Click, Click, Click, I Can't Hear You!

Yesterday's evidence that I really need to work on my listening skills.

Setting
Coffee shop, busy and quite loud but not enough where you can't have a conversation

Background
A stranger has come and sat next to two roommates, Me and Megan #2. He strikes up a conversation with the two girls after a stranger comes up and engages him in a 15-minute conversation about Unix, a type of computer system.

Strange Guy

Well, it's just something I'm interested in. I guess, I just like learning about things that are kind of related to my job.

Me

Where do you work at now?

Strange Guy

Torrance Unified School District. It's actually a pretty big district...has 30 schools, but we don't use Unix there, so I thought it would be good to learn about.

Megan #2

That's awesome that you're so passionate about your job. There's few people who are that passionate about what they do.

Strange Guy

sldkfnwekrijaowrjawerlknwelkr

Me

(Stops typing and looks up, realizing he's looking at Me, waiting for Me to say something.) Oh, yeah? Why? (Inner monologue: Whew! Great save, Me...he'll never know I wasn't listening to more talk about this Unix thing)

Strange Guy

(obviously perplexed)
Well, I mean, I guess he was just a brilliant man. He really cared about liberty and life.

Me

(obviously perplexed)
Yeah. OK. Mmmhmm. (Inner monologue: How did I miss the transition from Unix to Patrick Henry?)

Megan #2

(trying to save Me)
That's great that you're so geeked up about something. I mean, one time I found this book that I was totally geeked up about...

Later Megan #2 tells me what "sldkfnwekrijaowrjawerlknwelkr" was. When she starting talking about his passions, I guess he said, "Well, my real passion is Jesus Christ and spreading his teachings."

Becoming Agape

"I love you," a friend recently said to me as we ended our phone conversation. At first it took me by surprise, but then I was happy she said it. Then a few days later, another friend did the same thing. I again couldn't help but smile. I mean, I was LOVED. By at least TWO people.

Now, I realize that for most of us, "love" has many connotations. And the love that my friends were expressing is different than the kind of love that I hope to someday have with one special lover. Or the kind of love I feel for my parents and siblings. But it is an important love, nonetheless, that I felt is the kind I most overlook.

Well, I felt that way until a few special new girl friends in my life had me start thinking about the Fruits of the Spirit and agape and how different we would live our lives if we knew that WE were truly loved. So, I've taken it upon myself to start trying to love EVERYONE. And I don't have to love them as my own family members or even as a dear friend. But I have to love them without selfish regard. This, I have realized is the love I most often overlook. Working toward including this love in my life is also, just so you know, one of the most difficult things I could have ever set out to do.

I mean, I really don't want to love the idiotic California driver who cut me off. I want to honk. Then honk again. Then when she looks at me scream through my closed window so she can't hear me but only imagine the profanities I'm yelling at her. Nor do I want to love the grocery store cashier who refuses to make eye contact while speeding through swiping my groceries just so she can look at her fingernails. Nor do I want to love the cheap customer who leaves a measly tip after demanding enough time and attention from me that I had to neglect other customers far nicer than he.

In all honesty, though, these people may temporarily annoy me, but reminding myself to react to their actions with agape instead of anger is much easier than loving others that I should already love. I've had the hardest time not responding with sarcasm to an annoying coworker, or joining in on a negative conversation about a friend's less-desirable personality traits, or being selfish and not offering my roommates the same courtesy of driving them north when one of them had JUST done the same thing for me two nights before. I want to be really selfish and self-indulgent and make myself look and feel better at the expense of others. But that is not love. So, I'm trying to love. Trying oh so hard.

God Burns Me Up

How is it that I go to the Easter service at the Hollywood Bowl (an outdoor amphitheatre) with a bunch of white people...and I'm the only one who gets sunburnt? So confused. Really.

what have You done for me lately?

I pulled into the church parking lot just as the sun was setting yesterday. A big part of me didn't even want to be there. I figured I'd been so stressed out lately, though, that church was a good thing.

The service was like always. Nothing spectacular. Lots of telling parishioners that we should have faith that God gives us obstacles that he knows we can handle. Our character and skills may not seem of use now but they serve some purpose down the road...yada, yada, yada. Yet, despite my eye rolling, part of me started feeling better. In fact, when I left the parking lot at 7:30, I felt the best I had in weeks.

As I drove home, I began to wonder just why I felt so much better. There was nothing amazing in the evening's message. I began to wonder why church and religion are comforting to me. Part of me thinks that religion is just an easy way to say that life is out of your hands, so stop worrying about it. Another part of me wonders if people like me believe because it's easier to believe that someone larger than life does care for you and have a grand plan for you rather than think that this is it, and you're the only one looking out for you.

I don't really know why I believe what I believe. But if that's what makes me happy, who am I to argue?