 to I-20 feeling bold and confident. The road conditions were not excellent, but they were passable, and I drove 40 mph hoping for clear traveling ahead. Maybe we would catch up to the edge of this slow-moving storm which hadn’t yet reached Dallas or Ft. Worth.

Traffic was very light, and the right hand lane of I-20 was mostly clear. However, the wipers and defrosters wouldn’t keep up with ice on the windshield and we had to stop a couple of times to scrape if off. Luckily we had two ice scrapers, so Cyndi and I would jump out and scrape each sides of the windshield and then jump back in, like a NASCAR pit crew.

After we left Big Spring the road conditions quickly deteriorated. Apparently the snow plow driver that had cleared the lane from Midland stopped in Big Spring for breakfast. Even worse, the traffic volume doubled, mostly big trucks driving entirely too fast since they didn’t have their family on board and thought they were invulnerable.

Our son Byron texted that snow had started to fall in north Dallas, so our hopes of clear driving were over. We phoned daughter Katie who had driven to work on clear roads but was now watching it snow outside her office window.

At Coahoma we decided the appropriate grownup decision was to turn around and go back home. It had taken us 1-1/2 hours to drive 50 miles, and traffic was slowing down even more. We’d have to tell our little girl happy birthday on FaceTime.

The drive home gave me plenty of time to think about our decision to turn around and how it mirrored so many other decisions we make in life.

How do we know when to turn back or when to move forward in faith in spite of the circumstances? How do we know how far to push into adversity and keep going, or when the grownup decision is to cut our losses, minimize future risk, turn back and go home? Do we keep moving in the same direction until receiving a specific word, or sign, from God? What is the difference between acting in faith and simply being stubborn? Or stupid?

The movie Searching for Bobby Fischer has a famous line about winning at chess, “Don’t move until you see it.” That theory of decision making works well with my engineer mind, which never wants to start a project until I can see the entire path.

But my friend Gene Abel once called me out on that when I hesitated to take a teaching opportunity at Midland College. He said, “Berry you always want to be certain of the whole path before you take your first step. Sometimes you have to start moving in faith and see what happens.”

Knowing when to go and when to stay is never easy and never clear.

Cyndi and I made the correct decision to turn around and drive back home last Friday. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to make that trip when the weather gets better. However, most of life’s decisions are not so obvious.

I believe the more we know and understand God the clearer the answer will be, but I also suspect we’ll have to step out on many plans and issues before seeing the path. The good news is, God doesn’t leave us alone to decide. If we’re seeking His will and pursuing our relationship with Him daily, then I think our default reaction to a tough decision is to trust our own hearts, where God dwells and where He most often speaks.

When a straight path appears ahead of us, we should take it. Make the move. But be prepared to stop and turn around if necessary. It may be that little out-and-back jaunt was what God wanted from us all along.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

How Do You Play?

Do you do anything that you consider play? As adults, it’s difficult to find time for playing, but it is critical for long term happiness. I think playing is spiritual, also. So does one of my favorite writers, Leonard Sweet. In his book, The Well-Played Life, he wrote, “Some people fulfill themselves. Some people are full of themselves. Some people are just full of it. Disciples of Jesus are full of Christ. But we are mostly fully Christ when we are at play.”

Of course, it’s possible to play too much so that we ignore all our responsibilities, but that isn’t usually a problem … at least, not for the adults I know. For most of us it’s more likely we don’t play enough.

Today, Thursday, I played at noon. You may have heard reports of a crazy man cycling in the cold and wind on Mockingbird Street. Yes, that was me. I know, it was too cold for cycling, but being the stubborn guy that I am, I went anyway.

Here are the stats: 17.5 miles, 32*F, 23 mph wind from NNE (which means a head wind all the way home). It wasn’t my coldest ride of record. That was the Bike Club time trials in February 2012, when it was 28*F. But 32* is colder than I plan to ride again for a while. At least, until my fingers warm up.

And, I will admit, it wasn’t all about play. The only reason I rode today was so I could write about it. It follows in a long string of things I’ve done just so I could understand them better and write about them.

But that’s not all. Last Saturday I rode 51 miles, the furthest I’ve ridden in five months, and I felt great afterwards. I felt so strong and manly all I’ve wanted to do is get back on my bike and be even manlier.

I didn’t feel very manly riding east into the cold wind today at noon. And it didn’t feel like I was playing. It felt more like I didn’t have a choice but to keep spinning so I could get home and warm up.

However, for me cycling outside is play, no matter how harsh the conditions; cycling indoors on a trainer in a controlled environment is merely working out. One is play, the other is exercise. One feeds my heart and soul, the other strengthens my body.

A few years ago, when Cyndi was still teaching 5-th grade, she was working on a “Meet-the-Faculty” bulletin board in the front hallway of her school. She asked each teacher to list three dreams – as in, three places they dreamed of going someday, or three things they wanted to do, or people they wanted to meet, if time and money were no object.

Cyndi and I love these sorts of exercises. Not only do we get to dream and play together, we learn about each other all over again. But it was surprising to us that some of the teachers wouldn’t play along. They weren’t interested in having three dreams. They gave up dreaming years ago. It’s too bad they’ve forgotten how to play.

In his book This Running Life, Dr. George Sheehan wrote: “I discovered that play is an attitude as well as an action. That action is, of course, essential. Play must be a total activity, a purifying discipline that uses the body with passion and intensity and absorption. Without a playful attitude, work is labor, sex is lust, and religion is rules. But with play, work become craft, sex become love, and religion becomes the freedom to be a child in the kingdom.”

I believe finding time in our busy lives for play is crucial for our spiritual health. It doesn’t have to by cycling or running. It doesn’t have to be sports or games or adventures. It might be reading, or watching movies. It might be wrestling with your kids.

Having play time is one of the ways we leave room in our schedule for God to show up. It’s one of the few times our brains are relaxed enough to enjoy new ideas and hear new insights.

How about you? What do you do for play? How long has it been?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Having Fun in the Cold

I will admit I’m not always tough enough to ride in the cold wind. In February there are more days when I choose not to ride than when I choose to ride, especially when the temperature is in the 30’s. But around here the cold doesn’t last long; in fact, really cold days are rare, so taking on the weather is not a daily chore but an occasional fun adventure.

Which brings me to last Monday, a holiday, popularly known as President’s Day. It was the perfect day to organize a group bike ride since most of my cycling buddies had the day off and since most of us had already finished our obligatory weekend chores.

The Saturday and Sunday before had been sunny and in the 70’s and suitable for shorts and T-shirts, but when I woke up at 7:30 AM Monday morning I discovered it was 34*. I texted to my fellow cyclists, Cory and Brian: “34* Is morning still good?”

We bounced texts back and forth, none of us wanting to pull the plug on riding in the cold. Finally, I knew it was my duty to make the call since I was the oldest of the group. I texted: “OK. Let’s wait until noon.”

We met at my house at noon in all our cold weather gear. However, by delaying the start 3-1/2 hours we only gained 5* in warmth and now the wind was picking up so it was hard to know if we’d improved our situation. But we didn’t get all dressed up for nothing. We had to ride. And there is the rule of guys: Choose discomfort, even death, over looking bad.

Once we started riding, the cold wasn’t such a big problem. It was the wind. But the wind is always the main problem when cycling in West Texas, since we have no hills to climb. At Monday noon it was blowing from the north and west at 14 mph and increasing. We knew it wouldn’t let up until September.

Just before we left on our ride I saw a post from friend (and half-cousin-in-law) Michael, who said he was going golfing in shorts and a polo shirt, in Seattle. I posted back, “I am going cycling in all my cold-weather gear, in Texas.”

It was a great ride, and a prime reminder of why we do things together like this. We discussed Sunday’s Bible study lesson on prayer, learned of common career backgrounds as youth pastors, shared kid stories, shared a few cycling war stories, and made fun of our cycling friends who missed the ride.

Our northern friends might not consider what we did to be true cold-weather riding, but it was as cold as I plan to ride unless I buy lots more winter gear. Our southern friends might ask why we didn’t exercise inside instead, but, well, for me, riding on a stationary bike or running on a treadmill inside, no matter how bad the weather, is simply exercise ... a workout … it is just work.

But riding or running outside, even in the cold and wind, especially with friends who’ll share the discomfort, is play … an adventure … it’s fun.

And we don’t have to dig out our winter gear very often. If cold weather in Texas lasted for weeks, or for months, riding would lose all semblance of fun. But it doesn’t, so it is.

Later, that Monday night, I read from Christine Carter’s book, The Sweet Spot. “In today’s hyper-busy world, most people don’t rest or rejuvenate much. We don’t allow ourselves the “non-instrumental” activities in life.” Ms. Carter believes that because we don’t schedule fun into our lives we become less effective, less efficient, and grumpier over time.

I wrote in the margin of my book, “Today’s ride was fun, rejuvenating, and it made me happy. I’m feeling more effective and efficient already. I can’t wait to ride together in 100* this summer.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Who Are Your Influences?

“I’m jealous,” said John. “I want your library.” “It’s my favorite room in our house. I spend more time in there than anywhere else.”

I had cleaned it up for the party, but in truth, I like the fact that our library is always full of projects and mail and stacks of books and movies and computers. It may look like clutter, but if you squint your eyes it looks like a vibrant life.

I have been in the process of arranging and rearranging my books for the past year, one of my 2014 goals, but all I’ve done so far is make a mess. Since I keep adding to my collection, organizing is a dynamic target. I can’t decide which shelves should hold which topics, so I end up restacking my piles over and over. Maybe I should break down and use the Dewey Decimal System, or the Library of Congress system? Seems too structured, even for me.

And to be honest, this round of organizing is for my downstairs books only. Our house is full of books. The upstairs books have to fend for themselves. They should be happy they are still in the house and not given to Friends of the Library. At least two bookcases of children’s books in our hallway belong to Cyndi, not me. She has her own organizing project to look forward to.

My conversation with John took place last Friday at our annual Deacon’s Soup Night. I was standing in the front yard greeting guests and reminding them that we’d moved the party from the neighborhood clubhouse to our house across the street. John and his wife arrived before most of the other guests, meaning they had time to explore our house, although I’m not sure he made it past the library.

I could tell right away he was a fellow reader since he didn’t ask, “Have you read all those books?” but rather started immediately into common authors and topics, zooming in to Shaara, McCullough, and Ambrose.

We didn’t get to finish our conversation before Cyndi called me inside to get the party started – apparently the Deacons were getting restless – but I’m sure John and I will pick up where we left off now that we know we have books in common.

I used to worry that I’d read so many books but couldn’t remember specific details from very many. As British author Penelope Lively wrote, “I have emptied each of these into that insatiable vessel, the mind, and they are now lost somewhere within.” I thought I should have a better working memory of what I’d read. What happened to all that information?

But then I decided not to worry about that any more. I realized I don’t read as much for new information as to be influenced by other voices. I would guess the reading for information vs. reading for influence ratio is about 20/80. Again, from Ms. Lively, “A fair amount (of what we read), the significant amount, becomes that essential part of us – what we know and understand and think about above and beyond our own immediate concerns.”

So I pick authors and read all they’ve written, hoping their insights and skills will seep into my subconscious, and maybe someday when I am teaching or writing they will trickle back out.

I read Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Leonard Sweet, Phillip Yancey, Charles Swindoll, John Ortberg, and C. S. Lewis, to influence how I think about God and shape the way I talk about spiritual things.

I read Sara Miles and Anne Lamott to understand what Christianity looks like through the eyes of someone who lived most of their lives on the opposite side from me.

I read Steven Pressfield, Austin Kleon, Seth Godin, and Jon Acuff to open my eyes and my thoughts, to dream big about writing, and to finish what I start.

I read Calvin Trillin, Roy Blount, David Rakoff, and Mary Roach to remind myself a writer can be funny and entertaining no matter the topic as long as he tells the story well.

I read history and biography to put life in context. I read adventure books to enlarge my vision of what’s possible. I read cycling books to confirm my growing love for the sport and to learn how to write about it better. I read books about running and ultramarathons because I’m not yet ready to give up on those dream.

I’d love to hear who you read. I am always searching for my next influences, and I like reading new voices and young writers. Send me your list.

And feel free to come over and visit my library any time. Maybe you can influence how I go about arranging all these books.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Telling Stories

The stories my mom told me when I visited her in the Alzheimer’s Unit, they were usually from decades earlier, even back to her days leading girl’s camps in the 1960s. They were the stories her brain ran home to when it was no longer constrained by reason and a rational timeline. It was difficult to keep up in conversation when she moved forward and backward in time, but I was happy that her default stories were about ministry and family. Our stories, like our memories, are the ballast that keeps us from being tossed aside by illness, or toppled over by the resistance, or blown away by winds of fear.

Our stories define us. They communicate our heart. To say let me tell you my stories is to say let me tell you who I am and what I believe and what I think is important and who I love and where I’m headed, and all that. To know my stories is to know me. To know your stories is to know you.

Whenever we try to describe someone, the best way to do it is usually by telling a story. And just this week, while digging through past journals preparing for my next book, I rediscovered a great identity story.

One Monday evening in 2007, Cyndi I attended a jazz performance in Odessa. It was excellent. All four musicians were friends with my brother, Carroll, a phenomenal drummer himself, who lived in Austin at the time. After we got home I emailed him my observations about the music and the musicians. I should have picked up the phone as soon as I sent the email because I knew he would call right away. The first thing he said was, “No way I could read an email like that without phoning.”

We talked a long time about music and Carroll’s respect for the musicians we’d heard, and he told personal stories about knowing and playing with each of them.

I mentioned how Neal, the night’s drummer, played more melody than rhythm. Carroll knew exactly what I meant. He talked about how a drummer will take a long time setting up his kit just right. He’ll adjust and re-adjust drums and cymbals and stool until everything is millimeter perfect. “It’s part ritual, and part striving for excellence; nothing to get in the way of the music.” But he said Neal seemed to have his kit set differently every time he played. “If he backed his pickup against the curb so all his drums flew out on to the stage, he could sit down and play them where they landed and still be the best drummer you ever heard.” Carroll said, “Neal is so far above the rest of us he doesn’t even need drums.”

Now that was a great story. Not only did it tell me a lot about Neal, it also told me something about Carroll … and how Carroll thought of me, that he would tell such a drummer-specific story and expect me to get it.

Well, just this past Sunday night we watched a cool Jeep commercial during the Super Bowl; it featuring wild and beautiful places around the world with “This Land Is Your Land” playing in the background.

I posted: “This commercial moves my heart. With each passing year, I have more and more trouble distinguishing spirituality from geography, sense of place, and home. It all gets mixed up.”

What I meant to add but forgot, what I should have included, was this: But it isn’t enough to go places and see wonders. I want to come back home to my people and tell the story of where I’ve been, and share the lessons God showed me.

Telling the story is something I’ve been compelled to do my whole life. As the Psalmist wrote, “Come and hear, all of you who fear God; let me tell you what He has done for me.” (Psalm 66:16)

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.