Stirring the Pot

I like to “stir the pot”. It gives me great enjoyment. If I could get someone to pay me to “stir the pot”, I would have my dream job. I am not talking about standing over a hot stove stirring a pot, unless it is stirring a pot of chocolate oatmeal cookies, I like to do that also. I mean I like to challenge the way people think about things. I like to challenge stereotypes and conventional wisdom. I like to call people on inconsistencies in their arguments. I enjoy raising my fist in defiance; even with my degree in Science (thanks Five Iron Frenzy). It is very immature and annoying, but if I had to make a list of the top ten things I can do with excellence, stirring the pot would be on that list.

The most recent attempt was while I was taking some graduate course work in Business through a pretty big Christian university. I learned that Webster’s Dictionary is not an acceptable source, while anything published by any grad student anywhere is an acceptable source. So I took it as a challenge to add non-traditional and maybe a little edgy, but acceptable, sources to every paper I had to write. It was so much fun!

At one point I had picked up a book by David Crowder and Mike Hogan called Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die : Or the Eschatology of Bluegrass. I had already used Crowder’s solo book, Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi earlier in the year. I could imagine some stuffy old Business School professor sitting in his office surrounded by piles of books and papers reading a quote by David and giving out a guffaw. “What is this? Who is this ‘David Crowder’ fellow and what does he have to do with business anyway? What? It is an acceptable source, properly annotated and formatted per APA? Well, I don’t like it one little bit! Not one bit I tell you! Kids these days with their Rock and Roll music and their computing devices!” I could not wait to use this second book, for no other reason than the awesomeness of the title.

Please don’t think I don’t like either of these books, they are both awesome. And please don’t think I am making fun of David Crowder or his band of merry men, I love those guys. The music they put together played an integral part in our adoption, but that is another story for another time.

So I picked up Everybody to find some random quote that I could fit in to a 15 page research paper on Creating Vision. I wanted to challenge the establishment one last time. This was going to be good! I started reading and soon found myself unable to see through the tears. It turns out Everybody is about life, death, and mourning. Crowder and Hogan had written it about their lives after the death of a close friend. My foolishness had boomeranged back on me and hit me right in the eye (which was why I was really crying, there was a proverbial boomerang sticking out of my eye). I had taken a wonderful piece of transparency and tried to use it for my silly game.

I abandoned the idea, finished up the paper without any reference to David and Mike, and started thinking. Why do I have to stir every pot I come across? What effect has being the pot stirrer had on my life? Certainly I have had way more stress in my life from it. I have definitely damaged some relationships. I can think of only a dozen occasions where positive change has been created by challenging the “system”. That makes an estimated 5% return on investment, which means 95% of the time I was just causing trouble for no good purpose. What a waste of time and energy.

So now I guess I need to work a little harder at “living peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:8) since in this case it really is up to me. There are still pots that need to be stirred, and I will still be willing to be that guy if needed, but I will have to make sure it is needed, and maybe I will gently use a clean spoon instead of a dirty electric mixer on high. Then maybe someday, someone will make an offer to be the Official Pot Stirrer for their organization, proving dreams can come true. 

Let's hear a big round of applause for "Yes*"

            I have added a new word to the dictionary. It isn't really a new word in the classical sense of words, but a twist on a very old word and spelled a little differently, kind of like the word "fat/phat" which my wife has been known to use on occasion. I still have to ask my wife specifically what she means when she says I am "fat". Does she mean that I am totally awesome and cool as in "Dude! Awesome beard! That crowder you are growing is phat!" (not that she has ever said that, but I can dream). Or is she implying my girth is more expansive that it used to be, as in "Those pants don't fit anymore because you are getting fat" (not that she has said that either, using those exact words anyway).

            My new word is "yes*". That is right, I have added a non-letter to a word to make another word. The root word is the same, but the asterisk changes the meaning to indicate that the yes is provisional and there might be certain conditions in which it is not a yes, like the asterisks that are found next to the word “meat” on hotdog packages. In this case it generally means it is a yes unless something better comes along. It is pronounced the same, except you must add a slide whistle sound and a popping lip smack at the end. For those who are old enough to remember Electric Company, it is the punctuation mark sound Spiderman would make.

            In context it would sound like this:

            Guy One - "Will you help me move a grand piano upstairs next week during game four of the Finals?"

            Guy Two - "Yes* beeeweeep-pop, I would be glad to help you."

            The addition of the sound allows both parties to fully understand the nature of the yes given. Guy One can then plan on not having any help whatsoever from Guy Two simply because, in this instance, there are a million things that are better than moving a piano upstairs.

            This brings up the second part of the provisional nature of the yes - "something better" is a sliding scale based purely on the whims of the individual. If Guy One upped the ante with cupcakes or pizza, his ask for help would then land higher on the scale and be more competitive with the better things that will inevitably come along.

            Using the "yes*" would help us out in so many ways. It gets us away from the “let me pray about it“ lie because we all know that no one really “prays about it”, we are just too dishonest to be honest about it.  We would no longer have to wonder who would be attending events at church or home. It would also help people in their Christian walk because they would no longer have to confess they sort of lied about accepting an invitation, their souls and consciences would be that much freer to dwell on the next step of their sanctification.

            It would also help our marriages by eliminating the accidental yes. "The Smiths invited us to dinner Friday."

            "I hope you didn't agree to go, the world premier of Creepy Vampire vs Shirtless Wolf-man Teenage Angst Love Story is Friday night."

            "It's OK dear, I told them Yes* beeeweeep-pop."

            And with that, another marriage is saved, hooray for the Yes*!

Life, Death, Circumstances, & Stuff

It didn't take long for Eddie and I to empty out the trunk of the destroyed Mustang. There was a set of racing gears, a set of brake pads, a Hurst speed shifter, a car jack and some tools. The Mustang belonged to our brother-in-law, Jeremy Clemmons. Eddie and I had married sisters 23 years ago. The sisters had two little brothers, one was Jeremy. Jeremy was plagued by epileptic seizures, and it was a seizure that caused him to slam into the back of a school bus, killing him instantly.

 We had been gathering the small collections of his belongings that had been scattered across his various haunts in the city. There was a suitcase at his mother’s apartment, a duffle bag at the Mission, a box of trinkets from somewhere. We added the contents of the trunk to the small pile in Eddie's garage. It didn't amount to much at all. It didn't seem like much to be the congregation of 29 years of life.

 Jeremy was a guy whose circumstances always seemed to run him to ground. The youngest son in the family of four. His father died when he was 10. He began to suffer from seizures when he was a teenager. He had a hard time holding down jobs. The doctors found he had a brain tumor a few years ago. The surgery left a long scar across his head. The passion of his life was fast cars. He could build a simple stock Mustang into a growling street machine, yet his seizures meant he couldn't, or at least shouldn’t, drive the machines he built. This war raged within him and he struggled to reconcile the two opposing sides. His last breath was taken in trying to make his affliction and his passion coexist.

 I stood looking at the pile of stuff, contemplating the life and the man that was Jeremy for a little too long probably. I began to pity the man for life he had lived and the decisions he had made. Shame on me.

 Inside the house the black cloud of the accident was beginning to lift. The funeral had been two days ago and we are all working through our grief. As part of the grieving, we had put together a board with photos of Jeremy for the funeral. I say "we" loosely, in that my only contribution was commenting on the propriety of one of the pictures. It was this picture that came to mind as the pity and shame fought for the front seat of my brain.

 The picture was a head and shoulders shot from what might have been high school. It has the typical blue background and white frame that comes with the classic school photo shoot. Jeremy is making a goofy face. 

This silly photo brought to mind Jeremy's odd sense of humor that seemed to float along with his easy manner. It reminded me of his ability to talk with anybody, anywhere, Jeremy never met a stranger. His thick Texas drawl combined with his broad grin to disarm and welcome. I was reminded of his willingness to give pretty much anything he had to anyone. And his faith and belief in the redeeming power of Jesus Christ, which was always on the tip of his tongue.

I concluded that Jeremy wasn't a perfect man (who is?), but he was a Believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I realized that his life, or any life for that matter, cannot be defined by circumstances or stuff. His life is defined by who he was as a person, which, like the rest of us, is a dim reflection of who we are in Christ. The pile of belongings he left behind and the circumstances in which he lived and died are irrelevant when all is said and done. If only the rest of us could learn to live with this in mind, how much better would this fleeting wisp of a life be?

Jeremy David Clemmons
Oct. 19, 1981 -  May 18, 2011

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 1 Corinthians 15:42-43

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:51-58

ps. Jeremy is now free but will be sorely missed. I can't say for sure if there will be cars in Heaven, but I can imagine his mansion has a garage with a car lift, a decent set of gear pullers, a set of non-knuckle-busting wrenches, and an '94 Mustang GT convertible for him to work on. I just hope he doesn't get into trouble for trying to lay down rubber on the streets of gold because I want a ride when I get there.