Jaded

It is easy to become jaded these days. Under a seemingly constant barrage of bad news, angry conversations, and disagreeable politics, becoming dulled is a natural defense.

The problem is, becoming jaded is an unhappy state and others will not enjoy your company.

Who gets jaded? Everyone. If you work with the public you may be at the front of the line. Policemen, salesmen, healthcare workers, teachers, are all top candidates to become angry, desensitized, and generally fed up with the human race.

The jaded individual tends to see the negative in everything. They expect the worst in people and situations. Usually, they have past experiences to back up their opinions.

This attitude permeates your life and you can become what you despise.

When I rode in the patrol car with my friend Bob off and on for several years, I realized how a police officer is constantly confronted with the worst of humanity and people at their worst.

Issuing tickets often evoked complaints, whining, arguing, and other undignified responses from the guilty party. Intoxicated individuals surely had had better days in their lives. The police officer also sees carnage from accidents and the results of angry tirades leaving bodies broken in ways most folks never see.

It is no wonder police officers often become cynical and angry.

In my line of work, I see a lot of personality disorders. Others are very entitled and try to use their "mental illness" to wring every morsel of favor from the system they can. The families of the mentally ill can tick you off. From using the patient’s check to outright neglect, there is a lot of pain generated by the folks who should be quarters of solace.

Hurricane Katrina brought out the worst in many people. Just review the fraud perpetrated on FEMA. Think back to the looting. Stories of evacuees being poor guests and over the top politicians certainly added shades of green to my level of jadedness.

I am reminded of a line in the Bible attributed to Jesus. "The poor you will have always." He was stating a fact. No matter what we do, no matter how benevolent we become or no matter what programs are implemented; there will always be poor folks.

The same can be said about people behaving badly, disrespectfully, and dishonorably.

The problem for us as individuals is balance. Are you aware of how negative and cynical you are? With me my level of jadedness moves along a continuum with completely jaded on one end and Pollyanna on the other end. Hopefully I stay somewhere in between.

To repair the damage, you need some of the opposite experiences. You need to see the best in people, witness a heroic deed, see someone give to others not expecting publicity, and just experience good old, innocent, genuine, love.

Friends are usually a good source of this. Family is too, hopefully. The good is everywhere the bad is, it just doesn't jump out at you like the negative stuff does.

Good is quiet, modest, and doesn't look for fanfare. The complaining, negative, entitled, whining, individuals are preceded by marching bands and accompanied with bullhorns.

The devil may shout, but God only has to whisper or move a gentle breeze across your face carrying the smell of freshly cut grass to let you know Who is in charge. Some may use a clenched fist thinking it is powerful, but that pales in comparison to an open loving hand freely offered.

The Yankees may be down 8 - 0 in the third inning, but you know that somehow they will win. Good and bad is the same way. We know that good will conquer evil.

You can wait around for that to happen, or you can start making it so in your life right now.

Until the next time
John Strain

Homemade Ice Cream

When is the last time you had some homemade ice cream? I was walking Bear dog at dusk last night. It is always a treat to watch the day begin and end. As darkness settled and I walked along in the warm humid night air, there was a gentle breeze that brought just enough coolness to make the walk comfortable.

For some reason, I remembered homemade ice cream. Before they came out with the electric ice cream makers it was the manual hand crank models. I have cranked many churns of ice cream.

Like many things, making ice cream was an event only part of which was actually enjoying the final result. One needed a churn, lots of ice, rock salt, a good recipe, and willing crankers.

Summertime was ice cream time and we took advantage of the sultry nights to enjoy a treat from the North Pole. At least, it tasted like it came from the North Pole.

Sometimes we would make ice cream to cap off a BBQ, but we didn't need a special event. It was common to just make it, but one almost always had friends and neighbors over to enjoy the making and eating of the icy delight.

Here is how it worked. The ladies would make the ice cream in the kitchen, while the men readied the churn somewhere outside. Everyone could catch up on gossip, tell jokes, and comment on current events.

I can't tell you too much about what went on in the kitchen. All I know is there was lots of yacking, chattering, and laughing. Eventually, one of the ladies would emerge with the churn filled with a special blend that magically transformed into ice cream after the men performed their own kind of magic on the concoction.

Outside, the men staked out a special spot. It had to have lawn chairs or some place to sit, it had to be a place where melted ice water and salt would not ruin grass or create puddles in pedestrian traffic areas. The good humor of the ladies could turn quickly if someone tracked muddy, salt water on one of their carpets.

In the days of the manual churn, the spot could be almost anywhere, but when electricity became necessary, the spot had to be wired. Some folks even made it in their kitchen sink.

I never was a fan of the electric churn. I think electricity eventually ruined everything for homemade ice cream. It took out some work, but a lot of the fun. It became more of a process than a social event and people found it even easier to just buy their ice cream from the grocery store.

What great memories. Summertime, warm night air, the sound of crickets, the blinking of lightning bugs, and the sound of an ice cream churn spinning in the night. The churn filled with the ladies elixir would spin around and around in its cocoon of ice. Rock salt was liberally sprinkled on the ice causing it to melt. The spinning and melting ice caused the potion to change from a liquid state to a consistency we all know as ice cream.

Churning was a perfect job for men. You could tell a lot about someone by the way they would churn ice cream. I never wanted to stop. "Do you want me to crank for a while John" someone would say. "Nope, I would say," with my tongue nearly getting caught up in the churn, out of breath, "I'm OK." Obviously marathons were in my future.

Others would easily relinquish the crank. If kids were around, adults wouldn't have to crank at all until the cranking got more difficult. Advice was always being offered, "You need more salt on that ice." "Turn that churn so the water flows out the hole that way." "Go tell the women to get the bowls ready."

Ice was for putting in the churn and putting down someone's shirt or pants. Lots of joking and hijinks accompanied making ice cream. Conversations and laughter filled the night and my memories are of happy silhouettes of friends and family.

When the churn got too hard to turn, the crank apparatus was removed and the bucket was filled to the top with ice. The frozen ambrosia was nearly complete. The ladies readied the eating area with bowls and spoons, kids were called in from play, and the men straightened up the cranking area.

Can you smell it? The fresh coffee that is; coffee and ice cream, spoons clanking on bowls, and the conversation momentarily goes away. I won't mention brain freezes and mosquitoes, but they were also a part of the homemade ice cream pageantry.

That is a lot of happy memories bouncing around in my head. I wonder if I would of had them if I hadn't taken Bear out for a walk. It is amazing what happens when you relax and let your mind kick into neutral.

I hope you enjoyed your ice cream. Just leave the dishes in the sink. The dish fairies will take care of them.

Until the next time
John Strain

Goodbye to an old friend

Sunday I said goodbye to an old friend. Actually, as you can tell, I put it on the curb; already with the revisionist history. I wasn't sure if the garbage man would haul it off and I didn't want to take the time to drive it to Goodwill.

Within two hours, the TV fairies came and took it to another home. Given the way I separated from my old television, one might surmise I had no emotional attachment. After all, it is only a hunk of plastic, glass, and circuit boards. It is just a thing well past its prime.

I would wager you know and understand the feelings that come up when you part with something you had for a long time. Don't you get a lump in your throat when you clean out your car and hand the keys over to someone for the final time? A piece of furniture or clothing can muster the same reaction and my old TV was no exception.

That old TV came to live with us in 1986. I searched forever to find just the perfect set. Barbara can attest and she still talks about how many places we looked before settling on this particular TV.

It cost $600 and I bought it on credit of course. It was a prized possession and the state of the art at the time - a monitor television. That meant it had all kinds of jacks for plugging things into. It was stereo and could make the VH-1 experience even better. Movies took on a whole new dimension for home viewing, and it was a giant step up.

I loved that TV so when I was working one Saturday at Methodist Psychiatric Pavillion and got "that" phone call from Barbara you can imagine the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach.

She said, "John put pennies in the TV. It smoked a little bit, then it quit working." John was going on two years old and obviously trying to add to the lore of the terrible twos.

Apparently, my son, also an admirer of the new television, noticed slots in the side of the case. Not yet grasping the concept of cooling vents, he reasoned with his young brain that it was like a built in bank. He began to deposit little pieces of copper, which came to rest on the power supply. Copper being the good conductor that it is, shorted across streams of electricity never intended to meet as evidenced by smoke and no picture.

The television was so young and not ready to die and not in this way. I took it to the TV doctor who for the small fee of $100 brought it back to life. He even gave us the four cents John deposited.

At least I learned one thing about myself in that incident. I knew I was no child abuser. I had passed the ultimate test.

I have set in front of that television and screamed for joy and moaned in agony as I have lived the high and low points of my favorite sports teams. I saw the Jayhawks win the Final Four on that very television.

I can still remember the arrangement. I would lay on the floor, Barb would be on the couch, and John would be running around. Sometimes laying on me, other times playing on the floor, but eventually laying on the couch next to his mother.

My routine was to carry his slumbering body to his bed, make sure the door was locked, and then switch off the TV. I performed those actions many times.

When we moved to Covington, of course the television came with us and it was our main set until 1997 when I bought a big screen TV. Still, it has been used and it has been faithful for 20 years.

The picture was still pretty good, but the sound was a bit fuzzy on one side, probably just a speaker, but it was time to move on. Recent acquisitions made it necessary to move it out.

So goodbye old friend. There is life in you yet. We experienced a lot together. You have witnessed 20 years of my family’s history and you have been my window to the world.

Would somebody play the National Anthem? Now turn off the TV and watch the bright dot in the middle fade away.

Until the next time
John Strain

Letters

Do you remember what it was like to get a letter in the mail? Many now living do not know the anticipation of waiting on the mailman to see if there is a letter from a friend or family member and that is sad.

Today, most folks pick up the phone or shoot out an email. In our "must know it yesterday" society, letters are much too slow. Letters are not practical anymore and they don't make sense, and that's too bad.

I come from a family of letter writers. My mother was the example. I have memories of her sitting at the table writing. The sound of her pen sliding and dotting on the table had a certain rhythm to it and gave life to a home like the ticking of a clock or the sound of a hot water heater.

She chronicled our lives, dispensed wisdom, offered commentary on current events, and shared her feelings. People always loved her letters. I loved her letters.

Shortly after my parents divorced, my mother moved to southern Missouri to help her father who had been diagnosed with cancer. She sent letters and I began sending her letters.

Long distance phone calls were a luxury then and most people only used it sparingly or for practical matters. Her letters appeared in my dorm PO box when I was in college. At seminary in New Orleans, they found me there as well. After I was married, they did not stop, but I began calling home more often than I wrote.

The letters came almost weekly and they carried in them small town news, garden reports, and updates on friends and family members. They were a welcome message and a good companion to accompany a cup of coffee.

My letters to my mother tell my life's story in the day-to-day detail long-term memory cannot recall. I know this, because my mother saved all of my letters and recently returned them to me all tied up with green yarn in little bundles arranged by year.

I can read about my life in high school, college years, seminary days, dating escapades, job woes and successes, the birth of my son, and I can follow my own intellectual development.

It is a real gift and a treasure to have something from your past returned. In this case, I have been given my old thoughts.

These days Christmas cards are about the closest thing we do to letter writing, but most of us write one letter and the one size has to fit all. We are too busy.

Too busy?

Anything worth anything takes time and maybe even a little sacrifice and effort. What are we saving our time for?

Choices.

Until the next time
John Strain

My life Part XII: Playing house, cleaning houses, and biding time

I had a masters degree and I was cleaning toilets and pulling weeds for a living. I guess God wanted to make sure I wouldn't become cocky; it worked.

On the upside, we had a place to live, friends, and enough money to pay the bills. We settled into a routine of sorts. Barbara and I worked all over the city and we kept busy. In the evenings, we fixed dinner and watched TV.

I was living a marriage stereotype and I liked it. Our apartment was small, but plenty big for the two of us. I had a grill to begin perfecting my BBQ skills. Barbara was trying out a different recipe almost every night.

I liked biscuits and Barbara, being a faithful wife tried to make them for me. Most attempts were close to good. It was like living an “I Love Lucy” episode, each night she would offer up her best effort. Sometimes they were flat and hard. Other times they were big and crumbly.

I worked at making tough biscuits appear tender and sometimes I needed extra water to wash down the dry crumbly ones, but I was not one to criticize good intentions - besides; I didn't have the balls then anyway.

My downfall is always my smart mouth. I tell people, usually after I just insulted them, I didn't mean it. The truth is I just can't lay off of a good straight line. One evening Barbara announced she had a new biscuit recipe. My response was, "Oh know, not another biscuit recipe."

I paid the price for my words with her hurt feelings and silent treatment, but she didn't hold a grudge long.

We were getting used to each other and my memories are good ones. We had fun and we were happy.

On the job front, I kept sending out resumes and regularly talking with my professors and the folks in the placement office. I had a couple of interviews, but nothing panned out.

In July, we went to Georgia to see about a little church just south of Atlanta. It was the stereotypic white Baptist church with a parsonage and cemetery all together. The church was over 100 years old and its members were mostly senior citizens.

Barbara and I stayed with the chairman of the board of deacons while we were there. In the evenings, we walked with him to his pond where he fed his pet catfish.

Fields surrounded the church and the man told us that in the fall after harvest, mice were everywhere. I guess once the crops are in and the fields are cut, they have no place to go. Barbara was getting nervous.

I preached the Sunday sermons on that July weekend. I don't remember much about them, but I do remember a conversation I had with the head deacon at his kitchen table.

He was asking me what I would do if I were extended a call to be their pastor. I told him I would probably begin by canvassing the area. I would go door to door and introduce myself to folks in the community and also use the opportunity to invite them to church.

"That's all well and good, but what if you knock on a door and it is a black person?"

"I would do what I said, introduce myself and invite them to church."

He pushed back from the table and stretched his head back some. "That could be a problem."

He went on, "In the old days, if we had a revival, the black folks would come and they would sit off to themselves, then after the service, they would go home. When the black folks had a revival, we might attend, but we would sit off to ourselves and go home after the service. A few years back when we were having a revival, some of the blacks wanted to stay, mix, and mingle. That was a problem"

He explained to me that the church had a rule that blacks could not be members.

I don't think I hid my shock very well. I tried to reason with him. I told him it wasn't my mission to get black people into the church, but neither would I discourage anyone interested in attending.

It is one thing to know prejudice exists. It is another thing altogether to meet it. Needless to say, I was not extended an invitation to that church either.

I remember a book written by JB Phillips, "Your God is too small." Another way to look at it is our pettiness is too big.

I knew something of prejudice myself. Barbara and I had a friend who was working for the Home Mission Board. She took it upon herself to look into our case and see why we weren't hearing from anyone.

Since our trip to Ohio, the phone stopped ringing. My attempts to find anything out were like calling the phone company. I talked to a lot of secretaries, but their bosses would not return my calls. I was beginning to feel like damaged goods.

One afternoon, Lisa called and talked to Barbara. She explained that the minister in Ohio, the one who put us through the inquisition, called the Home Mission Board and took them to task for sending them a handicapped candidate.

The folks at the Home Mission Board basically rolled over on me. They had not been sending out my packet, but didn't have the nads to tell me. Lisa raised some hell. She told them that my lack of vision was not a problem. She knew me and could vouch for my abilities.

She was angry and called us to let us know what had not been going on. The news hit me like a sucker punch to the stomach. I have been underestimated and written off many times in my life, but I did not expect it from servants of God. For the first time in a long time, I began to feel sorry for myself.

I found it incredible folks had no problem believing David could slay Goliath, but didn't see how God could use some legally blind guy.

I kept cleaning toilets and waiting. Fall was around the corner. I was wondering if I would ever get a church.

One August morning, I was cleaning Dr. Johnson's house when the phone rang. It was a man by the name of Larry Carter. He was on the line with another man named Matthew Stevens. They were calling from Rock Island, Illinois and they wanted to talk to me about being a church planter for their project in the Quad Cities.

The phone conversation went well and they wanted Barbara and I to fly up and see their mission. I accepted the invitation. My heart was pounding, I finally got another nibble.

"I need to tell you about my eyesight." I said. "I am legally blind and therefore, cannot drive a car. It isn't any big deal though, because my wife drives me wherever I need to go."

Matt and Larry took no exception to my vision problem. The trip was on.

Things were looking up and I could feel it.

Until the next time
John Strain