About Time

RECENTLY MY AMAZING-MISSUS AND I SAW ABOUT TIME, a new film by Richard Curtis. We're big fans of his films. Judging by the fact that we were two of about six people in the theatre, not enough people saw it. I hope you were one of them.

If not, raise your right hand and repeat after me: "I promise I will rent and watch About Time as soon as it's available."
[Note to all the "Pops" out there: the DVD release date of About Time is February 4, 2014. It could be a smart thing to get it and watch it with your significant other(s).]

I am fascinated by time. It's mysterious and precious. It is the basic rhythm of our lives and we need rhythm. Let that little ticker in the center of your chest stop and see what I mean. Check out my post on the autumnal equinox (it's better than it sounds). 

Time is weird. We talk about "saving" time, but we know we can't. Try stuffing a few hours in a piggy bank and you'll find out those hours aren't there when you go back to get them. You can't even get back the time you spent pondering how fast the time goes.

Each year for the past three we've taken our oldest grand-girl, Karlee, to see The Nutcracker. I was looking at the photos I took of her next to the nutcracker at age four and this year at five. I commented that before long she would be able to look him in the eye. And then I thought, "NO! Slow this all down."

Karlee at 3,4 & 5.

We have a friend named Traci. She is originally from Keyes, Oklahoma. Traci is one of those people that when you spend time with them you feel like a better person and that the world is a better place. She has a sort of eternal youthfulness. I think I've figured out why. 

If you're in Keyes, Oklahoma, Traci's hometown, you can jump in the car (or more likely, the pickup), drive an hour, then check your watch. You will find it is the same time as when you left. Really. It's like the hour didn't pass. Maybe Traci did that--a lot.

Saturday, December 21st is the Winter Solstice. If you live, as I do, in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the shortest day of the year. Well, that's not exactly right. It will have 24 hours just like all of our other days. It's just that more of those 24 will  be dark than any other day of the year. So if you're a bat or vampire, this is your day.

What makes something timeless--not affected by the passage of time or changes in fashion?

To me, many stories are timeless like To Kill A Mockingbird. But I don't know why. Songs like: Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Amazing Grace, and Silent Night are timeless; but why?

I don't need to be timeless, but I do want to make the most of the time. I once told my muse, Kathleen, that one of the words and realities I hate most is squander. Squandering is as ugly as it sounds.

I wouldn't mind living long, but when it comes to death, I agree with Woody Allen: "I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

A couple of years ago, I had a surgical procedure. I guess it was sort of elective--it's not like I had a heart attack or anything. During the surgery, they stopped my heart. I don't know for how long, but it seems to me that I shouldn't have to count that time. Right?

It's kind of like Traci from Keyes. By now, you no doubt have figured that puzzle out. If not, Keyes is out toward the end of the Oklahoma Panhandle. If you drive west from Keyes for about 50 miles you go from the Central Time Zone to the Mountain Time Zone where it is an hour earlier.

From here you can be in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, or Kansas in less than an hour.

Maybe it's just that in places like Keyes, Oklahoma, time moves more slowly. Traci is the only person I know from Keyes, but if folks out there are anything like her, they laugh more, they live in the moment a little more, they don't squander time or friendships.

So Saturday at sunset maybe we'll raise a glass to the Winter Solstice. Do it early though: night is coming fast--literally and proverbially. So let's make a toast to timelessness. And whatever you do, slow down and savor, don't squander.

If It Quacks Like A Duck

IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYONE who has a news outlet, a Facebook account, Tweets or has a blog  also has an opinion about The Duck Dynasty deal. I thought to myself: should I say anything about it? Does Phil Robertson the real guy owe it to "Phil Robertson" the "reality" guy to keep the dynasty quackin'? 

I had no answers for myself and as I've explained before, here at AboutPOPS I try to steer clear of politics and religion. (That doesn't mean I won't occasionally talk about my faith and beliefs, it's just that those doesn't necessarily have anything to do with religion.)

But, then Donald Miller came to my rescue when he tweeted a link to this article from Scientific American magazine. It is relevant because it speaks to both issues: gays and ducks.

Why are all the good blue ducks gay?

That’s what Cherry, the last remaining lass of her kind in England, may be asking herself after two male prospects that might have helped her perpetuate the species fell for one another instead of for her.

Image of Blue Duck by Karora via Wikimedia Commons

"They stay together all the time, parading up and down their enclosure and whistling to each other as a male might do with a female he wants to mate with," Paul Stevens, the warden at Arundel Wetland Center, tells the Telegraph.

The boy birds, Ben and Jerry, were introduced to Cherry, but to no avail. "Cherry showed some interest in him," Stevens told the newspaper, referring to Jerry. "She displayed typical mating behavior—she approached him and called to him, she even looked like she was nesting. We thought it was great and it was all going to happen, but nothing ever did."

Feathers flew, however, when Ben and Jerry were shacked up together. "To our surprise, the two males really took to each other and it was obvious that they really liked each other," Stevens said, adding: "Ben and Jerry do make a lovely couple."

But Ben and Jerry’s coupling is bad news for blue ducks in England, where the threesome is thought to be among the only such birds in the country, the Telegraph reports. Blue ducks are native to New Zealand and are threatened with extinction, according to that country’s Department of Conservation.

As for Cherry, she’s taking Ben and Jerry’s relationship in stride, Stevens told the Telegraph. "Cherry doesn’t seem bothered by it," he said. "She’s just happy to keep to herself."

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I will say, I bet Ben and Jerry have a very hip looking nest.

You can read the entire article here. If you're in to this sort of thing.

A Remodeled House, The Munsters, and the Human Spirit

Today's post is written by my good friend Rob Carmack. Rob is a published author, speaker, encourager and prolific reader. I have said many times that I would like to be part of a group like the Inklings. The Inklings was a group of friends and literary discussion group. They met together at least weekly for nearly twenty years at The Eagle & Child pub near the University of Oxford in England. Some of the regulars included: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield.

If I could have a group like The Inklings, I would want Rob at the table.

You can find more of Rob's wit, insight and wisdom at www.robcarmackwords.com

Rob Carmack

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There is a house in Waxahachie, Texas that has been remodeled to be an exact replica of the house from the TV show The Munsters. The house is complete with a grand staircase that opens up, a rotating suit of armor, trap doors, and every other detail that made the Munster house unique. 

It’s not a museum or anything; a family lives there.

So why did this family—the McKees—remodel their house to perfectly resemble a set from an old TV show? 

Because they love The Munsters.

They spent what must have been a lot of money and a lot of time in order to make their home look exactly like the set from a TV show that they love.

This seems ridiculous—insane, even.

But there is something beautifully human about this. What do we do when we love something or have something in our pasts that left a special mark on our hearts? We memorialize it—we create a way to remember something that we never want to forget.

We erect a statue. We hang pictures on the wall. Sometimes (very rarely) we even remodel our homes to look like the set of an old TV show.

The need to memorialize is a very human impulse.

In the book of Genesis, we meet a man named Jacob. During a very low point in his life, Jacob is fleeing from his brother and stops to sleep for the night. While he is camped out, he has a life-changing encounter with God (Genesis 28).

Years later, Jacob returns to the spot where he had camped so long ago. When he arrives at the spot where he had once encountered God, the text tells us this-

Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan.  There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother. (Genesis 35:6-7)

When Jacob returns to this spot, he builds an altar—a physical reminder of his encounter.

Jacob is saying, “I never want to forget what happened here.”

In the history of our faith, we have established several physical reminders of those things that we are never meant to forget.

Baptism reminds us that we are part of the new humanity—that we are participating in the resurrection of Christ in the world.

Communion—taking the bread and the wine—reminds us that we are recipients of an impossibly beautiful gift and that we are all brothers and sisters when we gather together around the table.

We create beautiful art because it points back to something that could never be expressed with mere words.

Jacob’s altar is a way of saying, Something meaningful happened, and it must be remembered.

The Munster House in Waxahachie exists because the human spirit cannot deny its own journey. We are hardwired to remember—to memorialize the past as a way of embracing who we are becoming.

As we look back with gratitude, may we embrace the story that God has placed us in.

May we remember that which must never be forgotten.

What are some things in your own life that help you remember your own experiences and journey? Do you think the act of remembering is important in our attempts to become better people in the world?

Are You Paying Attention?

... your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Acts 2:17

I don't know if I am "old" by biblical standards. If Methuselah is on the scale at his purported age of 969, then I'm a Spring Chicken whatever the heck that is. Still, I do feel like I've moved from any possibility of being a young visionary to being an old dreamer. The fact is--I've always been a bit of a dreamer. Not in a grand Martin Luther King-I Have A Dream way, just the mind-wandering kind.

During my formative years (the 50s & 60s), daydreaming was discouraged by the mental health community and educators calling it a failure of mental discipline which could lead to psychosis. Freud labeled it infantile and neurotic.

I can remember teachers telling students (me) to "stop daydreaming." Then one day it happened--I brought home a report card where a teacher had branded me, "David is a daydreamer!" It seemed so ominous, as if I were stricken and there was no cure.

Imagine the horror and embarrassment for my family. In hushed tones, they would tell people: "Our son is a daydreamer." I could imagine scenarios like this: "He had a promising career on the assembly line at the Almond Joy factory, with the prestigious job of placing the almonds on each bar. But alas, he was a daydreamer. He would drift off to that place in his troubled little head and bar after bar would pass him, missing their nuts. Now he works at the Mounds factory because, as you know: while 'Almond Joy's got nuts--Mounds don't.'" Which, from my perspective, is a good thing because, as a daydreamer, "sometimes you feel like a nut--sometimes you don't."

Apparently there is some connection between the Industrial Revolution and the view of daydreaming as being dangerous and a waste of time and resources. People "went to work", making goods. So we needed to be more utilitarian. The arts, writing, composing--the stuff of dreamers, became like so much extravagance.

Today I am happy to tell you that my chronic daydreaming has not been cured. And lucky for me, mental health experts now agree that daydreaming is not only healthy, but an essential part of a creative mind.

One of my favorite lines on the "Big Bang Theory" is when someone calls Sheldon crazy. He replies, "I am not crazy. My mother had me tested."

I have been tested too. Don't over-read this; I'm not building the case for a genius IQ here. Too many people are still living who can attest otherwise. The test I'm referring to here is something called the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator®. It's a real thing, look it up.

The results of the test explained me this way:

At your best, when you fulfill your potential, you are highly imaginative and even inspired, and your skill-level allows you to create with ease. You have moments when the ideas just flow and creativity seems effortless. You have a wonderfully developed aesthetic sense and surround yourself with things that reflect your taste. You have the potential, moreover, to create your own life as a work of art, so that you avoid the ordinary, the shallow, and the mundane, opting for more satisfying ways of life, even if this means that others do not always understand why you live the way you do.

I was feeling pretty good about myself until I got to the "needs to improve" section, then it took on the air of those comments teachers used to write on my report card--things like: 

• Tame the inner critic so that you become less critical of others, undermining their confidence.
• Move from an ego-centric focus to an attitude of service.
• Balance artistry with being a responsible, thoughtful person.
• Avoid the trap of self-indulgence.

Odin the Wanderer (1896) by Georg von Rosen (Wikipedia)

I know I am and probably have always been a mental vagabond.
As it turns out, daydreaming does not necessarily mean you are not "paying attention." It's just from a different perspective with a different focal point.

One of my favorite authors is G.K. Chesterton and one of my favorite quotes of his is this: 

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

I prefer to travel--to see what I see, to ponder it, to maybe write about it or talk it about it with other travelers.

Speaking of great writers and "travelers" J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the greatest. A line of his I use often is this one:

Not all those who wander are lost.

I might add that not all those who dream are lazy, listless or lost. Oh, and that line of Tolkien's is from a poem he wrote for his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

I wish you sweet dreams!