Oh no, you didn’t

What do you do for a living? This very normal and seemingly innocuous question has me quaking in many situations. The problem is not that I don’t understand it or that I feel it is an unfair question or even that it is one that I would avoid. The reality is that I often ask the question, though I never like it asked in return. Therefore, I guess you could call me a hypocritical question-asker.

Now the question that would follow naturally is “Why do you not like the question that seems reasonable, you admit is fair, and you even ask others?” The reason is that I do not have a good answer to the question. Now, it isn’t that I don’t like what I do. The fact is that most days I enjoy working very much (I even can meet the 20-60-20 Cameron Davies rule). Further, it isn’t that I am ashamed of what I do or that it isn’t exciting enough.

The reason I do not have a good answer to that question is because I positioned myself to do too many things to give a succinct answer to the question. And by the time I finish answering, most people are either bored or just think of me as a freak. So, as I stagger forward in life, I feel I need to work on a better answer to this question, yet I don’t really feel as if I can leave anything out. You tell me.

Normally, I start by trying to give a succinct answer, “Real Estate.” But, then I go on saying, “I run a Real Estate School, am the broker of a real estate office, and work as an attorney, mostly in ways as it pertains to real estate. I work as a trustee, do some minimal title work, and write deeds and trusts for real estate.”

Now, as if that weren’t long enough, some people ask a question that they eventually wish they hadn’t by saying, “So you’re a real estate attorney?” For some reason, I feel the need to correct this general misconception that when walking across the graduation stage, attorneys must declare what kind of law they will practice. But the reality is that we are an occupation of generalists. While you can get people to vouch for you in certain areas, the only thing that separated a family law attorney from a medical malpractice attorney is because he says so. If you don’t believe me, watch the Pilot of Harry’s Law.

As you can imagine, the sarcastic, “Is that all?” tends to follow. To which I begin to respond, “Well, I also assist three radio shows with what they do in varying degrees. Most of this is so that I can one day host my own show, and to keep my skills sharp, I do the BibleQuizzer.net podcast, which is a podcast about the world of Bible Quiz. I run a charity associated with this event called the Florida Quizzing Association, where we travel around the country to assist in Bible Quiz competitions.”

With all of that said, at this point the only thing that sounds remotely interesting to the everyday person of all of this is that I travel the country doing something with this Bible thing that they’ve never heard of. So, they ask, “What’s a Bible Quiz?” The only good answer I can give is “Bible Quiz is a competitive event where a team from a ministry memorizes a portion of Scripture and competes against teams from other ministries who have memorized the same thing. This year is Acts, for example.”

Of course, this is where most people think that I have memorized the entire section and they wonder if I normally win. To this I usually respond, “I’m kind of like Alex Trebek. My job is merely to read questions. My second grade teacher would surely be proud of my skill of reading!”

At this point the average original question presenter is looking for an out. The reality is that I have considered an out myself. Late last year, I attempted to close my real estate office and focus more on doing legal work. Nevertheless, people pulled me back into the real estate game full time and I got back to the position of having too many things to do.

So, first, if you’ve never heard Cameron Davies‘s 20-60-20 rule, you need to contact him and learn what it is. And if you’ve made it this far, you’re clearly a friend. So tell this friend how he can answer the question in a less boring, more succinct way!

A Silent Killer?

My wife has been to the hospital twice in the last week. It gives a feeling of not being able to really determine what you should do. In case the illness is problematic, who needs to make sure the kids are taken care of and who needs to be with Kelly in her time of need. Fortunately, it appears that these were episodes of Herxheimer Reaction. Unfortunately, it now appears that she is actually having Herxheimer Reaction, which is never a pleasant thing.

The truth is that the Lyme Disease with which my wife has been diagnosed is a really scary disease. I read more and more literature on it and, frankly, it just scares me more. Fortunately, my wife’s immune system kept the worst parts of it from her, but there is definite evidence to suggest that she’s had it for around 30 years (Yes, since her childhood).

I am so thankful that God has put in my life friends like Wendi Yarborough and Marc Rapetti who have blazed a trail that we are allowed to learn from and follow. Their journeys were both similar and much scarier. They included a difficult diagnosis and then a tough time finding a Lyme-literate doctor. If you want to read about Wendi’s journey, you can follow it through her blog.

Kelly was fortunate that she was able to find out before the symptoms became life-changing. She also had large portions of her life where the symptoms were dormant. Nevetheless, many of the things that were nagging her for years that she attempted to (and actually did) tough out, were things that were made significantly worse and perpetuated by the Lyme. As I am normally a “tough it out and never see a doctor” kind of guy, Kelly is thankful for my relative understanding because of our new-found friends.

Now, why do I write about this at all? Largely because Lyme disease is the red-headed stepchild of medicine. Many doctors don’t understand it. Most don’t diagnose it correctly. Insurance doesn’t cover its treatment. And finding good material on it is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, there is a movie you can watch and a cool association from which you can learn. But mis-information is abundant and seems to be going through the medical community like wildfire.

We have been very fortunate to find a Lyme-literate doctor, to have resources given to us, to have friends to lead and to guide us, but the reality is this is a scary disease. If unchecked, it will kill you. Fewer than 20% of those who have it are properly diagnosed. And the standards set for determining if you have it by the AMA are not inclusive of many who are affected.

Apparently (and forgive my layman’s terms) the disease begins to seep into your bones. In order to even begin to heal, you have to re-introduce some of the co-infections into your bloodstream (from the bones) and you experience all kinds of horrid symptoms all over again in the span of a few weeks. While there is no permanent cure, there is hope for living with Lyme, but it is a difficult disease and so many never learn why their life is difficult. So take note of the next time you hear about someone having this tick-borne infection and pray for them.

OK, off my soapbox on this blog and on to things like which NBA team down 3-1 in the series has the best chance to come back in my next blog!

Be Clear in Communication

As my wife and I are dragging through life, we made time to get out of bed and watch our good friend, Dr. Know’s, wedding. We wish we could have been there, but knowing that is unrealistic, his effort to give us a front-row seat was very much appreciated. And while the lengthy wedding was enjoyable for us, there was a stretch where the speaker was speaking in the native Filipino language (Kelly tells me it is called Tagalog).

While I’m sure that everything he said was incredibly well-thought out and well worded, Kelly and I didn’t appreciate it very much, as we didn’t understand the language. Shocking to everyone, I’m sure, is that a message that can’t be understood is not nearly as valuable as a message that can be understood. Before this denigrates into some weird argument about something else, let me state my thesis.

We need to make sure to communicate what we actually want to, and I think often we fail. The day before yesterday, I was with a friend and we were driving to meet another friend. The friend we were driving to meet has a bumper sticker on his car that I always find too cryptic to read. In fact, it has been so cryptic to me for so long that I asked what it said and what that meant. Our friend informed us that it said “Salt Life” and referred to how we, as Christians, are to be Salt in the World.

The friend that I was with and I drove off and began talking about it. He is not a Christian and told me that he thought that was a rather weird sentiment. Further, he stated that when he had previously seen it, he thought it was an obscenity. I must confess I had possessed a similar sentiment and that is clearly not the message the authors of this Christian bumper sticker wanted to send. I am, in fact, familiar with the verse that states the salt analogy, but I had to agree with his base feeling. A message that is so cryptic that it takes two or three levels of explanation is not really a message at all other than stating that this group is so weird they cannot communicate very well.

My second thought was of the ΙΧΘΥΣ, which was a symbol used in early church to communicate a message to each other without the government knowing. Of course, this new symbol falls short of this hope, as I had no idea that was what it was supposed to mean. I’d venture to say that even 2000 years later, more people know what the ΙΧΘΥΣ means than this new-fangled bumper sticker. Further, as I began talking to other friends about it, I learned that none of them had the same interpretation of the sticker as my friend who wanted us to take it as a testimony.

I did a little research on the internet and found a site that defines it (though it does so with some vulgarity). So, it turns out that my friend was incorrect in his use of it. Although, I feel that furthers my point. These beach bums who established this as a code have created a code that no one knows what it is (and at least two of the people I asked about it would meet the definition).

If you are going to establish a code, you need to determine your target audience. If your target is for propagating your message, you need to make sure that those outside the group know. If the target is internal, it needs to at least be obvious to them. A message given to millions that is not understood is a message ultimately given to no one. And as someone who staved off sleep to watch most of a wedding, an understood message is much more appreciated!

Do We Dare Look Back

We are awaiting a beginning. Is that so abnormal? We see something that is about to happen, see God in it, and want to press the fast forward button. While I am the last person in the world who would ever purport to be able to teach patience, I am a believer that everything happens for a reason. While there are many things which are occurring that I don’t understand, a few things this week, came to my attention.

This is a strangely nostalgic time of year for me. A couple of things, including the end of Jacob’s school year, the preparation for the beginning of Emily’s formal education, and the ending of a fictional world with which I have become acquainted, have made me start down nostalgia boulevard.

While many of these instigators of my journey have left me thinking about things with finite periods of existence, I was really shocked into forced contemplation by the death of a friend of my brother-in-law. While I have previously stated some thoughts on death and there are doubtlessly many more thoughts to have, the thing that makes looking back at death even more difficult is that life is not really a finite existence. Our life on this world, of course, is. While this made me strangely desirous of looking back at how God blessed us through the life of one of His Saints, I felt we could look at this in many areas.

I do understand that any beginning is the result of the end of some other, previous beginning. So, as Orlando Grace has learned that our desire to move into a permanent facility has caught an unfortunate delay, I felt now would be the time to look back on some of the great things that have been accomplished in the previous phases of our existence. Since I am a relatively new member to Orlando Grace, the depth of my knowledge certainly can be surpassed by many. Nevertheless, I do have good memories of the facility where we are.

First, when we visited the church seven and a half years ago for one Sunday (and we thought it was too far, as we were living in a temporary shelter ourselves), the service really changed our lives, which we are still applying. Selfishly speaking, because of the fact that we have been in a temporary home, I was able to meet and build relationships with what would become members of my church family through some combined events before we even became members. The facility we are currently in marks the location where we joined, the facility where we saw our first “Not a Talent Show,” and the site we saw “our elder” Will have hands laid on him and join the leadership team formally.

I know there were many life-changing decisions reached in the facility. I know there were countless friendships initiated at the facility. I’m sure that the story of moving into the SDA, which was so close to the property and the office was a real story of God’s work. And while I know we are all very excited that something new is coming, I also know that we would be remiss if we didn’t thank God for the great work He accomplished at where we are.

As we meander through each other’s lives, it is great to know that God uses things of which we are anxious to do away to accomplish His purposes. I know God has great things planned for the new facility, but I’m also quite confident that He will accomplish a few great things in the last two or three or ten remaining weeks we have in our temporary home!

Why Won’t People Obey Me?

Last night, I was at an orientation for parents of upcoming kindergarten students at Emily’s new school. There were definitely some interesting parts to the whole evening, but the part that made the impact on me was when they were talking about how little kids struggle to follow the rules. Of course, as she was saying this, she artfully pointed out that many of us were not following the rules.

I have a strange relationship with rules. When I am asked to follow them, I immediately have a reaction of not wanting to do so. This is certainly not the proper reaction to have, but I don’t feel as though I am alone. After all, one of the things I learned in the meeting last night is that many children entering kindergarten don’t obey, nor do they like to obey, rules. So, I am approximately on par with many five year olds!

I guess the real point is that while I am readily aware of my own depraved reaction to rules, I figured that as long as I abided by the rules in the end, it was at least acceptable behavior. Those who are now worrying about my soul aside, I do believe there is value in following rules with the wrong attitude. And I guess the reason is because I finally reached a point in my life where I get to set a rule or two, and most of the time all I want is for people to do what I ask (their souls notwithstanding).

In my day, I have had many jobs. I’ve had so many different jobs that it leads people to ask me if I am making some of those jobs up. While I certainly wish some of them were completely made up, I’ve had a weird array of things I’ve done. Having said that, never was I able to question my superior in their choice of music, radio, silence, noise, or anything of the same essence in my day as a low-level employee. If the boss wanted to listen to gangster rap, I was stuck with it and hopeful that a less irritating rant came across the radio dial every now and again.

In my day, the guy who signed my paycheck made up all the rules about where to park, where I could put my chair, whom I could have visit me, if I was allowed to go on break, or just any other demeaning question an inmate would ask a warden, I was required to ask. Though we would complain about him behind his back, we generally did as he requested.

I guess I am just shocked at the brazen-ness with which people neglect to listen to their boss, teacher, parent, or whoever it may be. I have been informed that there are many people who have authority similar to Rapunzel in the movie Tangled, where the authority is non-charitable in it overbearing-nature or just improperly asserted. Nevertheless, I think employees, in general, should be better. I think citizens, in general, should be more supportive. I think people, in general, should be more reverent.

As I read in Colossians 3, I am reminded, that ultimately, we serve the Lord in everything we do. The guy who signs the paycheck may be the earthly person to whom we answer, but ultimately, he is not our real boss. And, when we finally achieve the boss level, three verses later, we are reminded that we also have a Master in heaven.

So, yes, there is no excuse for the lack of compliance and general laziness in workers, but if you are reading this to post around the water cooler of your work, where all the people mock you (as I originally wanted to do), then maybe you need to remember that the best way to get anyone to follow you is to model that obedience to your own Master. And it probably would help us to be less worried about our worker changing the station to same lame alternative station, instead of the 24-hours of Matt West on loop station.