Courtesy Without Flattery

Enjoying a large cheeseburger on a lazy afternoon is one of my favorite things. Five Guys Burgers always does it right for me, but today I had no idea I was doing things right for them. Maybe I was bored or wanted to pick a fight, but I found what I saw interesting and slightly irritating. After my second refill of diet Coke, I pause to skim the customer notice posted directly to the right of the drink machine and above the trash can. It read: "Customers, you are the most important person in the building the moment you walk through our doors." So does that mean me or my friend is more important? It continues,"You are not dependent on us; we are dependent on you." Who said I wanted to enter into a relationship with this restaurant? Then, the sign told me more about how I had given them an "opportunity to serve" me-me who came in here unaware of the person behind the voice calling to me from behind the cash register, heaping compliments and lavishing me with services.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all about customer service, but I'm ok if I read a sign that says, "Please keep our restaurant clean." I don't need prodding and fluff. I want my burger, and you want cleanliness. Deal. I'm a rule-follower, usually, and I just feel bad for managers that have probably gotten burned by pushy and angry customers.
I would even offer that restaurants use a similar slogan my old high school would post on their trash cans: Don't mess with ECS. Short and sweet and expecting courtesy without flattery.

Good Stuff from Other People

I have joined the long defeat
that falling set in motion
all my strength and energy
are raindrops in the ocean

so conditioned for the win
to share in victor's stories
but in the place of ambition's din
I've heard of other glories

I pray for an idea
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

I can't just fight when I think I'll win
that's the end of all belief
and nothing has provoked it more
than a possible defeat

I pray for an idea
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

We walk a while we sit and rest
we lay it on the altar
I won't pretend to know what's next
but what I have I've offered

I pray for a vision
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

I pray for inspiration
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave.

Sara Groves, The Long Defeat

I lay down what I cannot hold in my hand,
every sorrow and hope spinning out of control-
here I find sweet resolution
that comes in letting go-
We will find shelter here.

Sandra McCracken, Shelter

Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."

John 20:29

In Response to Lindsey

Yesterday I forgot my cell phone password and today I forgot my blog's username. I also forgot to post once a week, a pledge I made to this blog, and something my friend Lindsey reminded me I hadn't been doing. So, in effort not to forget anything else, a thing I think I'm most scared of as an adult on many levels, I wrote this little poem. I miss writing and painting. I've been spending a lot of time "not thinking" and "just doing" as life often demands. I spend all day Saturday with my cross country team, and I've been finding out about coaching, mostly by watching our head coach. I've also been finding out about how much kids just want encouragement... I wish I was in better moods in the morning and after work to give it to them. I'm pretty sure running and enduring, and hopefully God through those things, are teaching them a lot without me.




The Trip Back

I miss writing-
7:14 a.m. and the space
between leaving
and arriving on a yellow school bus,
plastic seats soaked from last Friday’s football team.

I sit watching-
front seat behind the driver,
me unsocial and not
making friends or eating candy with teenage
cross country runners
because it’s too early.

I sleep memories-
April in 2000,
my own socks soaked
and muscles aching
with the pleasure of pain riding through a race.

I switched places-
somewhere between
16 and 24 my name slid into “coach,”
asking me if I really was one, or if I
liked the one I had become.

I think maybe-
here’s not a bad place to be,
watching their drama and gossip,
their loving new trends and sad songs
as they wonder why bad things happen.

I wish simplicity-
to take their black
and white together with the grey
and let them believe.

I wish the same for me,
8 away from 16, hoping to throw some
light to at least one of them
as we all ride home.

Embracing Technology

iMovie. Websites. You name it, I was scared of it...until Technology 300. Yes, I created my own website-by force, of course, for a final grade to pass my summer course. But just for the record, I have posted it here as a reminder to all that if I can do it, anybody can do it.

http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~edoss/

Something I Found while Studying...

The fairies came to his christening. One said, "My gift is early hardship; as a child he shall know the ugliness of life." The second said, "My gift is his abandonment; he shall be a castaway." The third, "His school shall be the streets." The fourth, "I will give him a sentsitive spirit, so that he may feel early pain sharply, and remember it vividly all his life." The last fairy said, "I will give him genius. Out of the hardship shall come the power to live a hundred lives. The castaway shall have the freedom of the whole world of men and women. The education of the streets shall provide him with boundless treasures of comic and tragic invention. The humiliations of the child shall fertilize the imagination of the poet."

~R.J. Cruikshank

Letter to a child on friendship (plain word for loyal):

It takes two when it used to take one, someone once said. It is good to be loyal, because, bottom line, people need friendship. You can be loyal when everyone else is not, when everyone else makes plans and breaks them, when everyone else gives you an afternoon when you wanted a day. Most parents, like myself, want you to be more loyal than dogs.
You can be loyal and wait all day into the afternoon and only get thirty minutes of a phone call. Didn’t God make all people to be loyal by human nature? Yes, most people will know the rules of how to be nice and share and listen, but many people still want their days tied in neat little packages with their own care and planning, just for themselves.
You can be loyal because you feel it’s the right thing to do and everyone else knows that too. But that kind of loyal can also rob your days when you could have got on with your day, painted a picture, or gone on a bike ride. That kind of loyal can also make you feel disappointed when you expected to spend a day doing fun things you normally can’t. That kind of loyal can make you sad, or what grown ups call bitter if you are not careful.
You may find yourself making that kind of loyal a neat package of your own, one that you only give to a few people that know how to receive it. That kind of loyal is for those that truly love you and will stick by you. When you find that kind of loyal in other people, it is a gift. Then, you realize something about being loyal: when others don’t see it the way you do, it’s not like they stole the gift away, it’s just that they didn’t need it. And more, it reveals you just may be the kind of person that needs that kind of loyal, which is a tender thing.
So, if you find that kind of loyal in about three people besides your parents in life, it is a huge gift. The others that have a little of that kind of loyal are still decent people; they just probably have other people giving them that kind of loyal. And what most adults forget is that God makes the rules on being loyal; He calls it love.
Who do I want you to have that kind of loyal from always? Your best friends, of course, and me. But what’s more, I want you to have that kind of loyal from God. He won’t ever take your loyal and leave you hanging high and dry. In fact, He will give you even more loyal than you have in yourself, so much that you will find it flowing out of you onto others. He will show you He is the source of all your loyal and showed you how to give it before you knew He was there. Yes, your little packages of loyal will discarded or broken, but that little fact about Him holds you together when they are. Child, He gives you Himself.

just another post

you look darkly on the day
memories to light your way
they're all sad but that's alright
we are living in twilight.
no one knocks upon your door
till you don't care anymore
a little alone but it's alright
we are always living in twilight.
living in a dream,walkin in between
sunset and sunrise
sunrise and sunset.
you get tied up in your day
so I let go and walk away
so it goes till no one knows
you like they used to do.
have a drink, the sky is sinkin
torn up deeper blue
and you're still alright
step out in the twilight.
so I stumble home at night
like I stumbled through my life
with ghosts and visions in my sight
we are always living in twilight.
-the weepies

When I heard this song and got past the "twilight zone" image in my mind, I realized this song, at least to me, is about those odd and hazy gaps in life-those gaps where you feel like you are stumbling through life clueless although not completely off path. I just saw Prince Caspian, so I can't get the image of Susan riding through the forest of dancing trees knowing she's going toward Aslan but realizing everyone else is back fighting the battle. In moments like these, strangely I'm satisfied by playing tennis for a couple of hours, because at least I have a goal and a clear opponent. The funny thing is, I, and most people I know, hate real conflicts and listen too much to fear when they sneak into daily life.

When Susan realizes that she didn't believe they would see Aslan again, she says, "I really believed it was him tonight, when you (Lucy) woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I let myself. But, I just wanted to get out of the woods--and --and oh, I don't know. And what ever am I to say to him?"
Aslan says her name, to which she does not respond. "You have listened to your fears, child," he said. "Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?"

If we could only know that in the middle of the twilight, He is there. Sometimes, I think, waiting for us to just let ourselves believe He is. Then we will fight the battle with Him.