What Did You Expect?

One day a little over one year ago, I was driving into Wichita in a particularly stormy mood.  I won't go into much detail over why, but I will state for the record that it was a dark time in my life, marked with a great deal of bitterness.  There was a particular song by The Band Perry that was being overplayed by pretty much every radio station in Wichita at the time, called "If I Die Young."  I'm sure you've heard it.  If you haven't, you probably only listen to NPR or K-Love.  Or audio books.  Not that there is anything wrong with audio books.

However, I digress.  As I was listening to this song for the umpteen-millionth time that summer, there was a line that seemed to rise out of the storm of my own life for the first time.  "Oh, and life ain't always what you think it ought to be..."  WHAM.  I suddenly felt very foolish.  Let's back-track a little bit.

Over the previous year, I had tried over and over again to be things I wasn't, because I thought that I should be those things.  I tried to be a hero, mostly.  I was treating my own life like I was the main character.  And nothing was working out for me.  I was tired.  I was hurting from a back injury I had suffered in track.  I was frustrated with being stuck in Wichita.  Without getting overly personal, I was not happy about where I was in life.

I had just previously finished reading Stephen R. Lawhead's epic Byzantium, perhaps even the night before, I cannot recall precisely.

At any rate, without giving away too much about the book, there is a part towards the end where an embittered main character is asked by his own conscience what exactly he expected to happen on him after a long journey through dangerous parts of the world.  He sort of has an epiphany-type moment where he realizes that yes, bad things happened to him, but wasn't that to be expected?  When one travels a world full of wicked people and sin, sooner or later, something bad will happen.  We don't always get exactly what we want in life.

It all culminated for me at that point.  Did I honestly expect my whole life to go exactly like I hoped for it to go?  Bad things happen to everybody, because the world is a place full of sin.  It's like gravity.  Just about everybody knows someone who attempted to emulate Superman by jumping off of a roof or who took a chunk of ice to the forehead because they thought it would get close enough to the sun to melt and wouldn't fall back to hit them (guilty).  What did we expect?  That gravity didn't apply to us?  It does, and let me tell you, sometimes it hurts like the dickens.  It's near impossible to get up because of it from time to time.  Using the same concept, what do we expect in life?  Bad things will happen.  Life isn't always how WE think it ought to be.

And that brings me to another point.  Not every "bad" thing that happens to us is really all that bad, after all.  One of the things I wanted more than anything in life was to receive a scholarship to continue my track career out-of-state.  That didn't happen for me.  But that week, I was invited to Christian Challenge by a friend that I had met through track.  I originally declined, but after my realization that I had a seriously skewed worldview, I talked to another old friend, who also recommended that I go to Christian Challenge.  So I did.  And let me tell, my life has been nothing like I thought it should be.  It has been better.  Had I pursued my career as a track athlete, I wouldn't have had this opportunity in the same capacity that I have.  God knew exactly what I needed, and He took advantage of bad things happening in my life, and turned them into some of the sweetest things I have ever known.

So, remember.  Life isn't always what we think it ought to be, but what did you expect?

Persistance

Short and sweet.  That's what you can expect from me today.  I have things I would like to do with the short amount of time available to me prior to leaving for work, but I wanted to share with you something that sort of jumped out at me the other day.

In Challenge last Tuesday night, one of our leaders shared a passage that I had read several times, but never actually paid much attention to.  In Daniel 10, Daniel is distraught over a vision he has had, an prays for three weeks to be strengthened.  An angel of the Lord does come to him, and in verses 12-13, he tells Daniel that he had been sent at once upon the utterance of that very first prayer.  However, he was opposed for three weeks by a mysterious entity referred to as the prince of Persia before Michael (a more powerful angel) came to aid him.  The point of us being told this was that spiritual battles are real and constant, but I took something else away from it:  don't give up.  We live in the microwave generation.  We want dinner as soon as we're hungry, we want to get wherever we're going as quickly as possible, leaving a message with someone's secretary isn't good enough, we have to call their cell phone, and our emails shouldn't wait, either, because nearly everyone can respond from their smartphone!  We try to apply this same concept to prayer.  We pray, and we expect some sort of instantaneous response.  It doesn't always work that way.

Try another story from scripture.  At the very beginning of Luke 18, Christ tells a parable about a judge and a widow.  This judge is kind of a grumpy-sounding fellow, who neither fears God nor respects other people.  The widow asks the judge daily for justice against her adversary.  Eventually, he gets tired of her coming to him every day and grants her wish.  Christ's point to the parable is that God actually does love us, so of course he will grant that which we seek, as quickly as fits the master plan.  Think about how long Simeon and Anna waited to see the Christ child in the temple.  Their prayers were answered, but on God's time.

Keep in mind, also, that all prayers are answered.  It might be "yes," "not now," or "no."  God provides us with what we need when we need it.  I know that quoting a U2 song is not scripture.  But I think the quote applies.

"What you don't have, you don't need it now."

Something You've Always(?) Wanted to Know

The more and more I bring myself to read, and to study, and to do constructive things, the more I begin asking myself deep questions.  I find answers to questions I didn't even know that I had.  I develop more questions, questions that could change the way I see the world, or even the way others see the world.

These are not of those questions.

What exactly is the difference between hubbub and hullabaloo?  When is a get-together a shindig as opposed to a hoedown or a hootenanny?

Never fear.  I have these answers.  I also have to point out that around two years ago when I first had the idea to start blogging, my sister told me nobody would care anything about this topic.  Please prove her wrong.  Well, no, that's wrong of me.  It shouldn't be about proving her wrong.  That's misguided.  Make it about proving me right.

So, we go to the dictionary before we begin any real research.  I have Google, therefore I have access to droves of etymological research on these funny-sounding words.  However, I haven't so much free time that I really intend to sit here and research every detail of terms I'm pretty sure are completely made up.

You still can't get past the term "etymological," can you?  Yes, I'm sure that's the study of words.  You're thinking of entomology, the study of insects.  Don't worry; it's a common mistake.  And so is confusing hubbub and hullabaloo.  See, hubbub is of Gaelic origin, meaning, most literally, "confusion" or "tumult."  Hullabaloo, in the meantime, means "great noise, excitement, or uproar."  Worth noting is that it is also of Scottish (therefore, probably Gaelic) origin.  Why have two words for the same thing?  Okay, don't answer that.  Anyway, I do think it is also worth noting that originally holloballo, contrived from holla (hello) and baloo (song or lullaby).  It usually refers to a protest, actually.  And it makes me think of this.

Similar is the term "hoopla," a "boisterous, jovial commotion or excitement" or "extravagant publicity intended to mislead or confuse."  So, in the informal sense, hoopla is excitement for the opposite reason as a hullabaloo.  Best the etymologists can figure out is that it probably comes the French term meaning "upsy-daisy."  No, I didn't make that up.  

Now, on to the more important issue.  The shindig vs. the hoedown vs. the hootenanny.

Shindig:  "a festive party, often including dancing."  Again, probably Scottish origin.

Hoedown:  1.  "a square dance" 2.  "the music for a square dance" 3.  "A social gathering at which square dancing takes place."  This term obviously originated in the U.S.  Probably the south, but maybe Pennsylvania, apparently.  I'm pretty sure somebody said something like, "C'mon, Festus, put yer hoe down an' kick up yer heels!"

Hootenanny:  "an informal performance by folk singers, typically with audience participation."  So that explains it.  Oh, and guess what?  Yup.  Scottish origin.

Here's the rundown, then.  If your party is festive and includes dancing, it is a shindig.  If there is square dancing, it is a hoedown.  A party, then, can be both a shindig and a hoedown, but if it is not, in fact, all that festive, but there is square dancing, it is, then, merely a hoedown.  However, if a guy whips out his guitar, his brother Darryl arrives with a banjo, and Uncle Bill (because EVERYBODY has an Uncle Bill, amirite?) pulls out an accordion (or perhaps a concertina?), and they start singing folk tunes, you now have an hootenanny on your hands.  (Huh?  Yes.  AN hootenanny.  I'm quite sure.  Look it up.  Grammar Nazi.)  Therefore, conceivably, your party could be all three, a shindig, a hoedown, and an hootenanny.  (No, I don't know why it isn't AN hoedown.  It just doesn't sound right.)

Finally, I want to bring one of my absolute favorite words into the equation.  It has nothing to do with any of the other words which I have mentioned.  It stands alone.  It is epic.  It is "bamboozled."  To bamboozle is "to take in by elaborate methods of deceit, to hoodwink."  And guess what?  It's probably from the Scottish bombaze, meaning "perplex," which, in turn, came from the French term for a type of padding, which is also the origin of bombast.  Best I can follow, the term is applied to bombastic language metaphorically, saying that one is "padding" themselves, or building themselves up beyond what they really are, which would, in fact, be deceptive, thus, bamboozled.

So, really, I think the most important lesson from this blog post is that the Scottish talk funny.

On Fear

Whew.  I didn't sleep so well last night.  I had a dream that these guys were my only companions:

Well, them and some reindeer.  That's what I get for reading about the Saami right before bed.  Yeesh.

Anyway.  Back to business.  My writing last night wasn't as free-flowing as it usually is.  I'm not sure what the block was, but I just couldn't round up my thoughts the way I wanted to at the end.  So, before I start on any new topics, I want to tie up the loose ends from last night, which came to me as I was running this morning.

The worst part about the "Not-Good-Enough" lie is that you have no confidence because you don't experience success, and part of the reason you don't succeed is a lack of confidence.  It's a vicious cycle.  I understand it completely.  But what is important to remember is the bitterness that it breeds, and the faithlessness that it encourages.  Those are the real dangers.  But I have a little secret- as soon as you become conscious of Satan's tricks, and begin mindfully praying about them and combating them, that cycle will break.  That, I promise you.  It may not happen immediately, but it will happen.  It may be a gradual improvement, or one day after weeks of prayer, something inside of you may just snap into place.  We're all individual; it varies.

C.S. Lewis brings up another mindblowing concept in Screwtape.  Fear is not what we think it is.  We are afraid of things happening, whether to us, or as a result of something we do.  Some fear rejection or embarrassment.  Some fear not being able to put food on the table.  There are a lot of things people are afraid of.  But fear is a distraction.  Just like hunger.  Just like being cold.  It's a survival instinct.  We're afraid of heights because we could fall, afraid of snakes because we could be bit, afraid of rejection because without other people in our lives, we will become miserable wretches (just ask Peaches and Cream up there in the birthday hats).  We think that the burden associated with fear is that which we are actually afraid of.  But it isn't.  It is the fear itself.  I think we would find that if what we fear actually happened to us, it would not be nearly so distressing as the constant burden of fear we carry around.  Besides that, on a spiritual level, are we not told a kajillion times to not be afraid?  Isn't fear a lack of faith?  Isn't that Satan's aim?

I'm not judging any of you.  I am every bit as afraid of certain things in my life as you are of different things in yours.  But I implore you to take heart.  Put aside your fear and your doubt.  Don't let yourself be drug into bitterness by your feelings of inadequacy.  Don't be drug into arrogance by your feeling of entitlement that comes with the realization that you are "equal."  Don't fall for Satan's lies.  I ask this of all of you that we might encourage each other.  I want to face my fears.  You want to face yours.  There are others who won't have the courage to try until they see us break the patterns of Satan's lies in our lives.  That's not an easy thing.  But C.S. Lewis states it best, so powerfully that it almost moves me to tears.

We may have to endure that which we fear.  But I'd rather do that than deal with the fear.