These Walls Are Funny...

One of my favorite movies of all time is the Shawshank Redemption, and when I was surfing the news one evening I came upon an article which seemed to be a case of life imitating art.

Walter Unbehaun, aged 74, recently robbed a bank and calmly waited for police to arrive in order to secure a return to prison, a place in which he spent almost his entire adult like; a place which he longed for as home. So just to clear, a free man walked in with no disguise walked into a bank and committed a crime, and expressed joy when the police came to him to take him away. The article describes Unbehaun as "bored and lonely" as he spent his days watching television or drawing. In a court filing he compared his life at the trailer park to living in a prison isolation "hole."

As a parallel, the Shawshank Redemption features a number of prisoners, one of which is Brooks Hatlen, an old-timer who expresses grief upon getting paroled. After struggling with adopting to life "on the outside", Brooks commits suicide, leaving his friends still in prison grappling with understanding why. As they mourn, one prisoner, Red, makes the following observation about the prison walls:

These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized... They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyway.

There's a lot of reasons why I love this film, but reading this article reminded me of how we easily fall in love with parts of our lives which are actually negative and destructive, but hold on tightly to them because, well.... they're comfortable. I'm not just talking about things such as addictions to drugs, alcohol or porn (all of which apply), but more subtle things such as a predisposition to be self-centered or self-focused, or an inclination to lash out in criticism and contempt as a means of masking one's own insecurity.

I'm convinced that a lot of what we'd call "sin" fits into this category. We know that these things are wrong and destructive, yet our souls and hearts are so broken and deceived that we succumb to the fallacy that we'd rather live lives as prisoners as opposed to living free. Jesus himself speaks about "proclaiming freedom for the prisoners" and his fulfillment of that prophesy. Tragically, like Brooks Hatlen and Walter Unbehaun, we too often look longingly at those prison walls.

Being Lost and Being Found

It's been almost a month and a half since Malaysian Air Flight 370 disappeared, and it's been interesting to our reaction to this bizarre event which is both mystery and tragedy. For the families of the passengers, there's surely an agonizing numbness and lack of closure it all. Clearly, there is realistically no possibility of the passengers having survived, but without proof positive of wreckage, the glimmer of hope of life still glimmers, arguably unhelpfully. Those left behind are left to not quite mourn and not quite hold out hope. It's a painful place to linger which wrestles between the guilt of losing hope and the foolishness of believing in a miracle.

For the rest of us who watch from a distance, the emotions more likely pivoted from alarm, shock, sadness, curiosity, perplexity and eventually a vague fascination, probably more similar the way we're suckers to slow down and rubberneck in front of a freeway car accident than we'd like to admit. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart hilariously (and rightfully) skewered CNN for it's over-the-top coverage of the missing flight. But can anyone blame CNN? Like any media and advertising-driven outlet, they're out for ratings, which driving up the price at which they can sell their advertising. If people weren't glued to the set watching, CNN wouldn't broadcast it.

So what is the fascination? Part of it can be the aforementioned garden-variety fascination with accidents, either with slice of morose "could it have happened to me?" on the side. I think there's also a bigger thing at play here, and that is the fear of being lost.

When you think of it, being lost is awful. In many ways, it's worse than being hated, disliked or despised, because at least in those cases, you're at least relevant. If you're lost, it can feel almost as if you don't matter. Being lost is terrifying because your safety, your security, even your very sense of direction are all stripped from you. There's a paralyzing helplessness.

I was thinking about this during Easter Weekend, and was buoyed by hope in remembering that at least spiritually, my state of being lost does not overwhelm God's desire and power to find me. This is and should always be a great comfort.

Child-Like Affections

When I went on vacation with my kids a few weeks ago, I found that we enjoyed a lot of things together. That is, we uniformly had strong positive feelings towards restaurants that we ate at and venues which we visited. Given the difference in age, preferences, tastes and life experiences between me and my kids, you might have expected a handful of things which they like which I found boring or vice versa. It never really happened. From the Alamo to the Riverwalk to the Witte Museum to SeaWorld, we all walked out glowing about how enjoyable our experience was.

The one thing for which we probably had the greatest divergence of opinion was our hotel.

Hotels are interesting that way. I have yet to meet a kid who didn't go nuts with joy with the prospect of staying at a hotel. I remembered being so jazzed up at staying at a Holiday Inn during a childhood visit to Washington, D.C. that I boisterously sang that hotel's commercial jingle as I sat in the tub. What is it about hotels? Is it the novelty of sleeping in somewhere besides your own bed (the same thing which make kid sleepovers similarly enticing)? Is it the prospect of having cable television (which obviously isn't a big treat for many kids who already have it at home)? Is it the free toiletries? Is it the thought that mom and dad won't yell at your as loud with strangers on either side of your hotel room only being separated by thin walls? Admittedly, part of it for me with the ability to take baths instead of a shower, where I could do tidal wave and boat adventures. My parents' were too cheap to be so wasteful of the water used for a tub bath (I love you mom and dad.) Anyway, I'm getting off topic here...

I travel some for my current job, but I used to travel crazy amounts during my management consultant years. The silver-lining to that travel was two-fold: First, I had ridiculous amounts of hotel points and airline miles, some of which were used to fully fund our honeymoon to Aruba. Second, despite our firms disregard to any sort of lifestyle stability, they at least had the courtesy to ensure that we were staying a nice hotels, so we were staying at upper-level Marriotts, Westins and Hiltons with an occasional Four Seasons stay sprinkled in.

Unfortunately, like a lot of heavy business travelers, this leads to a certain internal standards around overnight accommodations which contrast markedly from my childhood affinity towards any hotel room had a television with ESPN. Frankly, you might say that one becomes a bit of a snob. One takes for granted that the hotel ought to furnish soap, shower gels and shampoos made by The Body Shop and that the bed should be at least Westin Heavenly Bed quality. So as a snobby business travelers who was once fond with the prospect of a night away from home, what happened?

I bring this up because I think there's a bigger lesson and warning about losing that child-like gratefulness of the small things which make life terrific - and it happens naturally as we grow up. As toddlers, we used to find great joy about ripping open wrapping paper. As children, we used to love the toys which were inside the gift boxes. Now as adults, we fret that we shouldn't have been suckered into buying that extended warranty.

Jesus talks about the importance of being "child like" to enter the Kingdom of God, and Christians are constantly coming to grips with this exhortation. The common and correct interpretation speaks of the need to run to God as a child - in that we come to Him offering nothing but ourselves, completely bereft of anything we could possibly give an Almighty and Benevolent to earn His favor. His favor is a gift of grace, paid by Jesus on the Cross.

But I think there's another lesson how we live life gratefully with enthusiasm. In our lives which are increasingly marked by escalating means of entertainment, comfort and convenience, I wonder if we're getting increasingly hard to impress by anything anymore. We've experienced entertainment so stimulating and technological advances so mind-blowing that in the words of Marie Antoinette, "Nothing tastes." What might help is for us to recapture our child-like appreciation, and in the process recapturing our appreciation for the finer little things in life.

The Always Reliable Road Trip

I'm convinced that a young family can rarely go wrong cobbling up a road trip vacation. While the prospect of packing two adults and two or more kids into a car for a few hours may seem like Chinese water torture for some, I suspect that most families would find such an idea appealing. Of course, I bring my own nostalgic memories into my perceptions of the American Road Trip. My older brother and I used to sit in the back of our Dodge Coronet (and later, Honda Accord) and play games ranging from "Licence Plate Bingo" to "The Picnic Game" while listening in on a AM/FM radio cassette player which we would use to scan the airwaves for Top 40 music. My brother's imagination knew no bounds, so he's make up games in the backseat which would invariably leave us cracking up laughing. If the cliché is "getting there is half the fun", I'd have to say they might have undershot.

We spent this Spring Break taking a trip to San Antonio, partly because we want to leave no attraction within driving distance of our home unchecked (I partially addressed this in an earlier post), but we also wanted to do this three hour trip as "muscle-builder" for a longer ten-hour trip we'll take this summer. I'm happy to say that all of us had a blast.

San Antonio, I've learned, is really the tourist destination for anyone going to Texas. Houston and Dallas are much larger cities and have their share of things to do, but when it comes to the greatest concentration of attractions in any given metropolitan area, it's tough to beat San Antonio. The Riverwalk is great for all ages, and also within walking distance are the Alamo and a couple of Ripley's Believe it Or Not! museums. The Witte Museum, SeaWorld, Natural Bridge Caverns and Six Flags Fiesta Texas are short drives away, so there's always plenty to do. We went to most of these places during our four day trip, and we had a blast.

The road trip has changed over time, however. With minivans with fancy entertainment systems, kids in the back are no longer forced to come up with their own entertainment armed only with their imaginations. Instead, there's constant pleas of putting in X DVD or Y Book on CD and arguments over who should get to listen to what. It's not all negative, and in fairness, my wife and I did regulate the amount of "entertainment system" time we allowed the kids. I think it's just a microcosm of the broader change in how our kids are raised, entertained, and even taught. Imagination, paper-based and outdoor activities have lost ground to Internet-connected tablet and smartphones. But when it comes to kids experiencing new things, like a fresh exhibit at a museum, a lively city or a new landmark, the allure of electronics fade away just for a moment, and they have that same look of wonder that their parents had as kids many years ago.

There's still a lot to like about the American road trip. The spontaneity of finding a place to grab a bite and the camaraderie forged with shared experience still prevails. Good memories forged by new sights and sounds and family debriefs around "what did you like most about today?" are worth cherishing. All of the "side stuff", like starting our days by making waffles at the free hotel breakfast buffet and closing our nights with competitive games of charades at night - you can't ask for a sweeter four days than that.

Amazing Talent, Amazing Challenges

My family and I have enjoy watching the Olympics, and this year has been no different. It's been interesting to learn emerging sports which previously haven't been prominent in the Winter Olympics program. The first Winter Olympics that I somewhat remember was Sarajevo 1984, and I'm pretty sure that half-pipe and slope-style courses were but a gleam in the IOC's eye. It's a change to be patriotic and root for the United States without being over-the-top jingoistic and as far as family bonding time, you could do a lot worse.

But what I think is most compelling about the Olympics is the drama that comes along with people who are immensely gifted and talented trying to reach the pinnacle of their sport in the arena of competition. These are people who are the crème de la crème who have devoted years of their lives to a seminal moment to perform on the greatest world stage in their craft. And despite the clichés maintaining otherwise, their hard work won't necessarily yield success. For a moment they could have a bad day, be sick, endure equipment failure or run into a fluke patch of ice or a red-hot competitor and all they'll be left with is the platitudes of commentators and fans who celebrate a good effort that just fell short. And for many of these athletes, I suspect they'll go through this crisis of identity. What do you do when you've accomplished everything in your field? What do you do if you've failed and that window has now closed?

What I find interesting is how sports give us a glimpse of how identity and giftedness often are at play within our own lives. About a month ago, there was a raging controversy when Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman made a terrific play to clinch his team's ticket to the Super Bowl, then proceeded to publicly excoriate an opposing wide receiver in a bizarre rant on national television on how awesome he was and how his opponent was "trash". Sherman was ripped in the public and press for being a bad sportsman, unprofessional, classless and worse. Defenders of Sherman pointed out the fact that he grew up in the ghetto of Compton and went to Stanford (which I thought was irrelevant to criticism of his actions), that he was placed in the poor position of having to answer a reporter's question so close to the end of the game (which would hold weight except for the fact that other players have been in similar situations without succumbing to Sherman's actions), and that some of the criticism had racist overtones (which I agree, but that doesn't invalidate the legitimacy of the overall critique). I wasn't a big fan of what he did, but reflecting on his actions did make me cognizant of how tightly all of us can hold onto our own giftedness, and how this leads to how we subconsciously elevate ourselves above others (most of us, thankfully, don't have microphone which reveals our own hearts' pride and arrogance). This, of course, isn't ultimately going to end well, because at some point, Richard Sherman will no longer be at the top of his game and he'll be humbled.

These super-talented individuals also face remarkable challenges. Along with their gifts, they also bear the weight of mammoth expectations, and the struggle of how they cut through all of the static and voices around what defines success in their lives. So as I look at these Olympians, the vast majority of whom will turn from Sochi empty-handed, I think about my own life. Insomuch I put part of my identity in my career, what happens when I flame out and am unable to provide for my family? Or as I look at Richard Sherman, do I look upon my own successes humbly or do I view these as ammunition to feed an insecure ego?

Pressure Not Worth Dying For

I loved my college experience, and one of the ways I express my affinity for my alma mater is by serving as an alumni interviewer. So twice during the "early admissions" cycle and twice during the "regular admissions" cycle, I volunteer my time to put a trembling prospective student under the microscope. I'd consider myself a tough, but fair interviewer - I don't go out of the way to trap or trick these high school seniors, but I do want to get a clear sense of who they are, what distinguishes them from other strong applicants and whether they've done their homework on my alma mater (which would lend credibility to their insistence that my school is "their number one choice").

But I also try to inject some kind humanity into my interviews. I usually open up with asking them about their senior year, and I'll encourage them to enjoy every moment of their second semester. "Kick back and enjoy the great memories you'll share with your friends," I'd tell them. "Your transcripts are locked down and you'll be free to learn without being fixated on test scores. Instead, you'll be dreaming about all the fun you'll have on your senior class trip and prom." At the end of the interview, I'd offer a firm handshake and again ask them to enjoy the rest of their senior year. "After all," I'd say, "I can say with high certainty that whether it's a Penn or another college, you're going to end up a great school where you'll meet great friends and experience great things. Don't let unnecessary stress about college ruin what should be a terrific senior year. A year from now you'll be in a good place. And five years from now you'll be in a good place, too!"

I thought about this when I sadly learned about the suicide of a young lady who was in her first year at Penn. Shortly after her death, Madison Holleran's father told journalists, “There was a lot more pressure in the classroom at Penn. She wasn’t normal happy Madison. Now she had worries and stress.” There seems to be a mental health element in Madison's death, but I think it's fair to say that the kind of stress that she faced is something that many high schoolers and college students can relate to. And while I can't fathom enduring pressure to the point of taking my own life, I do recall how jarring it was to be in a situation where things that were formerly easy (namely, academics) were suddenly more difficult. And I remember it not being particularly pleasant coming to the realization I wasn't "all that and a bag of chips" - college was full of academic and extracurricular overachievers who were far more impressive that I was. 

I can imagine through a lens of of a mentally-struggling mind, these emotions were magnified to the point of a despair more dark and hopeless than I can imagine. And now a young lady is gone because of it.

I close my interviews with my aforementioned words in part because I think this is what I hope that my own children would hear from my own voice, both through my actions and my words. I do push my kids to strive for excellence, but I try to deeply embed within them an ethos where once they've done their best, they can put their soul at rest and be at peace that God will open and close the right doors. They need not have their joy robbed by unnecessary pressure or stress. They ought not to waste hours of their lives questioning their value and identity on things which are peripheral. Their mother and I won't love them any more or less based upon how they do in school or where they go to college. They'll go where God wants them to go - and they'll be just fine.

Home Away From Home

Like many others, I returned to work and fielded the question that everyone gets on the first weekday of the new year: "How was your holiday?" Before soon, I had developed a response which I felt was the right balance between being non-dismissive without delving into unnecessary details, and it was pretty much this: "It was terrific, thanks. We stayed the first days locally and celebrated with friends here, spent Christmas morning at our home where we opened gifts, and then went back up to the northeast for ten days where we saw family and friends. It was the perfect amount of time back up there - not too long, and not too short - and we had a chance to spend time with just about everyone with whom we wanted to meet up." It was indeed a terrific Christmas holiday.

This was big milestone for the family as it was the first time the entire family (I had returned for a friend's wedding last summer) had returned to New Jersey since our move early last year. It was a trip that was highly anticipated and talked about for weeks around the dinner table, and as we finally arrived at Newark Airport on Christmas evening, there was an interesting duality of feeling that of "being home" and "coming for a visit".

On occasion, we'll ask the kids about whether they preferred Texas or New Jersey, and prior to our trip, our two older kids usually answered the former while our youngest answered the latter. The reason from my youngest daughter's preference is simple and heartwarming: "I miss grandma." But throughout our trip, all our kids developed a greater affinity for the Garden State. It could have been reacquainting themselves with old friends or even the opportunity to experience wintry weather that I'm not particularly a fan of. More recently when my son was asked about the question of which state he prefers, he capitulates and speaks fondly about his grandparents, cousins and snow.

We were visiting at the home of close friends in NJ when I told my daughter about that we need to get ready to leave. She burst into tears and sobbed about never being able to see these friends again. And as I held her and told her that to the contrary, we were blessed to have good friends in two places. I told her that we were fortunate that we would always have old friends who we could visit and share all of our exciting new experiences with while developing and deepening new friendships in our new home. And mathematically, we'd have more friends. It was sort of a more heartfelt version of the "more is better" AT&T wireless commercial.

But in comforting my daughter, I was able to articulate the gladness of the life that I have - that I think we all have - now. There's something to be said about stability, longevity and growing deep roots - I get that. But if the providence of God brings us to another place, and then another, and then another... we'll be okay. We're in a good place. We're in good hands.