As I sit here typing, the hostel seems to be waking up. It is now 11pm, and the party will start at 2am. I can’t believe this used to be the schedule that I kept. Music vibrates the walls, Sublime, The Eagles, Janis Joplin, and other songs I recognize. I think some people are eating breakfast and getting ready for the night.
I am still working on our debrief weekend, and trying to figure out what to do with the freedom my brain is feeling with out the responsibility for leading. Debrief was a stressful time for me, as Andrew took me to the paradox of the balance of encouragement and discipline. We were reminded that God is worth serving, and people are worth loving. Reminded that we love because we are loved. What is it that is so difficult to understand? How much God loves me? Words that I have heard, songs I have sung all my life. What is so difficult about love?
In Huaraz, Peru, there was a coffee shop called the Cafe Andino. This shop had a mini library, and I looked for an author I enjoy. I almost pulled out Thoreau’s Walden, but was patient enough to go through the stacks of books until I found Vonnegut. (Right now, I feel like I already discussed this book, but I am still there). Kurt Vonnegut. I was introduced to this author in high school, and totally enjoyed the book Player Piano. So I pulled out his shortest book in this stack, which is titled “Slapstick”. This is a type of autobiography of his.
In the beginning of the book, Vonnegut is trying to grasp love. He is pretty honest when he says he doesn’t really understand love, never mind HOW to love. (Andrew says love is a verb which acts on an object) He says the purest love he understands is when he plays with his dogs on the carpet. That he hugs and pets and wrestles with his dogs until they are fully embarrassed by him. Vonnegut says his best understanding of loving others is a common decency. For people to be decent to each other.
I guess I identify with him. He writes how difficult it is for him to hug others. Hugging is easy for me. I am not sure where I learned to hug, in fact it is pretty easy for me to hug a man. Hugging a man is easier than hugging a woman who is not my wife. I think I learned to hug in sports, real sports. Not fake sports like soccer or baseball, but real sports, where a helmet is a weapon. Sports where you are actually concerned about someone knocking the snot out of you. Sports where the objective is to knock the snot out of the other person before he gets you. Then you hug, because this is a sport. It is always easiest to hug someone who has either given you an incredible fight, or you have fought side by side with. It is tough to hug people you don’t really respect, or don’t really love. It is easier to hug someone than it is to explain to them why you don’t want to hug. Shaking hands sometimes seems to be passive aggressive to me. A way of acknowledging someone, that you don’t mean them harm, but also don’t have anything but your hand to offer them.
Or maybe I learned to hug over beers. Beers with buddies. Beers with coworkers. I have learned that I connect shoulder to shoulder. I have a tough time connecting to people during the appropriate times. Like fellowship hour at church. Where I stand with a juice and a cookie, and I sweat out the minutes, answering the questions about how life is going. I don’t know, do I tell the truth? Give a summary? Tell a joke? What do I do during a fellowship hour? Go wrestle with one of the little boys? Try to find my nephew and see who can eat the most donuts? Tease one of the elderly ladies, because at least they laugh at my jokes? Then the lights flash on and off, because next on the schedule is sunday school hour. Get ‘er done!
Beers. At least getting beers is doing SOMETHING. Conversations at the bar. Music and distractions. Why is it that my best conversations happen in that environment? That with a beer in my hand I can listen to someone else’s issues? Listen without wondering if I am supposed to have an answer. Then after a couple of beers, hugging everyone.
Vonnegut says his own son made him hug him. That he hugged his son (as his son was leaving for either the army or college, I can’t remember), because his son asked why he never hugs him. I hope I don’t become like that. I hope someday I learn to truly love. Love is easy, when playing with a dog. Or a snot bag. (kid). Love is difficult when it is directed towards people you live with constantly. People who you have seen their ugly side. Even worse, people who have seen your ugly side. People who have seen your failures, and when they hug you back, you know they are hugging you out of mercy (not necessarily respect). That these people are showing you love. Sometimes being loved is most difficult.
I guess after growing up in a house full of foster children, on football teams, and in other types of community, I have learned to be alone in a crowd. I have developed this pattern of being there, but not making connections. Kind of an emotional detachment, a little bubble. A common decency. Let me sit with my thoughts, why do I always need to let people know how I feel? I don’t even know how I am feeling. I feel deeply, but it takes forever for me to understand how I feel or why I feel that way. And I am not going to spill my feelings without accurately understanding them. So a person loves me by respecting my silence. Then a person loves me by listening to my opinion. It works both ways. I don’t really care how others are feeling, but if they need to let me know how they are feeling, I guess I love them by listening to them. I don’t really ask people, I guess I assume people are doing ok if they don’t say they are not. I guess I assume I am loving people by assuming they are ok. I guess I assume I am loving people by assuming they don’t need my opinion, that I am loving them by respecting who they are. By not imposing myself? Then I learn I am not vulnerable, I am a poor communicator, people don’t really know me. I don’t try to be this way, what people see from me, is me.(?) These blogs, are they me? I don’t know if I am different than these blogs. People read these and say how open I am, how honest. At the same time, I hear from people that I am quiet and distant. Hmmm….Beats me.
So, I force myself back to love. Linnea, who I love more than I have ever loved anyone in my life, my wife, my beautiful gift from God, does she know how much I love her? I love her with my love languages, physical touch and quality time. I force her to love me with that language. (will you please scratch my back? listen to my opinion?) While she loves me easiest with her love languages, acts of service, and words of affirmation. These languages that I realize, but hardly ever communicate. Does that show lack of ability to love? Now I am feeling guilty. I am done with this thought process.
