Questions about "Stumbling Blocks"

A question for Christians: 

Since you've been a fully cognizant Christ-follower, has someone ever "tripped you up" with their words? Has someone ever said a thing that caused you to "stumble" in your walk? What thing was that? What did that look like?

Let's say your life was progressing happily, your faith had an upward trajectory, your hope was being strengthened, you were trusting God more and more each day with your life, worrying less and giving more of yourself to those around you… then, somebody says something and it throws you off. Maybe it sends you on a downward path, sets you back a few paces.

Has that happened? I want to know about it. I want to know who it was in relation to you, what they said and how you responded. It would be helpful to me.

Please leave your story (keeping people anonymous would be reasonable) in the comments section.

A question for non-Christians:

Since you've been a fully cognizant person, has something a Christian said ever caused you to doubt their faith? Has some comment or explanation turned you off to Christianity? 

Let's say at one point in your life you were open to believing in some sort of God, but somebody came along and said something and you became more closed-off than open. 

Who left that bad taste in your mouth? What did they say, and how did you respond? Have those words shaped your life and what you believe? If so, in what ways?

Please leave your story in the comment section. I think your story would be really helpful to me and a lot of people.

Thanks,

Matt

Talking

You know that tingling feeling in your spine where your head meets your neck that happens when you're talking and you impress yourself? No? Then you're probably a much wiser person than I, you probably choose your words carefully and are a great listener. I sometimes wish I was you.


I know this feeling all too well. It feels like someone just hit me with a snowball in the back of the neck, the endorphins releasing into my bloodstream like the burst of ink from a frightened squid. It feels good, and if I'm not careful I can tend to chase this buzz through every conversation, trying to narrate my own natural drug cocktail, all the while leaving casualties in my wake. 


I don't know if it's nature or nurture that makes some of us like this, but I think for me it was a bit of both. I'm from a big family whose ratio greatly favored the male gender, so the "shout-or-be-ignored" principle defined the dynamic most of the time (as well as the "stretch-or-starve" principle, which may explain why I'm orally fixated.) To put it bluntly, we were taught to ramble at a young age, because the more you rambled, the more of the intellectual spotlight you could hog. The more you talked the more valuable you were.


To this day you get two or three of my brothers in one room and you will not get a word in edgewise. It's not vindictive either, it just feels normal to us, and we get worked up talking over each other. My dad is perhaps the king of this. He owns every conversation, blinders on, tongue whirling, snowballs pelting the back of his neck. He's mostly regurgitating smart things he's heard, but he's also brainstorming, forming an opinion as he goes, developing an argument. At some moments the one-sided conversation will peak, like he's on the precipice of that magical moment of insight, and his eyes get excited and he rolls out line after line like a novelist in the throws of writing as his story's climax unfolds effortlessly. He's 'snowballing.' His victim could be a brick wall for all he is concerned, and no volume of eye-rolling or disengaging will cue my fathers pause button. To be fair, my dad is a man of many moods and is not always this manic, but when he is rolling there is not much one can do to stop him.


Studying my dad has helped me realize my own nature. There are moments when I walk away from a conversation and I jerk myself awake with a pang of regret from the realization that I've just dominated the airwaves and that person must think I'm a jerk. I don't know if my dad gets this feeling, but I'd probably be surprised to learn that he does.


There are a lot of negative consequences for those who ramble. You can rub people the wrong way if you're not careful and willing to listen and ask questions. That's been a tough one for me to learn. Also, when you speak before you think, you can end up saying the wrong thing occasionally. You can really hurt people without knowing it. I've been learning to form my words before I speak my mind, because my words are naturally like sharp daggers. Without me consciously enforcing a filter they'll cut people. I have to concentrate to dull them before they go flying out of my mouth. I hope someday I can present them like a bouquet of flowers, soft and patient and loving, like those of wise friends who patiently listen to me babble and then say five beautiful words that echo in my head for days. Flowers perhaps someday, but for now the best I usually do is butter knives. That's why this blog has been so helpful for me. I'm learning to grind down some of those sharp edges with the help of my right pinky finger and the backspace key.


There are some positives that come with being a talker, too. Verbal processing is one of them. Some people get confused, can't sort their thoughts out, and you have to coax the words out of them to get them to feel better. These are the types of people that usually pay money for therapy. I, however, can't help but talk. I can't help but divulge my deepest fears to my wife, a friend, a complete stranger. Anyone on any given day can end up being my therapist, and it doesn't cost me a dime. I don't want to let on like all I do is talk peoples ears off. I can sit in the background, and sometimes I'm not in a very talkative mood. In fact, I'd say 30% of the time I'd rather just watch people interact with each other and not have the pressure be on me. But if something is effecting me, I have no problem putting that into words for a few people until I finally figure out what it is. I usually find out what I'm feeling AS I'm talking, not the other way around. I just kind of start with something that is nagging me like an itch, and then I scratch it verbally, and snowball it to the source of the conflict. And then of course I'll impress myself with words and insights that seem to come out of thin air, and that cocktail of endorphins will go splat in the back of my neck and behind my ears, and I'll feel a lot better.

What Communism Feels Like

I get a weird feeling in my gut when people around me start placing their rules and principles ahead of their humanity.

In the professional word there is so little wiggle room with what you can get away with. Maybe this is why I don't function properly working for a business with an HR department. Because everything I say might come under scrutiny, it has to be filtered through a long list of rules. You have to ask, "Could this be considered sexist? Prejudice? Racist? Inappropriate for the 'work environment'?" Call me a rebel if you like, I just get this weird feeling when people adhere to the type of mentality that disallows them to act naturally.

Don't get me wrong. I agree that racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice are terrible things and should be punished when it is found that someone is maliciously and publicly displaying these ignorant patterns of thought. There is no excuse and no place for it. Idiots should be treated as idiots. If acting naturally means demeaning women, then you shouldn't be allowed to act naturally. But how many good people with good intentions have been sued, fired, transferred, mistaken... their names dragged through the mud?

What I mean by 'acting naturally' is being able to talk through things in a natural way. This idea that we have to protect people so thoroughly from things that society deems inappropriate is a huge discredit to the intelligence of humanity. What happened to good-old telling someone they've offended you, having a conversation and working it out, learning from each other? Can't people help provide their own boundaries without some corporate watch-dog breathing down their neck? These principles that put certain topics so completely off limits help to breed prejudice. If nobody can talk, then how can we progress? The rules are teaching that color, sex and sexual orientation are things to look out for, things to focus on so that you don't make a mistake. Isn't that the opposite of the idea of "color-blindness"? Aren't we supposed to see each other as equals? Instead, certain topics are off limits, separating some groups from the mainstream and in turn, marginalizing them... highlighting them. There is no progress, because progress requires conversations, and conversations aren't allowed to happen because that would be 'inappropriate behavior for the work environment.'

The fact is, we are all human. We want to laugh and joke and celebrate our differences. We also want to talk and learn and celebrate the things we have in common. We want barriers to go down, we want people to open up, we want deeper relationships with those around us. The rules keep us from that.

Everybody has a watchful eye in the workplace, looking for those who might not be adhering to the rules. In some weird twist of irony, they choose to call the department that dehumanizes people Human Resources. HR, very inhumanly, follows a book of do's and don'ts. We've all watched the videos, the ones teaching us how to react in certain situations, how to avoid them... how to avoid people. Employees are suddenly all potential threats to the code of law. Potential law suits. Potential liabilities. You're probably best not even to look at a minority, lest they or someone watching might take offense.

This must be on some small scale what communism feels like.

Why do you think people go home and flip on Comedy Central to watch comedians of every race, gender, and ethnic background making fun of each other? They're saying what nobody is allowed to say, and thats attractive. It's also hilarious, culturally bridge building, and educational on a really shallow level. It's sad that we have to bridge the gap with comedians. Perhaps they wouldn't be so funny if it was common place that culturally different people spoke to each other, had each other over for dinner, learned from each other, etc.

In communist Romania everyone was a spy for the government. Students were not allowed to go to church, because church was for old people, apparently. Teachers were forced to attend church for the sole purpose of seeing if any students were there. If they saw a student at church, they had to report it to the government, and that student would be punished. Everyone was to have a watchful eye on their neighbor, jotting down the intricacies of what they said and did. People were forced into policing each other out of fear. They were all following the rules of the Romanian Communist Party. A joke was no longer a joke, a passing comment no longer a comment... everything was a potential threat to the regime. This disrupted any freedom of speech they might have at one point enjoyed.

This legalism, this 'off-limits' type mentality not only impedes on freedoms, it sections people off, dividing them into class and culture, keeping the familiar together so that no one can grow. It creates prejudice, because there is a disconnect between cultures. Suddenly, its 'us' and 'them.'

Have you ever been ridiculed? Ever been made to look like a racist or an animal because of something you've said? Have you been sat down and grilled because of a passing comment or a harmless joke? Have you been punished because you innocently and ignorantly broke the code of conduct?

Then you probably have felt what communism must feel like.

The problem is that the system breeds ignorance. Instead of demonizing ignorance, why don't we erase it. Let everyone talk to each other, let everyone learn from each other. There will be bumps in the road, but let everyone work out the kinks. People are intelligent, they can develop their own social guidelines through conversation and understanding. We don't need a Human Resource Department draining humans of their natural social abilities, their true human resources. If allowed to have open and honest conversation, humans might be able bridge the gap that corporate rules and ignorance have helped create.

The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning

This post is about nothing specific, so ignore the title. It is not referring to any theme on The Silver Cord, nor does it pertain to anything deep and meaningful in concept. I merely wanted to time-stamp this moment, which is the first month anniversary of this blog. It is my intent with this time-stamp to look back at the ramblings posted in February, and to resolve to make better sense of the ramblings in March, and so on. It looks like we're off to a bad start already, because I'm not entirely sure of how much sense I just made.

I want to thank everyone who have taken the time to read through at least one of the posts on this blog. I especially want to thank those who chose to comment. I've been surprised by how mature and concise some of your responses have been. I'll admit I was expecting comments that looked more like, "Come to Georgia!" and, "How did you guys get signed?"

As it turns out, those of you who follow along seem to be a solid group of thinkers, and I'm humbled and inspired by that. Thank you for challenging me and in turn (I hope) allowing yourself to be challenged. This blog is lucky to be a microscopic blip on the radar of the greater blogosphere, but I love it and I wouldn't mind if it stayed that way.

Excuse me while I work something out for myself. I may go off on a bit of a tangent here...

I am not an Albert Einstien or an Isaac Newton. I may have scored a 137 on an online IQ test once, but I doubt that certifies me as a genius. And even if I was a genius, I've spent most of my life dumbing my brain down, numbing it with whatever comes my way, trying to render it useless. I guess I'm about as inquisitive as the next guy, but I couldnt imagine the Theory of Relativity or Space-time, and I couldn't even read Principia, let alone imagine it. When I learn about the true mad geniuses and scientists, those who were blessed with the types of minds which can explain the interconnectedness of creation, I am saddened that my life has been as futile as it's been at times. I am saddened by how narrow and unmotivated I've been. By how unimaginative, unappreciative, and selfish I've been. 

Imagine a guy like Newton, who upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head. He was strange, solitary, distracted and otherwise joyless, but he was completely fascinated by creation. Imagine Einstein, with such a noggin that he rarely wrote things down. He essentially thought up the Theory of Relativity without using a notebook. His paper called "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," published in 1905, is incredible because it contains no citations or footnotes, almost no mathematics, and made no mention of any work that had influenced it. He essentially just thought it all up. 

These guys must have lived each day in sheer wonder and amazement of everything around them. We take for granted the air we breathe, the veins and nerves and blood cells and organs that work tirelessly day after day without so much as a thought on our behalf. Isn't that crazy? We don't even need to pay attention to it and our heart pumps blood, sometimes for over a century straight. My heart, the relentless servant of an abusive and thankless master. I guess most of this stuff could be for another post.

I think the point of all of this rambling is that it's taken me 25 years to realize that I'm pretty much a normal guy. I used to think I was different, but the truth is I'm not that different. I'm not too tortured an artist or too deep a thinker to lack the ability to relate or function in society. I'm not going to stick a long leather stitching needle in my eye socket to "see what happens" (as Newton once did). I have questions like everyone else, but like most people I resort to seeking peace of mind through conversation and community. 

I think we've had some great conversations since this thing started, and I hope to have many more with all of you.

Friendship

Do you have any deeply rewarding friendships? Could you call a friend at 4 a.m. with the expectation that they would wake up, talk to you, and perhaps meet you somewhere? Would you even feel welcomed to? How many of these friendships do you have? My guess is very few, if any.

I think many in our generation have attempted to maintain only fickle relationships, and I think some have attempted to insulate their lives completely. We have developed a habit of accumulating 'party friends'; shallow friendships that are mostly based around weekend festivities. Sometimes it's to the point where we feel awkward around those friends if we are not actively doing something. It seems we have this insatiable need to be constantly distracted and entertained, and as a result there seems to be an overwhelming sense of loneliness in people our age. Why is it that in our society we choose to stay so isolated, so guarded? Is it the fear of being known for who we really are? The fear of responsibility and commitment? The fear of vulnerability and failure? It might be a combination of all of those things, but fear seems to be the constant theme.

You may have friends who make plans and then break them, their words about as fickle as the passing moment in which they spoke them. How many friends out of insecurity and fear of disappointment make multiple plans with multiple people in one night, and in some lame effort to appease everyone they end up making the majority of their friends resent them? Sound familiar?

You may have friends who call you only when they need something. Or friends that refuse to hang out with you if all it means is just 'hanging out.' There has to be a common goal to battle the inevitable awkwardness. The awkwardness that we are all so fearful of.

I can tell you this; when my close friends tell me they are going to do something with me, they usually do it. I suppose this is why they have rewarding relationships with other people as well. My friends whose words lack integrity seem to suffer in all of their relationships. They are always wanting more out of life, never being deeply satisfied or deeply known. They tend to move from friend to friend, or from new thing to new thing, searching for what they would most likely be rewarded with had they practiced relational integrity in the first place. They end up living on the empty carbs, or the 'pixie sticks' of life, bouncing from one sugar high to another, never really satiating their appetite. You can't live on candy, at some point you have to have something meaningful.

Humans are born with a deep need for community. Even if you don't believe in the Bible; where Adam, while in paradise, felt empty and longed for a friend until God gave him Eve. Even if you don't believe all that stuff, you should believe that ever since you were a baby you needed attention and affection from your mother, and as you grew you needed attention and care from your parents, and as you got older you longed to be accepted into social groups at school, to be asked to play with the 'cool' kids... to be known in some way, to be liked by somebody. And as you got even older, you longed for a soul mate, somebody to know you intimately, down to the core. Someone to love you despite all your faults. Even if you don't believe in the Adam and Eve story, it's still a great metaphor... Adam had all he wanted, but he was lonely, like most people are who have a lot of stuff and nobody to share it with. This is human nature... so why are we so afraid of it?

A few months ago there was a snow storm in Seattle. I think they called it Ice Storm 2008 on the news or something clever like that. As a result, snow and ice had covered all the roads for about a week straight. I was amazed at what happened during that time. Complete strangers started talking to each other, apparently bonding over the thing they had in common: the weather conditions which had affected every ones lives.

One of these nights Kristie and I went to watch a musical at the 5th Avenue Theatre. We took the bus there, which arrived a bit late because of the snow. The bus driver, a boisterous lady, was very loudly and comically speaking of her fear of crashing the bus or getting it stuck in the snow. She told us how he wanted to get home quickly because she was already late to see her grand-daughter. She started opening up and explaining personal details about her life, and so did the people around us. We all started talking, apparently bonding over the common fear of the road conditions. People started chuckling and smiling at each other, looking at each other as humans instead of strangers or potential threats. It was remarkable. If you've been on a city bus, then you know that bus etiquette is much like elevator etiquette: avoid eye contact, be quiet, mind your own business etc. It's that whole I-don't-want-to-be-here-awkwardly-packed-in-this-machine-with-a-bunch-of-strangers-so-lets-make-this-as-painless-as-possible vibe. Suddenly, because of this thing, this fear that we had in common, people started empathizing with each other. Guards were dropped, prejudice was thrown out, and people started treating each other as people.

Imagine if we chose to look past the different exteriors of people, if we chose to give them the benefit of the doubt, if we chose to ignore these unspoken rules on a daily basis. Imagine if we believed in the humanity of strangers. Every time I've experienced someone casually breaking the silence it has generally brought smiles, eased the mood a bit, and allowed me to feel more comfortable. The point is, it's true that we all want community, yet we are fearful to step out and create it. Even on a shallow level we want to find things in common with others, but instead we act against it and for no particular reason. In the same way, I think the folks who deep down desperately long for rewarding friendships can sometimes be the ones who are doing everything they can to keep people at a safe distance.

So, be friendly and brave, and stop being afraid of community... its only natural.