Leather Chairs at McDonald's

When I was a kid we didn't go out that much for fast food and now as an adult it's even less so I confess to it being a long time since I set foot in a McDonalds.  I still can't remember the last time I ate at one (though I have had their sweet tea from the drive through), but I walked into one today and was surprised to see leather chairs next to mahogany coffee tables and granite looking table tops.  Even the lighting was designed to create separate little spaces for people to eat and talk and hang out.  The history of McDonalds is one of innovation so it really should not come as a surprise that they are adapting to what people want and were the first to offer things like free internet forcing others like Starbucks and Barnes and Noble to make their's free as well.  It is easy to get snobbish about fast food and to see places like McDonalds and others like them as the reason why kids are so obese and there is some truth to it, but it's more about the mentality of a lifestyle that doesn't have time to sit down and have a proper meal and about eating too much, than it is about the food anymore.  There are healthy options and now even this fast food place is inviting you to sit down and stay and have a private moment with your friends and family in the separate spaces they have created for you, but you can still grab your super sized meal togo.  The reality is that even top chefs applaud them for the way they train people and they have paid attention and even seem to care about people's choices.  Their history is worth reading.
Leather chairs at McDonald's should teach us all a lesson about paying attention, about listening to the pulse of societal need.  It's not about being more fancy, it's about meeting people where they are or where they want to be, maybe need to be...taking a break in a space with friends or alone, pausing in the midst of the fast life, fast food world, even if the food is fast.

Want and need in an era of twenty-four hour convenience

Of the many things that it has become easy to take for granted is that stores will always be open when we want something.  It's a habit that we can get into and out of when they aren't, but when they are we get used to it.  The ability to go and buy groceries, or even more at any time of night is kind of silly, but then 2am hits and you just gotta have that piece of cake, that missing ingredient, that... for the night owl it's much appreciated that when the munchies strike at 3am there is something to be done about it.  Some of the best stories of things like frostbite (ok so not your everyday late night snack run kind of experience but it might have happened one night in Fairbanks) and some deep moments of clarity have come on those solitary walks to the store in the middle of the night, but the trouble with having it is that it creates an expectation.  It makes it so much easier to be frustrated by stores which close early or even by those that close at a reasonable time.  Every week we can encounter stores closed for midday prayer, synagogue and church which is great.  In other countries there are still things open late, though more things seem to close early and a part of you can even kind of applaud the owners for not working in a world where we over work and don't spend nearly enough time playing.  Then again, you planned ahead just to make sure you have what you need...but then you want something, you crave something and there is simply no way to get it where you are.  Then the internet came along and can loose a book order a new one from your smart phone and get it delivered to your house the next day giving instant gratification a new meaning in this always on society.  Whether it is food, or the other night a friend's desire to shop in New York on our one stranded night there (a place that one would assume is always open kind of like Vegas, but which was not at all open); we expect things to be open.  When we stop and think about it the absurdity of what we are really saying to the owners, "how can you be closed just because you want some sleep and it costs more to pay someone to be in the store and have the lights on than you are likely to make just in case I am hungry?" is pretty ridiculous.  

There are twenty-four usable hours in everyday, and there are often stores open at any given time, but really the closed store is a wonderful lesson in want vs. need.  Granted, occasionally it really is a need, but most of the time it's a want.  It's like fasting.  People who have never fasted will tell you that they need food, but people who fast can tell you that it is precisely the fact that you want food, but do not need it which makes fasting such a powerful devotional experience.  When we learn to control our wants we begin to understand what we really need.  In a world twenty-four hour convenience we can loose the line between the two which is why we need some closed stores just to remind us of what we really need.  

A National Day of Prayer

I feel so strongly the desire to learn from those whose beliefs and philosophies differ from my own and I spend much of my time, study and energy trying to encounter and understand those who are not like me.  I struggle with nationalism which is different from patriotism and I don't actually appreciate the flags coming out on National Day of Prayer because prayer and God for me have nothing to do with nationhood.  The ideal of the day is for the people of this nation who pray to pray together for each other and for those who lead us.  My hope is that as better relationships are formed between those of us in religious leadership, we will teach each other how best to celebrate or not celebrate and pray together.  If it is not about bringing us together in some kind of unity (not uniformity but respectful togetherness) then I don't know what it is for.

Why?

The crowds gather from all walks of life

Filled with their hatred, ignorance and strife.

They carry signs for their own cause,

but so often it’s more about seeking others flaws.

Down with those of a different race!

Down with those who walk a slower pace!

Down with those who appose our cause!

Down with those whose religion is not ours!

Down with those who don’t agree!

Down with those who aren’t like me!

These are the chants of the many,

But into the din of “down withs” a voice calls out

Not much more than a whisper, but heard like a shout-

Why?

What’s the difference but pigment in skin?

Is your cause a cause or are you just following to win?

Is your God really so small?

Do you really think you know it all?

Have you even tried to understand?

Have ever even been to a distant land?

Are you really so fragile you won’t even open your eyes?

What are you so afraid of? That what you think you know is really lies?

It didn’t take long for the whisper to grow

For the many to quiet and for their doubts to show

A chant that began as one voice becomes the voice of the many

People are looking for answers where there simply aren’t any.

Ignorance is loosing its hold

As those who care are becoming more bold.

People are asking…

Why?

Life as Jellybeans

When Tom Hanks as Forest Gump made famous the phrase, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re goin’ta get,” something bothered me about that statement. It was a great line delivered well enough to earn a best actor award, but maybe I just decided to think too much about it. It wasn’t just that I don’t like chocolate, because even without eating it I could understand the metaphor, it was, I guess, my hope that life is not so random. In some ways I get it, life can throw so many things at us. Babies coming nine weeks early, stage four cancer, job loss, a move, a new relationship, a great opportunity who knows, but maybe his point was that even if you don’t like what’s in the center at least for the person who likes chocolate it’s still chocolate. Life for me however is not those things. Those things happen, they are events, but life is lived in the choices we make in the midst of what happens. I get the random event part, I really do, and I suppose you choose which chocolate to try, but as a person who believes in free will while at the same time acknowledging the interaction of God with the world I don’t think there are bad things in the center unless we let them be. There are hard things, horrible things that happen, that should not happen, but if we let those things be life then it’s like evil wins. I was stuck in an airport the other day and I kind of forgot to eat as I tried to figure out my next move, so when I got hungry my choices were more limited as things closed down. One of the places open was a candy store. It was this colorful cacophony of bins filled with all sorts of candies and a big sign repeated in several places, “all candy $2.99/lb mixing is ok.” All of a sudden that line came into my head and I realized this was my metaphor to counter the box of chocolates. There were lots of candies and yes you might choose some that you ended up not liking at all, but you get to make your own mix. It was a limited selection but you could do with it what you chose to do with it. I went with jellybeans. I created a mixture of six or seven different kinds (going a little overboard in terms of quantity). At first they were all separate staying where they were deposited, but after a bit they became mixed. I chose the flavors. I created the mix. Stuff may get thrown into the mix and I can’t eat just jellybeans, but I can go to them when what’s thrown at me tastes bad. I can turn to the mix that I chose and say this is life. That other stuff is what it is and no matter how bad it might be, there are these good things I put in my bag of jellybeans, my flavors. I live in the mix I choose, the mix I create, that is life and the difficult things I have to learn from, spit them out, recover from or do my best to avoid, but I refuse to let them be my life.

The Midnight Run ...well almost midnight

A few years ago i was at a conference in Washington DC for young clergy. On one of the nights they offered a nighttime tour of the capital and they made it sound pretty neat, but for some reason i couldn't do it. I have been back a number of times and walked all over DC, but never much at night. After a long day of class, a meeting and some phone calls I had some spicy chili and then walked with my friends to get some key lime pie. i haven't been feeling well, but I felt like after the day I had had (and the pie) I needed a run. I set out at about 1030pm and I finally got my tour of the capital at night. The streets are mostly well lit, but at that time of night they are deserted and it's like you have the monuments all to your self. There is something pure about it, something beautiful that can get missed in the crowded day time or the endless news cycles filled with all the bickering, posturing, bad mouthing and scandal. At night the city looks like what you hope it can be, like what it is meant to be. The Capital Dome is all aglow rising into the night sky and it exudes a sort of authority. The Smithsonian Castle looms in the dark in contrast to most of the other buildings, but that is perhaps fitting because it is something different and yet it belongs there just as much as anything else. On down is the Washington Monument that great obelisk pointing to the heavens stark white against the black it takes on a monolithic feel at night. To my left the Jefferson monument shines brightly enhanced by the reflection of the water it draws your eye. As I continued to run alongside the reflection pond the lights weren't working and the night rested there in the long spaces on the way to visit Lincoln. It seemed further than I remembered, and I couldn't actually see the monument for a long time, but I knew I was going the right way and then bam, there it was. I couldn't help but run up the steps to say hello to the man who ended slavery, reunified the country and proposed the Methodism should be the national religion (okay so even I admit that the other two are more impressive, but still). The natural history museum, the archives and oh yeah the White House sitting separate and majestic it looks kind of lonely at night and I couldn't help but think what how fitting that was because no matter who its occupant is the position is a paradox of constantly being surrounded, yet always alone. As my own night tour ended off down a side street to my friends house I am thankful for the privilege of seeing this other side of the capital and grateful for the lasting images that will stay with me.

Marketing

If I told you that we were going on a hike in the Issaquah Alps that sounds pretty good by itself, maybe even exotic simply because of the term alps. If I added that we were going to hike Cougar Mountain it sounds even better like some kind of outlaw hideout or danger filled wilderness. Add to that a waterfall and an historic townsite and we've got a mystical adventure in an exotic wilderness right? I mean a hike up Cougar Mountain past a historic townsite along a well groomed path through the lush forests of the Issaquah Alps to a cascading waterfall sounds pretty good on a brochure. To be fair we had a great hike, but when you know that Cougar Mountain is more a hill than a mountain, many of the Issaquah Alps have neighborhoods on them, the historic town dam is about four feet high damming a creek, and the waterfall is maybe twenty feet high and five feet wide, the reality doesn't quite live up to the billing. For the most part I knew what I was getting before I did the hike, but I just kept thinking how everything on paper sounded so good.

It's amazing what words can do. The way you describe something can make the mundane magical or the magnificent morose. Like I said, the hike was fine and we had fun so the reality is what you make it, but there is something that words can do in painting a picture that doesn't lie, but is so much more than what is really there or at times so much less. Perception can be influenced by expectation and one persons reality is rarely the same for another person.

How we choose to talk about something or not talk about something whether consciously or subconsciously has a direct effect on how others will experience it. If I sell you on this great hike through the pristine wilderness, I have raised the bar on what it could be significantly, so your expectations will be high. If instead I just said lets go for a hike up Coal Creek Trail, on this particular hike that might make it more enjoyable because there are no expectations. I am all for high expectations, but sometimes it's nice to enter into something without them because then you are free to experience what really is. Sometimes I guess we are just trying to sell people on things we know they will enjoy so we paint that picture. On this particular hike I tried to get my oldest daughter to walk instead of being carried so I didn't even bring the second pack. I worked her up telling her she could do it, comparing it to distances she has walked before and talking about how we had built up to this with her hiking a little more each time we head out. She ended up walking only about a third of it, but I did convince her that it might be fun to roll down the the downhill parts, which she thoroughly enjoyed, so my marketing did in fact enhance the overall experience for her even if carrying her without the pack was much harder.

Anyway my point is about the influence of our words and the way we share about something. When I was at the NCCCUSA event a couple weeks ago and there was a campaign called, "words matter." This hike was kind of a silly illustration, but it made me think what you can do with words. We have to be careful because our negativity may ruin something good, and though our enthusiasm may set a difficult bar I would rather try to achieve the difficult than be brought down before I started.