Lie like a rug on a floor

I have taught high school for 7 years now. Before that I worked youth camps, and with youth groups at churches, etc. I know kids lie. I know that sometimes they lie, how most adults casually tell the time, or make a brief comment on the nice weather. So, I can't say I am shocked when my kids lie to me about piddly little things. But, I can't say that it doesn't bother me. I guess I should feel good, that my opinion of them matters to them, so they lie thinking that this will keep me from thinking badly of them. It isn't only kids of mine who do this. I am sure we all have a friend, or a family member who lies to us to keep the status quo ,and we simply breath an awkward sigh, or close our eyes slowly, deliberately as we listen to it slip through their lips. I guess what bothers me about it, is that when we lie to those we are close to, it drives a wedge between us. Without us knowing it we are placing barriers that keep us from relating to one another, keep us from helping one another. The conversations become more stuttered, less frequent. We find excuses to ignore and walk away.

I know my kids lie to me about drinking, doing drugs, slutting around because they know I won't approve. They probably worry I would tell their parents, and I maybe would. But it is such an empty feeling that lingers when someone we care about lies to us. That emptiness shovels out a hole inside us and wallows in it. It makes us question the motives, the moments prior we have spent with these people. It makes the relationship (no matter platonic, romantic, etc) seem cheap and false.

It is also so disheartening because I think we want so much for those we care about. I know that I want so much for my kids. I see them and think that they are so much more talented and capable than I was at their age, but they often seem so content to settle for mediocrity, rather than push for something meaningful and inspired. They would rather get drunk, than feel or deal with the emptiness inside them. They would rather be with the hateful girl or guy instead of learning how to be alone. It's as if they can't see the forest for the trees. If they could only see farther, out past the mire and muck of their now, past the thickets, the trash heaps, the burnt edges of their life, to what lies out there for them. If they could see the beauty in the process, the beauty in the possible and unknown, then maybe they would be willing to do the work to build something more sustainable for themselves, even if it was different, uneasy at first. I guess this is a little of what God feels for us, while watching us fumble and meander our way to him...a brief wisp of the worry and disappointment we surely cause.

So I hope we all have the courage to tell the truth, and tell it straight...not slanted. That we can all own up to the things we do, the struggles we battle with, the pure hedonism we revel in. At least then it is out there on the table, with the potential to be dealt with. otherwise it is just like the empty noise of a bag rustling in the wind...meaningless and trite.

Walk The Line, Maim for those you love.

I was watching Walk the Line this week. It happens to probably be my most favorite movie in the world. I don't know how many times I have watched it. I have even shown it (parts of it) in class at times to prove a point, illustrate something, etc. It is an engrossing movie.

There are many parts of the movie I love. There are little things, like a certain look Reese Witherspoon gives when angry that reminds me of my wife, or a lull in conversation that happens after a flirtatious jokes. It has a certain balance of realness and whimsy. I always like things that have a balance between reality and whimsy.

There is one part in particular that stands out to me. In fact, I will not tell a lie, when I saw the movie in the theater (twice) this scene got me a little misty eyed. It is just after Johnny Cash has had his breakdown with the tractor. June has drug him out of the lake and he tells her that "she should have just left him there." Her parents and her get him into detox and stay there at the house with him to look after him. Johnny's drug pusher, pill delivery boy comes to make his weekly drop off. He goes onto the porch, calls for Johnny with his stash of pills, and out comes Papa Carter (June's dad) telling him to leave, pointing a shotgun right between his eyeballs. Mother Maybelle comes out with her shotgun, June runs out behind her, and they chase the pill devil off...I love that scene.

I haven't always understood friendship, or how to make good friends, or how to make the right type of close friends. I wasn't terribly close to lots of people growing up. I had friends, but I often felt awkward around them. They were good friends to me, but I had a hard time not being on guard. I didn't know how to talk to people. I worried that being myself, would equate to not being with others. So, when I would be myself, I would worry about what effect that had, and when I was censoring what I said, or being totally over the top with what I said on purpose, that ended up not being genuine either. It is hard to be really close to people and not be genuine. I don't know why I felt like that, but I did. Needless to say, closeness, close friends who share in my life with me, was something I always longed for, but took quite a bit of time to figuring out how to gain it.

I enjoy that part of the movie so much, because I think it is how friendship was intended to be. Maybe even on a bigger scale, how God intended us to care for and love each other. I know that probably seems strange to say that God wants this from us, to say that God wants us to take a shotgun and threaten to maim someone. However, if their intention was solely to help out Johnny, to make evil flee, to do whatever it took to help him get beyond his addiction, then they did it.

I think it is hard for people to find closeness, friendships, and relationships where we would maim for those we care about. It requires us to be very honest about all our insecurities, our flaws. It means Johnny had to stop hiding his pill popping from the one person he didn't want to disappoint. It means that we may say the wrong things to and in front of people we care about. We will show our childish selves, we will not hide our pettiness, our strange tics, how we clean when nervous, or interrupt others stories when feeling left out. To have true closeness with someone, you have to share experiences that are hard to handle,and be willing to open up the painful stuff to them. It is almost like we just take our suitcase of a heart and open it up and dump it out and say here is all my crap--pick through it and at it. This is obviously true for romantic relationships, but it is true of friendship too.

It is also hard because real friends will call you on your crap. They will point out you interrupted them, they will point out that you seem emotionally unbalanced, they will point out that you weren't wronged in the manner you spoke of. And that is good too. If the federal government needs checks and balances, I am sure I do as well. But it is hard to hear from people we care about that we messed up, or that we said or did something stupid. When it happens, its as if we are deer caught in headlights and we just want to bound off away from the scene. In Ecclesiastes it says, "If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" That is a pretty depressing book in the old testament, and even the author could see the fruit of friendship, even if everything else was simple toiling in the dust.

I am lucky to have friendships like this. Sometimes I still find myself shrinking away from them, wondering if I seemed lame after a joke I made, or if I seemed needy when I texted over something trivial, but I have learned that friends don't think those things about me like I do, just like I don't think those things about them. Although having closeness with people, is like taking your suitcase of a heart and dumping everything out of it and letting them pick through it, it is also like, having someone there to help you clean up after you do that. Someone who will simply pick up the little bundles of baggage and complication you have experienced and put them all back in their place, even throw some away for you.

So hopefully we all have those people in our lives who would maim a drug dealer for us, and for whom you would risk manslaughter charges to protect, because it seems our life is so much richer for it. I hope we all have our shotguns ready.