Respect for Authority

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I never thought myself the type to say things like, “Kids these days don’t respect their elders.”

If you use that phrase or the word elder more than once a week, you’ve probably officially moved out of the young category. But whether you say it or not, I think it all the time being a teacher. The only difference I’d make is that it’s not a new phenomenon. When we’re young we feel invincible and live in ways that exhibit a hero like persona. There’s an abundance of complacency (laziness), territorial tendencies (jealousy/envy) and rebellion (cry for independence). I work with kids everyday but more importantly I was the one of the kids I see everyday.

No nostalgia on this line. In 1993 there were class comedians in my high school humiliating teachers to their faces. There was the sale of marijuana on campus. There were fights and on occasion gang warfare not too far from campus at a Friday night house party. Some of these same symptoms were visible in my junior high 4 years prior. It seems that the further back I go to find the era of decency and respect in my own lifetime, the more futile it becomes. I’ll stop at 1975 out of respect for those who graced the planet before me. They can blog about those years.

At times I’ve been appalled, as if I have a right to be, concerning our society’s Learned Disrespect. But seriously, there’s no time for that. I’m a nobody. What I am resolving, however, is to reteach what I know is healthy which is to develop a fundamentally ethical framework in young people. A student told me yesterday that she didn’t understand all the big deal about Red Ribbon Week because she smokes and maintains a 4.0 at age 14/15. I appreciated her honesty but I told her and her classmates that bad decisions don’t show a freedom from authority but rather the fetters of a true slave.

I had it all wrong with my condescension of young and old who have chosen a reckless lifestyle. Our society is and likely has always been ripe with rebellion. But young people don’t know they have a choice, that they can break familial cycles or that short term power plays can destroy long term significance. Today would be a good day to move beyond proclaiming a message that you need only to appear respectful of yourself, others and those by which you are led or lead. Today should be the day we really model such respect so that it becomes contagious as it was back whenever it was.

Suprise Endings

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A crisis of faith begins when your view of the world is challenged or totally undone. But every crisis resolves like any good short story. The problem for most of the 6 billion plus on the planet is that we only like resolution when it’s to our liking. Or maybe I underestimate people.

In any case, I think it’s time to blow my own cover. This whole 6ixth Man thing is nothing less than a testament to the truth that God teaches. And I have to credit God because everyone at some point references deity. Expressions about God come all through life, some positive and others dismissively morbid. As people ask, “What is 6ixth Man” I struggle to package a neat and tidy definition because I think too hard. The simple explanation is that life is a series of contests. It’s you and me versus disappointment, rejection, death, racism, sexism, politics, nepotism and the like. Grapple, scrape and claw while on your knees praying and you’re still often met with a different resolution than you anticipated. You’re also left to decide if life is a roller coaster of coincidence and happenstance or something more orchestrated.

At the heart of my mission via blog, book and coaching lies a true desire to see people confront reality. Confrontation is violent and feelings/preconceptions get hurt. I want people to bravely examine themselves because if you don’t look at yourself in true light, you might very well convince yourself that you never cheated, never lied, never lusted, never felt shame, never wished harm, never displayed arrogance. In the struggle is a lesson but it only surfaces, I’ve found, if you confess your flaws. The Christian world calls this sin and you don’t have to be Sunday School Sam/Samantha to be guilty.

We all are found lacking when it comes to aspects of character and beyond that fact, no positive character trait is created in a vacuum. If Every hardship teaches a lesson, is it possible that the hardship was placed in your path by someone? That’s what I want people to explore. I’m just daring myself and y’all to dig deep – as deep as you can into yourself and your journey. The way I see it, in a world where so many people believe so many different things, maybe I can get people to tell a seminary graduate/basketball enthusiast what or who they think is responsible for giving us wisdom at the expense of our comfort. Happy Monday.

No Back Talk

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Back talk got me in trouble more than I can remember as a kid. I wouldn’t label it mouthin’ off because then what would you readers think of an unruly, nappy headed boy who grew up to become a muse of the abstract. Who’d listen to that guy?

But spankings and well deserved reprimanding aside, I noticed yesterday that I create conversations over grievances that have never actually happened. There are voices that say, “Can you believe the nerve of ___________? These people think ____________ and they just don’t understand who I am. That’s why I’m done with __________ (insert name of enemy). I hate when they __________.” Tell me you’ve never done these rounds in your mind.

It’s not strange to have weird self-talk. It’s weird to hold a conversation with the voices over things that have never happened. See, it’s easy to conure up ill feelings over a past offense. I find that I kind of like being a defensive person or better yet finding a way to paint myself as the innocent party. It always legitimizes my gripes with whoever or whatever. But I’m at my best when I can recognize but not dwell on past hurts. I could but will not name five people that think I’m superficial, deluded, non-committal, ungrateful and a moocher.

There’s hypocrisy in my past no doubt and I attach accusation to accusers on a daily basis. But in the end, back talk is stupid because if there are people who think those things about me, they’ve given up trying to talk to me about any of it – haven’t heard from ’em in years. So that means I’m rehearsing this drama on my own, poisoning myself by engaging the voices I myself have created to make me hate myself. And the Bible is clear on how unhealthy that is. It just came to me yesterday, “Yo, you ain’t gotta talk a back to the negative voices when they talk to you.” Back talk is whacked talk if you’re making up reasons to destroy the image of you that God has. He did a fine job and the sooner I realize that the sooner I stop feeling like a lunatic.

Wired Muscle

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71-FORD-TORINO-GT (15)I had a dream about a car last night and it looked a lot like the one pictured on the left. If you know your cars, you know that’s a 1971 Gran Torino GT. Long story short, it’s got a big engine and one version of this rocket does 0-60 mph in 6 seconds. I’m not sure why I dreamed about a car but the minute I woke up I wondered what the significance was, if any.

In the dream I was looking for a muffler for this beast and a guy at the auto parts store showed me one he thought would fit the car. In the dream, the clerk follows me outside to see the car and can’t believe anyone still owns a mint condition Gran Torino GT from the muscle era. As he was talking I thought, “If this car is so rare, how come I never drive it? I don’t drive it to work or anywhere. I treat it like a Sunday ride.  That’s not cool.”

I woke up thinking, I’d like to ride in one of those but after I got over the disappointment of not actually owning one, I thought, “I’m wired kind of like that car – simple and ready to move fast.” Then it struck me that wiring is useful for operation. How can you be wired for agility, speed and competition (for example) and be relegated to a show car? Wiring is for everyday functionality. The Gran Torino GT was  “inspired by supersonic aircraft with narrow waists and bulging forward and rear fuselages needed to reach supersonic speeds.” So I suppose the dream insight is that design is not meant to impress, such effect is simply a byproduct that materializes when we perform to our specification.

Script It

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If you write your fears people will look and likely not touch meaning it’s easier to read in anonymity than express  weakness. There’s something about writing that sparks an ignition, a revelation a conviction toward changing but so few of us do it. I’ve talked to more people who say I’ve thought about writing as if it’s the year 3009 and we can move text with our minds. With respect, writing is not hard to do because it’s hard to do. Rather I believe it’s troublesome, disconcerting and unnerving.

There are conversations I have with myself all the time audibly and silently. Even in those moments I censor myself because there are things that are so difficult to express even privately that I’d rather think it than say it. Likewise, I wonder if many would rather think it than write it.

Writing involves considering your message, your audience, the purpose of said message and the risk of being decoded wrong (misunderstood). “No one can misunderstand my thoughts if they don’t know them and I can back pedal when I stick my foot in my mouth.” Am I right? But once it’s in print on a blog, in an email, in a newspaper, etc. it’s about as permanent as things get in the modern era.

Writing still has a permanence to it that establishes reputations and more importantly speaks to commitments made. I used to journal sporadically, write quotations on index cards, and even pen letters to the White House. Now the blog is my journal and for me every day’s entry is a query for insight, kind of a prayer in print. The only difference is that I’ve invited people to participate and begin their own inquest. A couple thousand years ago I wouldn’t be raving about the value of the printed word because in most parts of the world the communities were oral. Truths were passed down and the equivalent of written volumes were memorized. Please…I can barely remember my Driver’s License #. Write IT down and see your image in the mirror.

Tether World

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One of the strangest phrases to grace modern language is, “I’m keeping it real”. It’s on par with “Tell the whole truth” (as if there is any 5/8 truth) or  the preface “I’m not going to lie to you…”. Life needs no help with real because it is what it is when it is wherever it is. To the point, I was part of a training recently that reminded of a motivational problem that faces students and it turns out that the problem has a universal application to people of all ages.

The term used by a man named Richard Lavoie is Learned Helplessness and it refers to, as I understand it, developing an attitude that “I can’t because I never could”. Apparently, there are reinforcements in our respective worlds which convince us that given the right situation we are absolutely helpless. So consider the majority of kids ages 6-18 and their involvement in extracurricular activities. Keepin’ it real isn’t hard as I’ve listened to what kids say:

  • I can’t ____study______because I’ve never been able to concentrate.
  • I can’t run for school office because I’ve never been able to be popular_.
  • I can’t shoot a basketball because I’ve never been able to  make a basketball team.
  • I can’t learn difficult subjects because I’ve never been able to get help from teachers.

So the list is infinite and of course I personalize everything so I wondered how I learned to be helpless. Why can’t I cook like my wife? Why can’t I be on time to every single meeting I’m scheduled to attend? Why can’t I serve populations worldwide despite my own failures? Where did I learn to think that I couldn’t when that’s not keepin’ it real. I mean, it is my reality that I think I can’t but the limitation itself is a false tether. I can move, you can move and yet we can’t because we were taught, programmed, stained by an inordinate rationale of allowing perception to change what’s real. I reckon it’s the same venomous indoctrination that keeps America stratified into classes based on the dollar bill y’all. Keep it real. Unlearn helplessness. Thanks Richard Lavoie.


Source Card

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Quote scripture and one of two things happens. You’re heralded by the like-minded or dubbed the purveyor of an archaic and foolish worldview. That’s hard to say because it sounds like I’m polarizing people. But the truth about my journey of self-awareness is that it’s probably much grimmer and shorter without the Bible. Imagine getting your hopes up every year for some major event you thought would occur and then,  “just kidding brotha, welcome to Ground Hog’s Day starring…you”.

I felt that way as a B-baller and literally with God as my witness, I would have been undone were it not for the hope of larger than life words that speak to larger than life principles which speak ultimately to a larger than life creator. It was the rubber and road reconciliation when I started yellin’ at God because he let me down. My lamentation was loud and sacrilegious by the standards of church etiquette. But it’s hard in the struggle and if the scripture taps out when you need it most, it’s fraudulent.

But the Scriptura held on. I was 13 one day and seemingly 21 the next having sat the bench in ridicule on many of my basketball teams. But in the interim I wrote scriptures down on little index cards and read them before games. The subjects included everything from Anger to Humility to Patience and beyond. I was coping and I didn’t know why or how it was happening. I was emoting fury at the God whose word said, “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret—it only causes harm” (Psalm 37:8). I was a living contradiction of my faith in word but mostly in spirit because I thought the God of the universe had underachieved. Worse yet, I was mad because He didn’t save me from my crisis of identity. What do you do when you don’t know who to be because who you wanted to be evaded you?

I don’t know the answer to that question but Psalm 37:37 says, “Mark the blameless man, and observe the upright;
For the future of that man is peace.” It was the stuff inside the trite, hackneyed book that made it okay to observe the deeds of righteous men. That corny book that everybody thinks they have all figured out wasn’t scoff worthy anymore. Ain’t nothin’ to laugh at. I already tried that in my low points, cursing everyone and blaming the rest for my failures. The scripture became and becomes strangely appropriate, I’m finding, because it’s not afraid of my rudeness and superficiality. It’s that mirror I both love and hate. It’s like the school picture you can’t wait to see but don’t want to share. It’s the realest, most troublesome thing I ever read and no scripture, no 6ixth Man. Straight up.