what a difference a day makes...

Success, wealth, work, and loneliness...this was his life. It wasn't the one he envisioned, but it was one he learned to accept. He had few friends because he was constantly working. He didn't have a family because he didn't have time to meet anyone. He hadn't been in a relationship since high school, she didn't understand why he had to join the military, but he felt it was his only option. Even if he did meet someone he couldn't be that guy for them. Perhaps that's because of the military. He joined right out of high school. He came back a different guy to a different world, one he felt out of place in, so he buried himself in his work. It brought him success, but no one to share it with.

Everyday he wakes up at the same time and does the same routine. He does his exercises, showers, chooses a suit, has breakfast (oatmeal...eggs if he's feeling adventurous), watches the news for about ten minutes, and then drives to work with time to spare. He does this everyday...except today. Today was unlike the rest. He slept through his alarm and woke up much later than he should. His entire routine was disorganized; he rushed into his car and sped out of the parking garage, as he was turning onto the road in the middle of rush hour he cut somebody off and pulled in front of them, he didn't see the kid on the skateboarder coming up on the other side of the driver, he went too far out into the other lane and hit the kid on the skateboard.

Panic ran through his body. He didn't know what to do. It felt like it had been ten minutes that he sat in his car hoping he was alright; it must have only been a minute or so because the boy stumbled to his feet with just a few cuts and bruises. From inside his car he looked pretty upset and was yelling though he couldn't hear what he was saying inside his car. He opened the door and heard the flurry of curse words mixed with some slang insults that he was not familiar with, but he got the point. It was only until he approached the boy that he realized he wasn't upset about being hit, but rather the fact his skateboard was now in several pieces. As he got closer to the boy the insults were now directed at him. He tried to apologize and offered to drive him to the hospital, but the boy refused. He hesitantly asked if he wanted to involve the police, the boys response was a special finger. He gathered the scattered skateboard and began walking on an intersecting street. Traffic was beginning to flow again, so he got back in his car. He thought about just going to work, he could still get there on time.

He began driving, only to turn down the street he saw the skateboarder go. He only had to travel a few blocks until he saw him. He pulled over and yelled him over. It took some convincing and grudging acceptance, but the boy allowed him to take him back home. It had been about five minutes in the car and neither one of them said a word. He tried to brake the silence with some small talk:
"What's your name?"
"Oliver"
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen"
"What do you do for fun?"
He held up the broken skateboard.
"What do your parents do?"
"Just my Mom"
"I'm sorry about that"

He found himself very anxious and worried, but it wasn't for his job...it was for the boy. He spent the majority of his life having to care for only himself, so having someone else to worry about made him feel uneasy. He wanted to know more about him, but didn't know how to start. It was a relief to him when the boy started asking him questions:
"What do you do?"
"I'm a financial adviser"
"That doesn't sound very fun"
He was about to defend his job and try to explain why he enjoyed it, but that would be a lie.
"Its not"
"So why do you do it?"
"I don't know", that was the truth. He really didn't know why he still worked there. Perhaps it just occupied his time and more importantly his mind. "What do you want to be?"
"A cop maybe, I think I would enjoy that. I've thought about joining the military after high school."
"What does your Mom think about that?"
"She hates it, but its not up to her."
He thought about what the military did to him and how it changed him and he didn't want that for the kid. He didn't know him, but he didn't need to. It wasn't just the things he saw in the service, but just being away and the people he left behind. When he joined he didn't take in account that everyone that loved him was affected. He thought of this kids Mom and how she would be affected if he joined. His anxiety increased. There was a long pause before he responded..."I think being cop would be pretty awesome".

They approached his house and the kid gathered up the pieces of the skateboard and got out of the car. He apologized again for hitting him and offered his help to him in whatever way possible. He didn't know why, but he felt sad to see the boy leave. It wasn't until that moment that he thought about work and was still in no hurry to return. Work had been the only thing he cared about for so many years, but it felt secondary now. He was about to pull back onto the road when he heard a knock on his window. He saw the kid standing outside the car and rolled it down.
"Do you want to come in for a drink or something and meet my Mom?"
"Yes I do", he was surprised by his answer and how quick he responded, but happy with it as well.
They approached the house, the boy opened the door to find his Mom on the other side. She was clearly a good Mom because she was immediately distraught when she heard what happened. She finally stopped hugging him and turned to greet the man in her doorway. His heart sunk when he saw her face. He often imagined what she would look like now; to him she looked the exact same. He was standing in front of the girl that he abandoned for the military...16 years ago.

Getting Old

I think that I've posted about The Guardian before, however, I recently watched it again and there was one scene that really stuck out to me that I hadn't noticed before. For those who haven't seen the movie it is about a rescue swimmer for the United States Coast Guard who's co-worker and friend dies at sea. He is forced to take a leave of absence and teach at the training facility; while there he gets divorce papers sent to him by his wife who can no longer come second to his job which he has dedicated his life to. In this scene that stuck out he goes to a local bar one night where he is close friends with the owner and divulges to her his troubles: his best friend died, his wife wants a divorce, and he is trying to show himself he is capable of doing certain things despite his age. After she places an ice-pack on his blown-out shoulder he asks her with a slight chuckle, "when the heck did we get old?". It is after this that the magic happens. She goes on to tell him that being old isn't necessarily a bad thing; "Hell, I've always been old Ben, you know what though, I don't mind. If my muscles ache its because I used them, its hard for me to walk up them steps now because I walked up them every night to lay next to a man that loved me. I got a few wrinkles here and there, but I layed under thousand of skies on sunny days, yeah, I look and feel this way...well cause I drank and I smoked, I lived and I loved, I danced, sang, sweat, and screwed my way through a pretty damn good life. Getting old aint bad...getting old...that's earned." This old ladies raspy voice and harsh language cuts through the crap and gets to the good stuff. I was a little shocked at myself for not noticing this little gem the first time I watched this movie; but than I thought that perhaps I didn't notice it because it wasn't old enough to understand it. Now I realize the twenty-two is not very old, but its old enough to start experiencing life and what it has to offer, good and bad. I love her take on life. Most everyone sees ageing as this horrible experience that each person has to endure at some point in time. But from her perspective we get to be old, its a sign that we've lived. My dad has a permanently messed up nose because he broke it so many times from playing hockey his whole life, playing rugby, football, and having fun. That broken nose is a sign of the memories he's made. From her life point-of-view the bumps and bruises that we get along the way aren't signs of failure and mistakes or blemishes, they are signs that that life has been earned.
https://youtu.be/3iaXQ1U7EBg

Cannot Keep You

I was recently introduced to this song "Cannot Keep You" by Michael Gungor and immediately felt very convicted by it. The song is speaking on how we as Christians cannot keep God within our little confines and within our walls that we have boxed him in with, secluded from the rest of the world. We cannot keep God in our Church, in our homes, and in our little communities. And when I say Church I mean your local chapel because I think Church is so much more than a building and a Sunday morning destination. Church can be anywhere it has to be whether that is in a Chapel or in the streets among the homeless. I believe that is what Michael Gungor is saying; that we cannot and should not keep God in the safe places set out for us. He should be found in the highest office of the tallest skyscraper to the lowest and dumpiest part of the city. One of the lines in the song is "so we will find you in the streets and we will find you in the prisons". We should be able to find God in every nook and cranny of the world; in our ever day world among our workplace and in the undesired places that people fear. His lyrics are telling us that we have this secret that we share among ourselves, but should be shouted from the rooftops and expressed in our entire being. Before this song I had been feeling this push towards the idea of inner-city ministry and helping those in need within our country both physically and spiritually. Hearing this song has made that push even stronger and I hope it continues to get stronger until it is a reality so all of this is not just talk because I will be the first to admit my fault in not expressing my faith in the capacity that I should. When you meet me you should know there is something different about me than everyone else and unfortunately that is not the case, but I pray one day it shall be.

A Silver Lining

I just watched Silver Linings Playbook. As I was watching it reminded me of the song Unwell by Matchbox Twenty. The song is about how he is a little crazy; how everyone is a little nuts. I find that really relates to this movie because it is about two people who, to the rest of the world, are completely crazy and need medical help (which they recieve). However, you learn that though they are the only ones that are medically diagnosed as crazy, everyone in their lives are just as bonkers, if not more. In Pat's life, his father is obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles and has an unhealthy superstition about the team and his son as their luck charm. His brother has insecurities about every aspect of his life and seems more unstable than his formally institutionalized brother. His best friend has a horrible marriage that only survives from the advise of Pat himself who beat the crap out his wife's lover. And his best friends wife is controlling, manipulative, full of hatred and self-loathing that she projects onto her little sister, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). It goes to show that though not everyone is daily medicating to keep the crazy down doesn't mean we all don't sometimes belong in the looney bin.
What I love most about this movie is that it is an alternative romantic comedy, but has a typical love story ending. It is weird which makes it so amazing. Nowadays it seems that every romantic movie or movie about love that wants to be considered as a "good" film has to have some sort of depressing ending. Don't get me wrong I love the not-so-normal ending to a typical love story just as much as the next guy, but for a movie like this you would expect the ending to be strange and out of the ordinary like the rest of the film. Instead it did exactly the opposite and had an incredibly normal and happy ending which made it extraordinary. Any other possibility would have changed the whole dynamic of the film because it shows that the fact that they are real people is what makes their love so true.
Their dance at the end of the movie explains their love story in the matter of several minutes: it's weird and unorthodox, it looks strange and makes other people uncomfortable, its funky and not what the world says that it should be, while at the same time it is beautiful and utterly pure.

Skinny Dipping

     Her profile read: “Looking for someone that will make me smile. Someone to ask me how my day was and want to know the answer. Someone to lay with and not have to say a word. Someone who will bring me flowers for no apparent reason even though it’s a completely lame and cheesy thing to do. I want someone to not feel like when we go out to eat they have to order something sophisticated. I want you to order a burger and a coke and not be embarrassed when I get the same thing. I want someone to go on adventures with; even if that means skinny dipping in the neighbours pool at midnight. I want someone who wants a full life and doesn't want it alone.”
     I was scrolling through the different profiles simply out of curiosity when I came across hers. I was enthralled by her dreams and the way she wanted to go through life. It was like reading a mirror for my thoughts. I wanted to the guy to do all of those things with her. I had never had any desire to go skinny dipping, let alone in someone else’s pool and suddenly my desire to do that outranked anything I had wanted to do. I think what attracted me most to her was that she didn't have a need to go see the world. She wanted to experience and enjoy the life that already surrounded her. She didn't want to just escape; she wanted make it so she enjoyed her life so much she didn't have to escape it.
     My wife and I had lost the excitement and adventure in our life; we could both feel our marriage fizzling out, but I never thought of cheating on her or being unfaithful in anyway. I told myself that scrolling through the different profiles was harmless. I never thought that I would actually find a woman that I would want to get to know. It was the first time in my marriage that I thought that my wife might not be “the one”. The guilt only started to set in when I sent her a message: “Hi, my name is Martin”, I had planned to use my real name, but knowing the outcome now I am glad that I didn't, “I read your profile and was immediately intrigued. I’m scared to say that I want all the things you want because that sounds so cliché, but I will say that I want that life. I want to be the one to come home to you and ask you about your day and want with everything in me to know the answer, I want to see that smile on your face when I hand you flowers on a random Tuesday and then take you out for burgers and cokes and enjoy your company as well as my meal. I want to go for Sunday afternoon drives with you where we have no destination and take in the adventures that come along the way. And I want more than anything in the world to go skinny dipping with you at midnight in the neighbours pool! I want that full life and I certainly don’t want it alone.”
     We started to email each other and that was when I started to feel like I was cheating on my wife. Part of me wanted to tell her the whole thing, but another part of me knew that her emails were the best part of my day. I had no idea what she looked like; she described herself to me, but I her humble, “5,6 and bruenette”, description was less than detailed. I wanted to meet her in person, but I knew that when I met her I would fall head-over-heels and then it would be real. I am not a cheater, that wasn't the kind of person that I was, but when she asked to meet me I couldn't help myself.
     On the day I was to meet her I was so nervous. It was the same nerves that I felt on my wedding day: scared, terrified, ecstatic, and excited all at the same time. I made a point to meet with her at a café on the other side of town to guarantee we wouldn't run into my wife, it was on the other side of town for her too, but she didn't seem to mind. She told me to look for the girl in a red sundress. Thinking about that dress really made me smile. As I got closer to the café I began getting extremely nervous to the point of sickness. I parked the car and just sat there for a while. I started to walk towards the café and my conscience got the best of me, I couldn't cheat on my wife. I stood in front of the café and was about to turn around when I saw the red sundress. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, she almost looked as beautiful as she did on our wedding day. My wife and I made eye contact. I knew from the dress, but it took her a few seconds to realize I was the guy she had been e-mailing. In that moment I had never been so in love with my wife. I stood outside that café and smiled at her, she sat there in gave me that smile that I had shamefully forgotten. That night we skinny dipped in our neighbour’s pool!

The Strange Man In Subway

I was in line at a Subway the other day and at the front of the line was a man who immediately to me and clearly to everyone else seemed strange. He was quite loud when he spoke which was quite often. He was telling the Subway employees, people he had just met, personal information about himself and sharing about his weekend. He went to a boat show in Toronto and saw some fairly expensive boats. He pulled his phone out and showed a picture of a boat worth several million dollars to one of the employees. The whole time he was there he wouldn't stop talking and he was in no rush to leave. As I was leaving I thought to myself, "What a strange dude". I got into my car and I turned it on, but I didn't take it out of park yet, I had another thought to myself and it was disgust...for myself. I was calling this man strange because he was kind and open. I replayed what I had just witnessed back over in my head. He was making conversation with these employees. They were smiling and responding back to him with as much enthusiasm as him, so they weren't annoyed by his presence. He was never rude, not once. In fact he seemed like an extremely kind person. He had what seemed like a girlfriend with him, so hes clearly doing something better than me. He didn't bother or annoy anyone. I thought back and realized I wasn't annoyed either, in fact I was interested in how a boat could be worth so much. He was in no rush because he was enjoying himself and just taking his time; I had no place to be. And most importantly he made those employees smile; he made conversation with them, he didn't see them as just the people making his sand which, he saw them as people. I was disgusted with myself because I immediately thought that this guy was strange because he was kind. Unfortunately that's normal in our world. It should be that I was strange one for not acting the way he did. It made me think about social conventions and how its good to be a nice and open person as long as it doesn't make people too uncomfortable. Respect that people have places to be and just let them get on with their day. That's bull s***. Whats life if not a good conversation with a complete stranger. I would like to be a little more strange.

The Old Man

          There once was a young man--many years ago. He was a good man, but he always felt that he had to prove himself because his family was a lower class. This made the man greedy. He was always trying become higher in his status and never stopped to enjoy life. One day he was travelling in the back of a farmers wagon in search of some way to find his desired wealth. The farmer stopped on the side of the road to pick up another stranger. The stranger was an old man, he got into the wagon and sat beside the young man. The two of them got to talking and the young man had told the old man his plan to become a rich and powerful man. The old man laughed and told the him that there was more to life than wealth and power, there is love and family. The young man dismissed this proclaiming that he would do whatever it took to not be poor, to not be like his father was. The old man got really serious and said that he could help him if that is what he really wanted. The young man told him that it really was. The old man snapped his fingers. He knelt down and picked up a nail from the floor of the wagon and immediately plunged it into the neck of the young man. The young man screamed in pain and pulled the nail out. The blood pouring out out of his neck quickly stopped and the stab wound healed within minutes. The old man smiled and told him that he had granted him everlasting life. He told him that he will never die, will never get injured or sick again. The young man in shock asked him how this would help him achieve his goal. The old man told him that he will never age; he has all the time in the world to become rich and powerful. The old man told him that the only way that he will be able to die is if he passes his gift on to someone else. But it can only be to someone with the same desires and greed like himself. The young man immediately took advantage of his new gift and did whatever it took to gain wealth. The old man passed away as soon as the young man left the wagon.
         Many years later, after becoming rich and powerful he met a young woman and he fell in love. . For a while he was able to enjoy his family; his wife and his three daughters. However, his overpowering greed eventually came back and could no longer resist his need to go back to his old ways. He wasn't content with his simple life. He dismissed his family and fell away from them. His wealth, however, grew more and more. After years of his growing status and wealth, his distanced family was in their home waiting for him to come back from one of his many meetings when a fire started in the kitchen on the main floor. It was late and all of the daughters were asleep. The mother smelled the smoke and saw the fire from upstairs. She tried to wake her children, but it was too late. They were all caught in the fire. The young man came home to find his entire family dead. The young man was ruined. All he wanted to do was die along with his wife and daughters. He would have if hadn't become unable to die. Every night he would place the gun to his temple and pull the trigger and every time he would get back up.
          Fast forward many more years. For a very long time the young man searched for someone to pass his curse on to. He thought it would be easy to find a young and greedy man, but every person he found had some piece of them that desired to truly enjoy their lives and because of this the curse could not be passed. He gave up on his search. He took to spending his days drinking and challenging himself to attempt to take home the prettiest girl in the bar. He usually won. He hated his life.
         One night at a pub, the man was sitting at the bar. He was an old man now. Not because of age, but because of life and the toll it had taken on his spirit. He saw a young man sitting near him with the same desire in his eyes that he once had many years prior. The old man sat closer to him. They began talking and the young told him his story. It was almost identical to the old mans. He wanted wealth and riches. The old man told him he could give him this if that was really what he wanted. The young man said he really wanted it. The old man was about to snap his fingers when he thought of how much he has hated his life; how miserable he has been. He saw now that the old man had cursed him, not blessed him. He thought of everything he had done in his life, never had he done something good for someone. He couldn't do it. The old man told the young man that he can't help him. He told him there was more to life than everything he desired. With that the young man left the pub as normal as he came in. The old man finally felt some sort of joy in his life. He picked up his drink and took a sip. He set the drink down and coughed. With that cough followed another. The bartender said to the old man, "you must have caught the flu that is going around".
The old man smiled.