communication

Ever hear about the love languages by Gary Chapman? You can take a mini-quiz here to get an idea.

According to Chapman, there are 5 main ways a person gives and receives and responds to love. Here's how I rank.

1. Quality Time - 37%
2. Acts of Service - 33%
3. Receiving Gifts - 13%
4. Words of Affirmation - 13%
5. Physical Touch - 3%

I first read about the love languages sometime in high school - and things haven't really changed much for me. Recently, I've been advised that I really need to work on affirming others with my words. Also, with the whole ordeal of gift-giving and care packages (end of the year stuff, birthdays, graduation, weddings, etc), I find that I'm often at a loss and think to myself "Who'd want a gift anyhow? I sure wouldn't care for one!"

I find that I can actually be very creative with gift-giving, but since I don't really care for gifts in the first place, it just doesn't happen very frequently. When I do give gifts, it is either out of custom, practicality, or it is actually acts of service in the form of a gift. Sometimes people are offended when I don't express myself in a certain way when receiving gifts. Or some people don't feel loved when I neglect giving something to them.

My words of affirmation are chosen very carefully. I try not to waste my words and think them through very carefully (I'll often rehearse or repeat conversations) so when I say something, I really mean it. But it won't always sound flowery or "super nice" - so many times the person on the receiving end might not catch it. I need to be more direct and obvious in encouraging people.

One of my Staff Sergeants in the Marines called us out once, as we were singing cadence on a long march: "If you need to sing songs to keep yourself motivated, you are weak! The only source of motivation and encouragement you need is from right here! points to chest Shut up!" ... kind of how I feel sometimes... most other people I know would not agree!

I reserve touch to fist pounds, handshakes, and high fives. Hugs are extra special. Kisses? Forget it. In fact, at one wedding, while everyone in line congratulated the bride and groom with hugs and kisses, I offered my hand and a sincere "Congratulations Mr. and Mrs.___" haha

One of the key things to utilizing love languages is understanding what yours are and understanding and recognizing others' love languages. Then, reconcile, compromise, give and take.

So if you know me, I enjoy spending one-on-one time together. I really don't mind those hugely long conversations where we're challenging each other and sharing our lives. Often, what's planned as a one hour meeting can easily go for two. I am known to talk people's ears off (probably a sign that they don't necessarily receive love through quality time!).

I find that I don't long for frequent contact. When I am with people, I try to make the most of it, milking every moment. That's why it's called quality time, not "lots of time".

Acts of service. I was raised this way and was just expected to serve... no matter what. I seldom do it for the "cookies" - I just do it because it needs to be done and someone has to do it. I'd rather it be me than putting others through the trouble. That's why when I receive words of affirmation, expressions of gratitude, or compliments I get awkward - because I'm not doing it for the recognition. When I receive the recognition, somehow that act of service is tainted and it just doesn't feel right and pure anymore. Compliment me and I'll either barely acknowledge it with a hurried "thanks" or redirect the conversation. And it's a great way to pump up my pride. I'd actually rather hear constructive criticism - I live for those intense confrontations (made more possible by quality time)!

We're all different and unique. I'm learning that sacrificial love can look different for different people and that certain aspects of the Gospel touch people in special ways.

Part of loving is not being self-seeking. Instead of demanding that others love me the way I want to receive it, I need to die to myself and love others in a way they understand love. Not to be a people-pleaser, but to honor, respect, encourage people and putting others' needs and desires before my own. I'm coming to understand that this is humility.

inspiration

photo from crossfit.com

Kyle Maynard was born with a rare disorder called congenital amputation. Despite having no arms and partially developed legs, Kyle played football on his high school team, and wrestled on his college team. Kyle is 23 years old. This is a recent picture of him working out.

This past weekend, he fought in his first-ever MMA fight against an "able-bodied" opponent. Kyle lost that fight. Determined to try again, Kyle is training for more.

"It's one of the best moments of my life going a full three rounds and surviving," Kyle said. "A lot of people if you read what they were saying about me [on MMA websites] - didn't think I'd last 30 seconds. It was a huge rush getting into that cage. Do you know how tough it would have been to love something and never have gotten the chance to taste it?" - interview by Steve Hummer from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 27, 2009


Kyle Maynard's life motto: "No excuses"

bucket lists.

At the beginning of this month, our LIFE group looked into Jesus Christ's final week on earth before he was crucified, died, and was buried.

We asked ourselves: "What would you do if you had only had 7 days left to live?" and then came up with our own bucket lists.

So what if I sky-dive or go bungy-jumping or travel extensively or learn/master a cool new skill? What does that actually do or accomplish?

Small dreams

It's like I'm trying to achieve all these small dreams of mine. Everyone knows time is precious - but deep down inside, I want that time to be all mine - all about me - under the seemingly noble pretense of "seizing the day" and "living with gusto/with a purpose".

I guess this attitude would be fine for some people. But for a Christ-follower?
This vision of fulfilling a "bucket list" is so contrary to what God has already put in my heart. He's already shown me that in order to follow wholeheartedly after Him, I must abandon my dreams. God has shown me the brevity of life and how little I control and understand about it. It's foolish to somehow plan all these things to do before I die or hit a certain age when I don't even know what tomorrow will bring!

"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring" - Proverbs 27:1

Receiving and giving

My attitude in doing all these bucket list items is all about me being on the receiving end. There's very little giving involved, unless it's coming to the realization that I won't need some material things and giving it away (not for the sake of charity and love, but because I don't need these things anymore and don't want to be weighed down).

It's essentially me taking control of life and dictating exactly what I want to do with it. "It's all about me!" I think that is a lie the world tells me - to "follow my dream" when instead, Christ tells me to "take up my cross and lose my life for His sake and the gospel's". It is a lie that Christ knew I could very easily give into - that's why He told his disciples not to worry about all these things... these bucket lists as the world does... but to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness...

Cheap substitute

To put it another way, I think the reason some bucket lists can be so extravagant and full of things people desire to do/be is that we do not yet fully realize the eternal reward in heaven which will completely PWN anything any bucket list would ever cover. We're worried that when we die - that's it! We're just dirt! So to "live to the fullest", we have to pleasure ourselves and somehow find a substitute for the eternal life Christ promised us. Christ is telling me "Forget your bucket list! It's a scam that doesn't amount to much! You can use your time and energy towards eternal things - because you have eternal life through me! Please stop wasting the time I gave you on earth. Invest what I've given you by being a faithful servant"

Urgency

It's like when I was much younger and went on play-dates. Sometimes in the beginning it would be really awkward if I didn't know my playmate very well. If he/she was already my friend, then we'd get right down to business. Time would fly by. Then, we'd get this weird sense. We'd hear big footsteps and adult voices approaching and would know that our playtime was coming to an end. Realizing we only had a few precious moments left, my playmates and I would "play extra hard" to milk all the possible fun out of that moment. We'd talk a little faster, the plot to our playskits would suddenly have a lot more twists and turns (we didn't play videogames), and we'd just get jittery with nervous anticipation of the inevitable.

I wasn't concerned with what we did. That didn't matter. We could've just sat there, staring at one another for the last few minutes. What really mattered was each other's company. We just wanted to be together for a few extra moments. It was that heightened recognition of our departure - the fickleness of time itself - and our minds going into hyper-mode trying to preserve every last detail as memories.

...my fickleness arises out of a lack of urgency. If I knew 100% for sure that I would die tomorrow, that my "play time" would abruptly end, my bucket list would probably look very different from just a casual, wistfully made one.

What versus Who and How

Bucket list: not so much what I want to "do" (the "what") but more about the how and who. Beyond purposely spending time with people and trying to gain something or impart something from those times, realizing simply that people are my purpose.

Jesus spent his last days loving people. He didn't necessarily go to all these exotic places to do all these sweetacular things. Just imagine: Jesus going all around town turning every fountain of water into wine, making rocks into scrumptious bread, jumping off cliffs and having angels fly him to safety... you know, those "crazy things we all want to do"!

Jesus spent his last moments being spit on, cursed at, falsely accused, beaten, and nailed to a cross - crucified between two criminals. He chose that way. He knew that the small group of people he walked alongside with, loved, taught, and died for would abandon him and deny even knowing him when put under pressure. In those last moments, when any other person would be thinking only about his own wants and needs, Jesus was not thinking about himself at all.

Jesus symbolized his ministry by showing his disciples some broken bread and poured-out wine. "He loved them until the end" by asking His Father to forgive the accusers, because the people did not understand what they were doing. By willfully putting an end to his temporal earthly body, Jesus invested in the eternal. Jesus came to save the world once and for all, not to condemn it as we would in our fickle, proud, judgmental sinfulness. Even after rising from the dead, Jesus went back to his still-doubting disciples and completed his mission in loving them in his fellowship and by empowering and equipping them. Instead of receiving and expecting to be served, Jesus gave everything - even Himself.

Bucket list:
Love until the very end, with no expectations of returned love.
Invest in the eternal: in souls to build God's kingdom, for the fame and glory of His Name.

I can never claim my love for God unless I love my neighbor. I do not choose my neighbors. But I do choose to obey God in loving them. Obedience has no delay. Instant, willing obedience - love is now!

manly

The earliest lessons in manhood I remember are from my father, when I was about three years old. I used to get hung up about dirtying my clothes and whine until my mother changed me into clean ones. I was a clumsy eater and played outside in the dirt all day - so there were a lot of dirty clothes and a lot of whining. My dad had enough of me one day, slammed down his spoon at the dinner table and gave me this intense "Are you kidding me? You want to call yourself my son?!" look. He said, "Look at me, Joseph!" He started throwing bits of food and spilling stuff all over his clothes. Dirty as heck. He didn't whine or cry. "Men don't whine!" he said and finished his meal.

On a regular basis, whenever I would be hanging with my dad, he would always tell me: "Joseph, be a great person. You're meant to be a man, don't let anyone ever tell you different."

Some milestones:

I liked two girls and hit on them within 5 minutes of each other. I first learned what a "player" and what a "player-hater" before I even heard those terms. I was in the first grade.

I started working for wages when I was 11 as a paperboy. I haven't stopped working and earning money for myself ever since.

I broke up with my first "official girlfriend" when I was 12 because I didn't know dancing with another girl at a 6th grade dance was cheating.

I started shaving every day when I was 13. Haven't stopped since.

Drove a car for the first time when I was 17. After driving twice, around the block, and parking - my dad had me drive 70 miles to Manhattan, New York City. I think I almost hit every parked/moving car and pedestrian.

I joined the Marine Corps without first telling my parents when I was 17. I'm now a 23-year old Sergeant leading teenagers who think they'll live forever.

I'm looking to graduate college next week. I'm going to "move on".

Does all that make me a man?


Incidentally, the cover on May 2009's issue of Esquire magazine (Man at his best) is titled "How to be a Man". I couldn't resist. Some excerpts:

An essential part of every man, with the possible exceptions of the pope and William Shatner, doubts the essene of our manhood. By inches, pounds, and paychecks, we gauge ourselves - our power over other men and women and their power over us. Are we tough enough? Rich enough? Man enough? The question is the answer: No - not if we still need to ask. - Scott Raab.


What I've learned - The American Man - May 2005 Esquire
(nearly 20 different men, from all walks of life, interviewed)

Fear is what drives us. The response to fear is when virtue comes out.

I became a man on the the twenty-third of October, 1983, around six-thirty in the morning. The day my Naval Academy roommate was killed in Beirut. I was a thousand yards away. I was twenty-two. Before that I was immortal.

I've learned to forget about being a perfectionist, because entropy always wins out in the end.

It is enough to be clean. Vanity destroys a man's natural confidence.

I don't hire kids, because they don't have any real ethics. I can teach a kid, but he's got to care. That's it.

I am a man, so anything I experience is manly. I don't think, "I want to go out and be manly"

Survival has to do with pre-training. When you're in a bad situation, you're so used to persevering, it's like going on autopilot.

It's important to be flexible - to allow yourself to collapse, to allow yourself to be nurtured. I remember a guy who said, "There's no such thing as too much exercise, but there is such a thing as not enough rest.'

What is a Man?
by Tom Chiarella

A man looks out for those around him - woman, friend, stranger.

A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn't matter what his job is, because if a man doesn't like his job, he gets a new one.

A man owns up. That's why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not... Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.

A man doesn't point out that he did the dishes.

A man knows how to bust balls.

Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his ass.

He does not rely on rationalizations. He doesn't winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn't seem himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That's the liberal thread; it's why men won't line up as liberals.

A man gets the door without thinking. He stops traffic when he must.

A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That's why men won't forever line up with conservatives, either.

A man knows his tools and how to use them - just the ones he needs.

A man listens, and that's how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It's not that he must. It's that he can.

A man is comfortable with being alone. Loves being alone, actually. He sleeps.

A man does not know everything. He doesn't try. He likes what other men know.

A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it's just to put an end to the bickering.

A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided.

My two cents:
So, when do you know that you're a man? When you choose to be one. It's not just saying it or wanting it or trying to be the best one. It's an initial decision that must be followed by all other decisions that don't seek to prove anything. Once you're out to prove something, that's just insecurity. One is only insecure because he has not come to terms with himself and who he is. Until he figures that out, he's just a male.

The actions of a man are self-evident. People know a man when they see one or are around one versus someone they think is especially "manly". Once you're a man, that's it, there's no going back. It's confidence without cockiness. Humility without self-pity. Strength in weakness. Selfless faith in something bigger. Driven by the realization that one is mortal and imperfect but that perseverance and continual self-improvement are essential to growth. It's knowing that one can never be mature enough but one can always be man enough because manhood isn't a quantitative measurement. It's doing the right thing because it's the right thing and not giving excuses.

And finally, it's knowing that in 20 years, or 10 years, or even next month, I can look back on this blog entry, shake my head, and rewrite the whole thing.

I feel like I still have something to prove. The men I know, don't.