What Would You Do?

In your grocer's freezer is an ice cream treat known as a Klondike bar. The national advertising campaign for this product features the tag line, "What would you do for a Klondike bar?" Their ads feature people doing the most ridiculous and embarrassing things just for the promise of a free treat.

Unseen announcer: Would you cluck like a chicken for a Klondike bar?
Person on the street: Probably.
Unseen announcer: Would you sing a medley of Manilow tunes on a crowded inner city subway car at 2:00 a.m. for a Klondike bar?
Person on the street: ♪ I write the songs that make the whole world sing ...! ♪
Unseen announcer: Would you chop off your arm above the elbow for a Klondike bar?
Person on the street: Dah, who wouldn't?
Unseen announcer: Would you run for public office for a Klondike bar?
Person on the street: Dude, I have my limits.

Anyway, I had a run-in with a Klondike bar the other evening and was able to answer the question, "What would I do for a Klondike bar?". It was kind of late at night and I was feeling a bit peckish. I searched the cupboard for a snackerel and didn't see anything that excited me. Cabinet? Ugh. Fridge? Bah. I opened the freezer and there sat a box of Klondike bars. It had already been opened earlier, but apparently in haste as the box was still mostly covered in its original plastic wrapping. Looking at the hungry polar bear on the wrappers I thought to myself, hmmmm. I guess I will have one of those. I reached into the freezer and made a swipe at one of the bars but was thwarted by the plastic wrap. I made a second attempt to reach my fingers into the packaging to grab my treat, but again came up empty. I then closed the freezer and walked away.

So, what would I do for a Klondike bar? Well, apparently not very much.

The Iron Lance

In the year 1095 Pope Urban of Rome declared a holy war on the Muslim and Turkish infidels that have taken occupancy of the holy land of Christianity. His call for crusade has gone out across all of Europe for kings and leaders to rally their people to build a great army for God. The Scottish lord Ranulf and his two eldest sons have chosen to join the pilgrimage to liberate Jerusalem and Antioch from the infidel scourge. Ranulf's youngest son, Murdo, is left to assist his mother in looking after the long-held family estate. However, soon after the menfolk depart, the regional Bishop takes to brutally seizing the local estates and filling his coffers from their rich holdings. This begins the first book in the Celtic Crusades trilogy of author Stephen Lawhead, entitled The Iron Lance.

Young Murdo, a boy of only 14 years, in his rage at the church and their strong-armed abuse of power and rampant treachery and greed, sets out on a pilrimage of his own. His quest is to find his father and bring him back home to reclaim their lands and their honor. The trek to Jerusalem takes nearly a year by sea. Murdo's traveling companions include a trio of monks, including the wise and mentoring Brother Emlyn, and the ship's loyal captain and crew. Murdo's remarkable journey is measured by his growth from a sheltered and naive boy to a principled and directed man. He learns not only of himself but experiences much to shape his faith, including two unusual encounters with Saint Andrew and recovering the spear that pierced Jesus while he hung on the cross.

The Iron Lance is a masterful work in its character development and the lands and times in which it takes place. From Murdo, to Lord and Lady Ranulf, to Murdo's brothers Torf and Skuli, to Emlyn the monk, to emperor Alexius, to the English and Frankish kings, to Murdo's wife Ragna. Each of these people I saw as fully fleshed out and alive. From the Orkney Islands in Scotland, to Constantinople in the Byzantine empire, to Jerusalem, and to Jaffa on the Mediterranean Sea. I could picture the lands and see with clarity the settings before me. Now, onto the second book in the series, The Black Rood.

Grind My Gears 28

Slot B not fitting into tab A? Are you freakin' kidding me? Some cretin at the factory probably just wazzed things up when he was collecting his high union wages at taxpayer's expense whilst working only 3 hours a day twice a week. There is no way things could be screwed up because I put them together incorrectly ... And NO, I do not need to read the instructions! That notion, my friend, is totally unacceptable. It is fully against that warm and squishy American can-do spirit. In fact, people who read the enclosed instructions before putting something together really grind my gears. I mean it is really value added when you have lots of extra parts left over after assembling that shelving system for your rare vase collection. Plus the screaming and ranting scene that typically ensues provides me with a vigorous work-out that both tones and shapes. In fact, the way the thing tilts ever so gently to the side just makes the piece look "rustic" and home-crafted (like it was made by artisans). I mean those Dilberts that actually take the time to read the instructions may have shelves that don't collapse the moment that someone walks by, but they also don't have a soul either!

Thick Skin/Tender Heart II

Pastor Charles Swindoll always talks about the importance for us to develop a thick skin while cultivating a tender heart. Yet this type of personal make-up seems to require our living in an uneasy tension between two very different natures.

A hard heart implies that through the circumstances of our lives, we have developed an attitude of indifference. Cold, insensitive, unfeeling, and unyielding. It is likely a condition brought on by past hurt or pain. We have set ourselves in a position to purposefully and intentionally shut out unwanted influences. It is a protection mechanism that has been developed to filter out specific circumstances, emotions, or situations.

A tender heart gives us the ability to feel deeply and remain connected at an important emotional level. It means that we have developed a mindset that approaches the world with an attitude of warmth, compassion, charity, and sensitivity. We tend to be very easily moved by the plight or circumstances of those around us.

Yet, the combination of a thick skin with a tender heart seems to imply something of a delicate balance between opposing characteristics. The coupling of these two qualities, when appropriately developed and instituted in our programming, really amounts to a rational approach to making an informed decision on what we let affect our hearts and minds. It allows for the separation of the wheat from the chaff, the gold from the slag. It keeps us from reacting or over-reacting to people, situations, and input that unnecessarily and needlessly takes us to unhealthy places and mindsets. In fact, while seemingly a delicate tension, cultivating a thick skin with a tender heart is really the most healthy position of equilibrium for each of us.

(Part 2 of 2)

Thick Skin/Tender Heart I

Pastor Charles Swindoll always talks about the importance for us to develop a thick skin while cultivating a tender heart. Yet this type of personal make-up seems to require our living in an uneasy tension between two very different natures.

A thick skin provides the ability for unimportant and potentially damaging emotional input to our systems to be quickly dissipated from our minds and hearts. We process the information and consciously decide that it is not worth any level of investment, action, or ownership on our part. That is the end of it. The input and the people it came from are not allowed to affect us or infect us. It is not simply burying the information so that it sits below the surface eating away at us until it erupts and spews its poison at some future time. It is just summarily deposited into the waste bin and is really and truly gone from our consciousness.

A thin skin implies that we are sensitive or, in some cases, hypersensitive to criticism (whether real or imagined) from others. We are easily upset, affected, and afflicted. Feelings of anxiety or despair can overwhelm us, leaving us in a state of depression and negativity that can last for days. The way our body and mind react to such input, even when we acknowledge that there is no reason or basis for us to feel anything or to let ourselves get entangled in any feelings of negativity, implies that our reactions are subconscious and run deep into our very being.

(Part 1 of 2)

Yukon Tales

I walked into a colleague's office the other day to go over some logistics details of a project that I am working on. As I was sitting in the chair across from his desk, my eyes wandered to a nearby bookshelf along one of his walls. Instead of being filled with technical manuals or textbooks, it contained an eclectic mix of books from his own personal collection. Trying to be witty, I asked him if he kept these book in his office just to impress his visitors. His response to me was almost as if he had expected the question. He jumped from his chair and hastened to his shelf. Running his fingers along the spines of the books, searching for a specific title, he pulled out a thin book and handed it to me with a big smile. "You have got to read this book, it is just wonderful!" The passion in his response intrigued me. It is not like he even knew that I liked to read or had the slightest inkling of what my tastes might be. But even beyond his enthusiasm, the title of the book struck me as completely unexpected. Best Tales of the Yukon. How someone could be so impassioned over a book on the Yukon was beyond me. However, given the nature of the offer, as well as the thinnest of the book, I decided to give it a shot.

The book was written by Robert Service, a banker teller stationed in the Yukon territory. It represents a collection of poetry and verse that details the Klondike gold rush of the early 1900s, as well as the savage beauty of the land and the melange of characters that inhabited it. The individual pieces were based on a time and place that was filled with vivid imagery and a wild mix of frontier personalities. The author's language and style really did transport me to the world that he lived in and experienced. From the highest highs of striking it rich to the lowest lows of striking out. A fun and interesting read.

Rabbit Hole

All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.

I struggle around most people, not knowing where to look or what to say. Where do I put my hands? What am I supposed to do when my body twitches as if burned by flame under the pressure of their gaze? My mind screams, "Get out of there!" I am overwhelmed with anxiety and it feels that the walls of the room are closing in upon me. I do not have the strength to bear up under these feelings of anxiety and pressure to do what I am not equipped to do.

My issues are made all the more constricting and cloying when conflict is present. It often feels that my best recourse is to run and hide, escape down that rabbit hole. Run to my own world where I feel safe and can breathe. Only there does my heart slow down and find its quiet pace. Only there does my mind begin to sensibly process information. Of course, running and hiding whenever things get tough or uncomfortable, is not necessarily a healthy way to live. You cannot be part of the big wide world when you are locked away in your own fantasy land, where reality is technicolor. Everything warped and stretched, bottled and baked.

Curiouser and curiouser.