Day 14 - DAD and Recap

Day 14 – Dad

Bio: I could write pages about my Dad, because he’s great and I love having him for a Dad. But I can sum it up with this: He is more dependable than steel, he is both kind and strong, he eats oatmeal every day for breakfast, he never opens a gift early, he listens better than anyone on earth, and I have never had cause for a moment to doubt his love for me or my family.

Challenge: “Yo, Mate. We know you have a hankering for the Outback, so we would like to help you experience it. Your challenge is to ask out a girl of your choosing, which hopefully you truly like, for a date. The event does not have to be July 14 but you have to try and ask her on or before that date for a dinner at Outback Steakhouse. You will be accompanied by your wonderful parents who will pay for it and will be entertaining company. Love, Dad (with helpful input from Mom.)

Reaction: Depending on your age, dear reader, you will probably think one of two things. If you are my parents’ age, I imagine you will think, “Ah, what a fun idea.” If you are my age, perhaps you will think, as I did, “Holy Awkward Date, What on earth are they thinking?!”

This challenge is at once both sweet and horrifying. It is sweet because, of COURSE my parents would be entertaining company, and it is touching that they want to give me a great dinner for a date. It is horrifying, because how intense is dinner with the parents to the girl involved? VERY. Meeting the parents is something that weekends are devoted to, elaborate schemes are made up for, comedic movies are made about. Not something for a casual dinner out.

A few minutes out from reading this, other questions sprung off from the initial ones. “So, do they think I don’t date enough? Is this a message from my parents that they think I am so bad at dating that I need their intervention? And who could I possibly invite to this who would not be freaked out?” I sorted through my options.

I could ask a former girlfriend who is back in town for the summer. Of course, she’s been dating someone else for a year now, so that would be…. Awkward. I could ask two girls I’ve gone on a couple dates with over the last six months but am not currently pursuing. “Hey, Girl Z, I haven’t been on a date with you for a couple months, but how about dinner with me? AND my genetic forebearers!” Awkward. Or I could ask some girl I have never been on a date with, ever, to dinner with my parents. AWKWARD.

I briefly considered signing up for an online dating service like e-harmony, setting up a date for that night, and just shock this random girl by walking in with my folks. While that sounds funny in my head, I don’t think it would be very funny to her. So that was out too.

I know I set up these challenges to be pretty much anything, but I felt that since it involved someone else, a girl whose feelings ought to be a concern, I just couldn’t do it, not with my current dating situation. So I went to the folks and presented my case.

“My first date with your father, we went to dinner with his parents,” my Mom said, instantly underscoring that my Dad won her through true love and not romantic prowess. “Really?” I asked, feeling my argument slipping away. “How was that?”

“He got sick and laid his head on the table and I talked to Grandma,” she said. My Dad is no Don Juan, folks. “And that’s the sort of evening you are envisioning for me?” I asked plaintively. “Look, if it was just me involved doing something crazy, that’s fine. But I’d have to drag someone else into this. I just think a dinner with the parents is a serious thing you do once the relationship is established, not at the very outset.”

Both parents gave me disappointed eyes, but agreed to alter their challenge.

NEW challenge: Come up with 14 qualities you are looking for in a wife. Tell parents at dinner at Outback steakhouse.

Reaction 2: Much better. And yet, why the emphasis on wife/marriage/dating? My parents are really stuck on that topic.

Recap: I had a nice dinner with my parents (who are wholly decent people for letting me change the challenge and still taking me to Outback.) Without further ado, here are my 14 wife characteristics. (And yes, Jerrod, I totally stole one from your list. But you don’t have a copyright on Proverbs 31!)

Spiritual Seven

1.    I want my wife to be deeply rooted in Christ, someone with a mature faith who gives wise counsel. (Jeremiah 17:5-9, ⁵ This is what the Lord says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. ⁶ They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land. ⁷ “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. ⁸ They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.)

2.    To love the church. (Hebrews 10:24-25, ²⁴ Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. ²⁵ And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.)

3.    To love the lost. (I Thessalonians 2:8, ⁸ We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.)

4.    I hope my wife’s identity as a child of Christ is tested and true, that she knows God’s promises for her. (Hebrews 10:23,  ²³ Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. I Thessalonians 5:5,  ⁵ For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. Romans 8:15,  ¹⁵ So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” )

5.    Be an encourager. (Proverbs 31:25-26, ²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. ²⁶ When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness.)

6.    Embrace sacrifice. (Philippians 3:17, ⁷ I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. ⁸ Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ ⁹ and become one with him.)

7.    Be loyal to friends and family, but to understand the need for our family to have good boundaries too. (Proverbs 17:17, ¹⁷ A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.)

Secular Seven

1.    Be an includer, not an excluder. This goes back to one of my deep childhood fears – being left out / chosen last for dodgeball / eating lunch alone. Some people are clique-y and exclusive. These people will not be my wife.

2.    Have a sense of adventure. Have you ever been to dinner with someone who refuses to try a new dish and only gets the one thing they know they like? Not my wife. I want a woman with a spirit of adventure, who will be up for new challenges and isn’t afraid of trying out the unknown.

3.    Be active. This isn’t a body type thing. I don’t have a particular weight I picture for my wife, but I want her to be active, to enjoy outdoor sports and activities. Since 2000, I’ve discovered that I like jogging and volleyball in addition to my tried-and-true, basketball. I want her to have active things she enjoys as well.

* My Mom piped in here to tell me she was specifically praying that my wife would be a healthy cook, because she wants the grandkids to be raised healthy. Way to go Mom for specific prayers!

4.    Rigorously honest with me. Maybe I’m paranoid about divorce, but I figure that if I can at least count on her to shoot straight with me, and if she can count on me to be honest with her, we can work through just about anything. (Don’t you hate romantic comedies where they both love each other but just can’t tell the truth. Gaa!)

5.    I make her laugh. If I am being honest here (see #4), probably my biggest fear with marriage is that there will come a day when my wife no longer finds me funny. When my jokes are met with indifference or hostility. If I am not funny, I am powerless in front of hurt, anger, loss or frustration. It is how I face the world, with pressure-easing jokes and quips. I hope that no matter what, I can always bring a smile to her face.

6.    Lover of ideas. I am no philosopher, but I deeply enjoyed my university’s Interdisciplinary Core program, where instead of taking a class on specific history or on government or art, we studied every major culture semester by semester, examining government, philosophy, religion, art, history, etc. I love learning new things, and hope she does too.

7.    Tough, strong, and gentle. Everyone says you marry someone like your Mom, and this one is totally her. My Mom is very polite, so some of you may not have seen her tough side, but boy does she have one! At the same time, she can be very tender too. I want my wife to be strong in the face of trials, tough in the face of evil, and also gentle in the face of pain.

OK, so that’s the list. I’ll freely admit that I don’t measure up to most of these, so I’m not saying she’ll match everything perfectly. But still, if we’re playing Mad Science here, this is my list of wifely qualities.

After our dinner, my parents continued the dating theme by giving me a book titled “How to Get a Date Worth Keeping” by Dr. Henry Cloud. I appreciated the book very much, and placed it in the place of honor reserved for parental books on my nightshelf. Where it has remained ever since. Collecting dust.

Day 13 - David AND Recap

Day 13: David

Bio: I didn’t know David my first year of college, and in my second year he just floated on my periphery. I heard him mentioned in passing stories (especially from Lindsey, Day 9), and then I went to a “half night of prayer” at church and he was there, and my first impression was that he was a really cool, really funny and really genuine guy. My third year of school I got to know him more as we were around each other at church functions and then on a mission trip to Juarez, Mexico over spring break. This was back in the golden days when people were not being murdered daily in Juarez. And then my senior year, we lived together.

I should clarify that I lived with eight guys my last year of school, in a large apartment we called the “D House.” We were all involved in church, and our D House (which stood for discipleship house) was one of several the church had started. We would gather on Sunday afternoons to clean and cook and intentionally spend time together, and also get up every morning (mostly) to pray together before school. I was really excited about the concept, because it sounded a little hippy-ish and communal to me, and as you may have noticed, I like that stuff. So I jumped in.

Living with David was awesome. Sure, he requires absolute darkness, silence and stillness to fall asleep, and sure, he would always slip into the bathroom right when I needed to take a dump, and sure, he has a sardonic wit that he uses to skewer fools, but that stuff makes him interesting. He is such a great guy, always in my corner, always ready to listen, and eager to laugh. He became more than a roommate. He was/is a great friend, and one that I was exceedingly fortunate to share life with while we were still in the same place.

I’ll share one story to illustrate our friendship. I returned to Waco six months after graduating to visit some friends who were having a party. David and his new wife Emily were hosting. I walked in feeling a bit awkward, as most everyone else there had stayed in Waco and continued in relationship together, while I had left. Have you ever returned to a place or to friends who you were very close with, but time and distance have passed between you, and you aren’t sure how good of friends you’ll be anymore? That’s what I wondered. Would our friendship remain close, or were we too far apart? As the night progressed, I got to talk to several dear friends and felt more comfortable. As the party wound down, I was talking to David, and we shook hands, and then for several seconds, he just held my hand as we talked. I know this gesture could probably be misconstrued in several wrong directions, but it wasn’t anything but a simple, physical gesture that communicated to me that we were more than acquaintances. David was still my good friend. That moment left a deep impression on me, because it was such a powerful answer to the question on my heart that night. We have remained good friends in the years since, and for that I am grateful.

Thirteenth Day Challenge: Ok Ben, since our history together traces its roots back to our time at Baylor and our experiences learning to follow Jesus, your challenge for today will be two-fold.

Baylor Challenge. 1. You must stand up and sing “That Good Old Baylor Line” followed by a hearty “Sic ‘Em Bears” once each hour that you are awake today. If you need to rush outside during the workday to complete this challenge without getting fired, that will be permitted. 2. You must show the video of you being trampled by the bear to at least 3 people who have not seen it. If the video is not online, please try to make it available to the general public. (I want to see it again.)

Jesus Challenge. 1. You get the opportunity to share Jesus with someone today! You can choose how you want to do this. Whether it’s praying for a homeless guy in the park, leaving a tract for someone to find, etc, make sure at least one person feel’s God’s love today. [1,000 bonus points if you share the Juarez mission trip Spanish tract we used on our mission trips on the early 2000s.] 2. Make a mix of your favorite worship songs from your college years and listen to it every time you are in the car today.

Initial reaction: Well, parts of that are fun, and parts of that are terrifying. I love showing my bear attack video because it always gets a good laugh, so that part will be great. And the worship mix will be neat, I can already think of several songs circa 2000 that I want to put on there. The sharing Jesus part, well, that has always been a source of fear for me. I feel awkward thinking about it, and I hate rejection, and so this one will be a good challenge to overcome.

Recap: I opened this challenge after I was already at work, because I was up late the night before scraping off fingernail polish and had to rush to get ready. I checked the clock and it was approaching 10:00, so I went outside and sang the Baylor fight song on the way to my car to get my first hour started off right.

I really like Baylor’s fight song, called “That Good Old Baylor Line.” I was in the marching band (The Golden Wave Marching Band) my first year at college, and we sang that song so many times during band camp, and then over and over during football games, that it is forever embedded in my memory. It’s not that long, and pretty easy to remember, so I was always disappointed to find most of the students couldn’t actually sing along to it at sporting events. The tune takes me back to fond times with lots of friends and lots of free time. Ah, college.

I went back outside during both the 11:00 and 12:00 hours to sing the fight song. I scoped out the parking lot for signs of co-workers before I burst into song, but no one caught me. I wanted to find a way to sing the song without going outside, so I considered challenging our newest employee, OU-grad Rachel, to a fight song competition, but I got busy during the day and never followed up on my idea.

At lunch, I ate in the break room with some other co-workers, keeping my eyes open for any signs of opportunities to share my faith or to pray with folks. However, a co-worker I’ll call Mr. Me did what he always does – turns every attempt at conversation into a lecture on the wonders of his diet and workout regimen. Seriously, for the past six months every time I’ve tried to talk to him, he funnels the talk into a long-winded (one-sided) presentation about his physique and rigorous calorie counting. I retreated to my office after a half hour of him, sour and grumpy from an unsuccessful lunch attempt.

I confess I forgot to sing the fight song a couple times in the afternoon, but I made up for it by singing in the stairwell several times in one hour. With some of my ridiculous challenges (walking backwards, sing fight song) the stairwell is turning into a great place to retreat and do my challenges. We have a new girl from OU who just started and is pretty peppy, so I thought about challenging her to a fight song sing-off, but I got busy and that stayed just a good idea.

As the clock ticked closer to the end of the workday, I felt more and more worried about the “sharing Jesus” part. From my own life experiences and from watching how faith plays out in our world (TBN, street corner preachers, mormons door to door) I really REALLY get fearful of bringing up Christ with people outside church. I don’t want to look fake, like the TBN folk, I don’t want to be rude or attacking, like some street corner preachers, and I don’t want to get rejected, like the Mormons who come to my door. This is problematic for me because it means sometimes I steer away from spiritual conversations, and as someone who has encountered the hope of a relationship with Christ, I should want to share that with any and everyone. So it’s tricky. I want to be liked. I also want people to know Jesus like I know Jesus – the one who meets my needs, who holds my hand and gives me courage, who plants hope and light in the dark, bitter, shameful places of my heart.

Because I was most worried about it, I decided to focus on the “sharing Jesus” as a priority, with the bear attack video and the CD mix secondary. After some thought, I decided I didn’t want to go to a gas station or the mall and talk to a stranger. I wanted the “sharing Jesus” challenge to be part of my regular life, because that aspect of my faith should be part of my regular life. I came up with a plan – watch for opportunities at the gym, or make brownies for my neighbors and go and meet them. Work ended, so I walked outside singing the fight song and ready for action.

I went first to my gym and struck up a conversation with an older gentleman in the changing room. However, our talk was short, in part because halfway through changing I pulled off my socks and realized I still had pink nail polish on my toenails from girls’ night challenge. My cheeks flushed immediately and I spent the next two minutes changing into workout gear in record time to hide my garish toenails.

I finished working out and went home, feeling worry build up inside me that I was running out of daylight to share faith with someone. I had brownie mix, so I made brownies and threw them in the oven, but they required 40 minutes to cook, and I needed to shower, so it would be after 9 pm before they were done, and I didn’t want to wake up new neighbors in order to meet them. So that plan went flat. I took the shower and left the brownies to cool down.

I also needed to get 3 people to watch my bear attack video, which is on a VHS, so I started texting around to find friends with VCRs. I struck out a few times before my friend Keith replied that he did indeed have a VCR. I went over and hung out with him for a bit, which was great because he and I are taking an international trip together to New Zealand, and we had plans to hash over. We played the bear attack video which he greatly enjoyed. (I wasn’t really attacked, more knocked over by Baylor’s live bear mascot). And then before I left, I took a risk and asked if I could pray for him. Keith isn’t a church friend, but it felt more natural than I thought it would. He shared a request and let me pray for him, which was cool. I realized how easily I freak out over facing fears.

And then it was 10:20, and I was in a race to find 2 more VCR’s before midnight. I sent texts fast and furious, and found one – Briann, a nurse and friend from church. She just built her house, so I drove out to new Edmond to show her the video. She was watching old home movies of church trips she went on in high school, so it must have been memory night. I showed her the film and then headed back out into the night. It was after 11:00, and I thought to myself, “Why do I end up driving all over the place at ridiculous hours of night to get these challenges done?” Ah well, I can sleep when I’m 30.

Finally I found a third VCR – my friend Rich. Went to his place, showed him the video, and completed the 3 showings. However, one last task remained – I went home and made a CD of all my favorite worship recordings. I had to buy some songs that I hadn’t heard in ages, but I’m pretty pleased with my music mix. If anyone wants a copy, I’m happy to burn one and share it. Just e-mail me your address and I’ll mail it to you.

Day 12 - Amber AND Recap

Bio: Amber is a spitfire / whirlwind / ball of energy / force of nature. She is like habaneros or strong garlic - she keeps things flavorful! Amber has been a friend for about five years. We both entered the Henderson 20-somethings group about the same time (along with several others, like Matt D and Paula) and have become better friends with each passing year. Amber is a runner, so when I decided I wanted to run a marathon, she was the person who volunteered to train with me and run the Chicago marathon with me. And when I say "with" me, I mean I ususally hung with her one or two miles, then said a breathless farewell as she blazed ahead of me.

Amber is incredibly loyal. She is warm-hearted, hospitable, encouraging and fun. Amber also never forgets anything you do to slight or offend her. EVER. She refuses to eat vegetables, drinks Dr. Pepper from sun-up to sun-down, and seems to constantly owe me money. She's a bit of a contradiction. She's Amber.

Challenge: I challenge you to surviving a girls night! Get ready for a make-over, pedicure, manicure, and a pretty flower in your hair. We will also watch 'The Notebook.' Be at my place at 7:00. Food will be provided!! :)

Initial Reaction: Well, Amber has been blabbing to me about this day's challenge for at least a week, so I'm not in the least surprised. She did tell me to get ready to shave my legs, which wouldn't be the first time. (Baptist Student Union, I'm looking at you!) And I've heard that a pedicure is actually something guys enjoy, but can't admit to enjoying, so we'll see how this goes.

Recap: Amber is an inveterate picture taker, so I think I will show you the progression of the evening through pictures. Despite them being incredibly degrading... However, I will note these discoveries.

1. The Notebook is actually a decent movie, largely thanks to Joan Allen totally surprising me in her character's reversal.
2. Clay mask things are hot, and this is unnatural.
3. Tweezing eyebrows is the most horrific pain imaginable. Followed closely by...
4. High heels are gawky, unwieldy, unbalanced, and bizarre. And they hurt.
5. The "pedicure" did not actually happen, to my secret disappointment. They just painted my toenails.
6. A couple of the girls really did cry at the movie, despite me being vocally ready to mock anyone who cried. You just can't stop The Notebook.
7. I sort of thought when all was done, I would look feminine. I do not think I looked feminine at all. I looked garish and bizarre. There is more to female beauty than just applying make-up.

Yes. You can see the degredation in my eyes, the shame and horror. However, the night did end on a happy note. They ran out of time to shave my legs.