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This blog post was originally posted on my blog site. In case the audio does not translate well into Facebook or email world, you can click this link to see the original.

As I prepared to write about our trip to Venice this morning, I saw this news story about Venice having extreme  flooding.  We were there just two weeks ago. I am sure thankful we didn’t wait a couple of weeks.  Great timing!

The Bells

We arrived on Nov 20th in Venice and took a Water Taxi to our hotel, Casa Santa Maria Formosa.  The hotel was right on a canal and right around the corner was a bell tower.  The bells ringing is one of my most pleasant memories of the whole trip.  The bells just seemed to start up at random times and go forever.  It may always be like that or maybe it was because we were there on a Sunday.  In any case, I love experiencing the sounds of a place.  These sounds were particularly magical. I made a recording (attached below) that starts with the clip-clop of someone walking on the cobblestone street by our hotel.  About 15 seconds in, the bells take over.  Enjoy. 

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About Venice

Even though it rained a lot of our visit, I loved walking around Venice, looking in the shops and seeing the city.  Venice is truly a walking city.  There are no places for cars at all.  I knew that before experiencing it, but I could not picture that in my mind.  Photos cannot capture the experience you get from walking the streets, seeing the buildings and bridges over the canals. Truly experiencing the city connected a lot of dots for me.  Imagine a hundred tiny islands all connected by foot bridges, then build 3-5 story buildings and cobblestone streets to connect them.  Fill every square millimeter of space so that you see no grass, no dirt, no trees.  Oh, and while you are doing this, make sure the buildings are made to last hundreds, no thousands of years!  We truly do not understand the scale of time it took to build these structures.

Gondolas

We walked around from our hotel to St. Mark’s Square the first day. We were tired and really wanted to take a nap, but determined to stay up to force our bodies to acclimate to the new time.  Just outside the square, on the Grand Canal, were the gondoliers with their shiny black gondolas.  Unlike most of the Italian touristy options we experienced later, these guys were not at all pushy.  We stood as a group trying to decide if we wanted to do a gondola ride.

This decision making process reminds me how everyone experiences internal competitions of their own values.  There are things that you and I value and sometimes they clash and we have to decide one over another. Additionally what that these values are differ from person to person and even moment to moment.  (I can argue with myself for hours, days, years about what I really want).  When you add more people to the mix, making a decision can be daunting.  In that moment with the gondola decision, the values I was pitting together were; thriftiness (I am a cheap tightwad at heart), authenticity (I didn’t want to “waste time” doing a stupid tourist novelty.  I wanted to experience the authentic Venice) and respect for others (I was aware that my desires could throw a damper on the desires of others and I didn’t want that).

One of us walked up to a gondolier to find out how much the rides were.  There was a long ride and a short ride. For the five of us to take the long ride was €100 (about $150).  My tightwad value got a huge boost with that tidbit of knowledge.  No way I was going to spend that kind of money for a novelty or cheap tourist attraction. Cathryn, who must have been doing her own calculating and “valuing”, chimed in and said she would pay for it for all of us. So we thanked her for her generosity and got in the boat.  I thought that at the very least, we didn’t have to walk for a while… and we were tired.

Boy was I wrong about it being just a novelty.  Our gondolier, Claudio, took us up the Grand Canal and through many of the smaller canals throughout the city.  Along the way, we peppered him with questions about himself and the city.  He was the one who explained how thousands of years ago, this was a lagoon with many small islands and that people began building them up and connecting them with bridges.  Jared asked about the oldest buildings and Claudio began talking about Genghis Khan.  He frequently would interrupt himself or us to say, “This building was the home of Mozart,” or Vivaldi or Marco Polo… I have never felt so close to history.  Cathryn, thank you again for your generosity and providing the wonderful gondola experience!

China Town

Later we found ourselves at the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal where we found lots of street vendors and trinket shops so we named it, China Town.  Dinner was a small restaurant near our hotel where our waiter was a German transplant to Venice named Elvis.  Throughout the trip, we met a few remarkably warm and engaging people.  Elvis was the first to make that list.  He didn’t mind sharing his story and listening to ours.  And of course, he goes down in history for recommending Erica’s meal that night, Pizza with French Fries on top. Another that we met in Venice was our hotel concierge, Mike, who was a transplant from the Philippines.  Mike was full of great information about the city, where to go and what to do. He answered many questions about what it is like to live there.  I called him our concierge, but he was much more than that.  He toted all of our luggage up two flights of very steep stairs, fixed our breakfast every morning.  He not only ensured that we had a water taxi arranged to take us to our train on Monday, he made us coffee and then rushed us out the door to ensure we didn’t miss it.  Thanks for everything Mike… and thanks for friending on Facebook.

Leaving Venice

The water taxi experience is unique.  These boats are not small, but they have to navigate the narrow canals and get around the gondolas and other boats too.  I really appreciated the expertise of these pilots.  They made it look easy.

I’ll end this with the connection at the Train station.  We arrived way earlier than we needed to, which was fine by me.  I have a high value for stress free segues.  Early arrivals allow time to figure things out, which in turn lowers the stress.  We left the hotel before they served breakfast, so we went to the restaurant in the train station.  I walked up to the bakery counter and told the lady what I wanted.  She explained that I had to pay first at another counter, then bring my ticket back to her to get my food.  It was very inefficient, but at least they weren’t busy, so everything went smoothly.  (This was not the last time we’d experience this setup). I left Jared in the restaurant and walked back to Jeanie and our luggage.  It seems that his experience was not so pleasant.  He ordered and paid for food and then was told that he didn’t pay for what he wanted.  He argued with them until they finally gave him his food.  I only noticed the inefficiency.  Jared got to live it!  Fortunately, we caught our train without a problem.  Next stop, my favorite destination on the trip, Siena.

A view from the Rialto Bridge Sunday night

travel

My sister-in-law, Cathryn calls me a few weeks ago and says she’s thinking of going to Italy for Thanksgiving and would Jeanie and I like to come too.  She probably would have called Jeanie, but since she had worked the night before, she was sleeping.  I said, it sounded like fun and that we would talk it over.  I told her that there might be a problem if Jeanie didn’t have her passport.  Later that day, when Jeanie woke up, I told her that her sister had a wild idea for Thanksgiving.  She guessed Vegas.  When I told her Italy, she was in!  I asked her about the passport and she reminded me that she had one.  She needed it when we went on our cruise.  So, she sent a text message to her sister to let her know that I told her about the plans.  It simply said, “I have a passport.” I think Cathryn’s reply was something like “Giddie Up!”

Over the next few days, we checked the logistics of my taking a week off from work and next thing you know, we were making plans… real plans… reservations!  It was really happening!

Cathryn has been to Italy several times, and she has a real talent for organizing & arranging things like this.  So we basically let her put the whole thing together (& she did an awesome job).  The plan was start in Venice, then train to Siena, then another train Rome with a possibility of a day trip to Pompeii.  And that’s just what we did.

When we started the planning, we were pretty sure that Danae & Molly would have already moved from Charleston to Washington State and we needed a distraction.  Mark was transferred to WA by the Navy and Danae and Molly were waiting for the house to sell before joining him.  But the house took longer to close than anticipated and they were still there when we left for Venice.  Actually Mark left that same morning to drive across the country with their dogs. Danae and Molly took us to the airport, where we embraced and said our goodbyes.  The two of them would be flying across the country to WA a week later, the day before we returned to the states.

At Cathryn’s suggestion, we took sleeping pills on the plane so we could get some rest.  The night before us was going to start much too early and be way too short.  We were traveling to a magical place where the sun rises six hours before it is supposed to.

travel

fun

The heightened interest in the “truth of Islam” should not be a surprise with anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by Islamic Fundamentalists, the threats of Qur’an burning and of course the ongoing battle about whether or not a Mosque should be allowed near the ground zero site.  That it is part of the conversation does not bother me.  What bothers me are the presentations created for the sole purpose of stirring people up; a common technique used to motivate groups of people to action by touching sensitive triggers… especially fearful ones.

Between Facebook and the inevitable email forwards, I notice a definite trend towards more presentations of the “truth” about Islam.  These presentations are full of facts and often well produced.  The slick way they present the information is a hook to the reader/watcher/listener.  The web presentation I saw last night really drew me in.  It was compelling because of the way it “painted” words on the screen as they were spoken.  Very nicely done… and the information seemed accurate.  I have not read the Qur’an, so I cannot actually speak to its accuracy, but I was pleased that they encouraged people to read it for themselves for confirmation.

What I have read is Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson, which I highly recommend.  Mortenson has humbly served the people of Afghanistan for many years now.  He builds schools for them so they can learn.  Why?  Because it turns out most of them are illiterate.  Illiterate people in a country that is overrun with fear and extremism. It turns out, these Islamic Fundamentalists who hate us so much do not hate us because of the Qur’an tells them to hate us, they hate us because they are taught to hate us by people who were taught to hate us by people who were taught to hate us by… They cannot read the Qur’an and neither can their radical Islamic “teachers”!  What the Qur’an literally says is irrelevant when the people we are discussing cannot read it.

Back to the web presentation… one of it’s main points was how radical Muslims are more aligned with the words of the Qur’an than moderate Islam.  As if we should discount the moderate voices and let the extremists be the true representatives. In most any religion, the radicals are the ones quoting chapter and verse to support their teachings?  Fundamentalist fringe groups are always so stuck on “being right” that they

1. Lose sight of the big picture.
2. Decide what is more important than anything else
3. Take a stand on whatever that is
4. Draw a line to determine who is in and who is out
5. Turn against or wage war on everyone on the other side of that line

As a Christian, I personally do not want to be defined by any of the Christian fringe groups.  In fact, as a person, the only way I want to be defined is that I am myself.  If someone wants to know what I believe, they should ask me.  Don’t put me in a box with someone else that calls themself a Christian.  There are many “Christian boxes” and so far as I can tell, I don’t fit in any of them perfectly.  (Note to self… practice what you preach).

Let’s characterize the greater Islamic community, not by what their ancient writings say, but by the way they translate it into actions.  How do we do that?  Observe.  Ask.  Listen.  The vast majority of Muslims are peaceable people.  Most of them reject the violence of the radicals. To lump them all together with the radical factions is to invite them to lump people like me in with the likes of Fred Phelps (no link provided… look him up if you are interested).  It is not a fair representation. As Emerson might have said (or not) What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you your sacred text says.

Lastly, I abhor the use of fear as a motivator in any context.  I especially despise it with religion.  The present move to frighten people about Islam is gaining momentum and it will backfire.  Stirring up hatred is not a Christian concept. Did not Jesus say to “love your enemies”?  What would he do?

God, observations, religion, The Conversation

There’s a conversation going on that is beginning to get interesting.  It is always stirring, sometimes uplifting, frequently frustrating, commonly heated. The conversation is about religion, faith, belief, destiny, doctrine and tolerance to name a few topics.  Sometimes it gets some politics mixed in too.  I have strong thoughts and feelings about the topic and I want to join into the conversation, but I haven’t jumped in yet.  Why?

Even though I don’t believe it is true, intellectually, I have an emotional belief that I don’t have anything to bring to the conversation, so I should just keep my mouth shut, my keyboard quiet and listen.  So I listen and I read and I gradually I feel stirred to the point I feel like I will burst.  Then I don’t usually make the time to write. When I do start to write something, I don’t publish it.  I have a bit of a narcissistic belief that tells me that if I am ok, everything is ok, so I focus my thoughts inward.  These inward thoughts are a necessary part of being engaged with life and with the conversation, but they are not the end I really want.  I want to be part of the larger conversation.  I do want to share my thoughts with others.

One of the reasons I don’t publish is that my thoughts are too big.  I have 10 volumes of material in my head and organizing it then squeezing it out one word at a time is excruciatingly slow.  The slowness makes me lose momentum, which fuels distractions that keep me from writing.  The truth is that writing is just one of my desires.  There are other things that are just as important, frequently more important; like going to work and loving my family and friends.  Over time, I lose my train of thought and focus and I stop trying.  Not so much discouragement, but forgetfulness.  Next thing I know I get some margin back in my life and I find myself back where I am now; longing to be part of the conversation.

I do not like conflict.  Some people who I am close to may not believe that because they frequently see me in conflict and attempting working through it.  While I am usually willing to step into the discomfort of conflict, sometimes I do a poor job of working through it and it always drains me emotionally.  The anticipation of the emotional energy I will have to expend to stay in the conversation is daunting.  It is easier to just shrink back into my cave and leave the conflict alone.  But then I watch from inside the cave, wishing I was part of the conversation.

I do not want to impose my beliefs on others.  In my early years, I believed that as a “good Christian”, I should be in people’s face about what I believe.  I was pretty arrogant.  As a Christian, my beliefs about what is “required” now center more on loving God and loving people.  The words that keep coming back to me are grace, gifts and humility. I want to treat people graciously, give them gifts of listening and honoring even when I do not agree with them. And I want to hold my beliefs with open hands in a spirit of humility.  I don’t believe what I believed 10 or 20 years ago, and in 10 or 20  years I won’t likely believe what I do now.  I don’t have to win the argument, I just want to be in the conversation.  A friend of mine tells me that he loves competition, but it doesn’t matter in the end who won.  He just loves being in the game whole-heartedly.  That parallels my desire with the conversation.

Lastly (for now), I am afraid of rejection. This conversation seems to be dominated by strong voices of theologians and others who hold strong feelings about their beliefs.  There are many teachers and leaders and fellow Christians that I have studied under and followed over the years.  I do not want to disappoint them, so rather than express disagreement or doubt about what they taught, I usually stay quiet.  Ultimately, it is my own fear of being abandoned, deserted, ignored and/or shunned, which is both rational and irrational at the same time.  It is unfair and irrational because some of these people I am afraid of losing love me no matter what I believe or disbelieve and that’s that.  At the same time, it is a perfectly rational fear. Some would break ties with me if they knew what I really thought.  My cousin recently posted a controversial quote about faith on Facebook and was de-friended by someone who disagreed.  I don’t want that to happen, but I realize that 20-30 years ago that could well have been me that de-friended.  There’s a  thought; my 20 year old self de-friending my 52 year old self.  It helps me give grace to those who will not listen.

The price of keeping my thoughts to myself is too high.  I am ready to become part of the conversation.

spirituality, The Conversation, writing

Hurt people hurt people.  People hurt others because they themselves are hurt.  The people who they hurt, hurt others.  It is an endless cycle… unless it is not.  What can stop the cycle?

People like you and I point fingers at one another saying, “You hurt me!”  The truth is, I did hurt you, whether I meant to or not.  You hurt me, whether you meant to or not.  I am hurt.  You are hurt.  I cannot see your hurt because of my own hurt.  You can’t see mine because of yours.  We are each stuck in our own pain, pointing fingers of blame.  Again, the endless cycle.  What can stop the cycle.

The only choice other than feeling the pain and looking for blame seems to be to just sweep it all under the rug.  Just pretend as if nothing happened.  But it did.  The hurt is real.  The pain is intense.  To ignore it is to direct the rage inward.  Inward where it will eat us alive.  What else can we do?  Am I supposed to just “forgive and forget”?  I can’t forget.  It hurts too bad.   The two choices to a) live in the pain and feel the hurt or b) bury the pain and pretend it is not there both feed the cycle.  But it is all most of us have ever seen… ever!  There must be another way.

Enter Grace stage left…

No, I’m not getting religious.  As much as I have heard grace talked about at church, rarely if ever have I seen it practiced.  I’m not talking about some cosmic thing that you can’t quite put your brain around.  I mean the kind of demonstrated grace we can experience in this life.  It understands we are both in pain and that much of that pain is born from misunderstanding.  The grace I am talking about allows me to listen to you without defense when you are accusing me.  (Ever experienced that?)  In this kind of grace I recognize that I am a pain giver as well as a pain receiver. (Ouch!)   This grace creates a space where you and I can listen to one another for understanding, not to fix the problem and not even to agree!  The kind of grace space I mean is one where you and I can feel both listened to and understood.  Where we are not so concerned with who got the most points or who won.

The world is full of hurt people.  Some of them were hurt by me.  Some by you. I know some of the wounds I have inflicted, but not all of them.  I want to live in a place of grace where I can confess my faults and feel understood.  If there is to be any hope of having a space like that, someone has to start.  Someone must break the cycle.  In that spirit, I want to be one who helps create those kinds of spaces for others.  It has to start somewhere.  Why not here?  Why not now?  It is not an easier way to live, but it is a better way to live.

grace, hope, life, personal, spirituality

When I tell people that I am writing a book, they ask what kind of a book or what it is about.  I don’t have a good answer to that question.  This may sound silly, but right now, I want to write a book so that I can experience what it is like to write a book.  I don’t need it to be wildly successful in the marketplace.  After all, I have a good job.  I don’t need people to love it or to even read it.  I just need to write it.  I do not fully understand why.  I just feel compelled to do it.  One of the reasons I started blogging was to practice writing.  This blog gives me a reason and a place to write.

There is a button on the screen where I write my blog that reads “Publish”.  All I have to do to publish my blog entry is to click that button!  What a great time to live.  In order to publish 1000 years ago, I would have had to manually copy or hire someone to print every individual copy of my manuscript by hand.  Every single printing would have been a manual process!  Just 500 years ago, I could have had it printed by machine, but I’m guessing there weren’t many machines around.  Truth be told, if I were around 500 or 1000 years ago, I probably would have been illiterate and this wouldn’t be an issue.  If I were trying to publish even as recently as 15 years ago, I would have had no choice but to find a publisher who would accept my work and print the books.  With the advent of better and easier blogging software, now I merely click a button and it is published. <clicks safe draft button before losing his work>  Never before in history could I type a few paragraphs and click the Publish button to find my words immediately available to almost anyone anywhere on the planet.

So why do I want to write a book?  What’s it going to be about?  Fiction or Non-fiction?  I don’t know yet.  Blogging is giving me the discipline to do the work of writing.  The hard thing is making the time and doing the work… especially when I am tired. <clicks the Publish button>

writing

I’ve got one more thing to say about Plums, then I’ll be quiet (unless I think of something else).  I admit that I went a little overboard with the thanks, but I couldn’t help myself.  You see, I was really worried where Danae would wait for me for five hours while I drove from Charlotte.  I had visions of her at best sitting in an uncomfortable fast food joint and at worst wandering the streets.  When I found out that she was in a safe place, I was able to stop worrying and focus my attention on getting there.  When she told me that Michael offered to wait with her no matter how long it took me to get there, I was beside myself with grattitude.  He treated her kindly and with respect all day long.  What a gentleman!

I have told this story many times this week and many have responded with statements like,  “You just don’t see things like that anymore.”   I do not agree.  I believe that there are many decent people doing nice things for no other reason than to be gracious.  Most of us miss it most of the time.  Don’t get me wrong, Michael is one in a million (and so are the other million).  It doesn’t diminish his kindness at all.  The actual thing we don’t see much of is thanks.  We expect people to treat others with respect.  It’s the way things ought to be.  When someone is disrespectful, we feel angry and rightly so.  But the opposite does not hold true as often.  When we are treated courteously and respectfully, we ignore it or dismiss it.  We don’t say thank you enough.  That’s what’s missing.

I think there are biological roots for why we are not as thankful as we could be.  The book, On Intelligence explains from a logical standpoint how the mind works (intelligence).  In short, the authors explain each of us is constantly “predicting the future”.  We constantly receive sensory information from our eyes and ears and nose… We know what’s going on and we expect things to continue like they always have.  Driving down the road in traffic, we expect the cars to stay in their lanes going the right direction, or change lanes slowly and hopefully with a signal.  If someone darts out or passes us like a bat out of hell, we are startled because we didn’t predict that.  As I write this, the ceiling fan in moving the air about in the room.  Until I stopped to think about it I was unaware of the feeling of the air blowing my bald spot.  I was also unaware of the sound of a plane flying overhead.  My mind was used to these sensations and predicted that they would continue.  Here’s the kicker… When the predictions come true, our minds simply throw the information away.  It is not needed.

As humans, we can intentionally stop and pay attention to details that we would otherwise miss.  A fun exercise in Improv Wisdom is to close your eyes and describe the room you are in in as much detail as possible.  Then open your eyes and see what you missed or what you just got wrong.  Clearly we can override our automatic intelligence systems sometimes, but we cannot do it all the time.  It takes effort.

Back to thankfulness.  We miss the gifts that others give us.  Carl Sagan said, “In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” We are all dependent on the work and gifts from others present and past.  It would be impossible to be completely present and aware of everything that we could possibly be thankful for at any one time. But it is a wonderfully eye opening experience to stop and thank someone for what they did for us… even if it was their job.

My final act of thankfulness to Plums (until I get a chance to visit them) is a letter to the editor of the Bryan County News (click to read online).  Facebook messages are nice, but I’m willing to bet that the owners of Plums didn’t go into business to get nice compliments.  They surely did it as a financial investment.  My sincere hope is that one day soon, they are able look at their financial statements and say, “On June 19th, when we were nice to Jim Anderson’s daughter, everything changed for the better.”

Thank you.

P.S.  I just realized today that the letter to the editor will not remain online forever, so I have captured it here…

Bryan County News (Wednesday, June 23, 2010)

Dear Editor: My daughter’s car broke down at exit 87 on her way to Charlotte, N.C. from Orlando, Fla., on Saturday.

I drove the 5 hours from Charlotte to get her and was worried about where she could wait for me. Plums Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop was where she chose to wait. Michael, the manager, was so very helpful and friendly to her. He even let her stay there after closing time until I could get there!

Since we returned home, my friends have been filling their business’ Facebook page with thanks. As satisfying as that has been, none of us live near Richmond Hill.

The Richmond Hill community needs to know what a jewel they have in Michael at Plums. He went above and beyond.

If Michael had been rude or worse, I would have taken the opportunity to blast the restaurant and the people of Richmond Hill. I want to be just as intentional about shining a light on our positive experience. Would you help me go overboard with lavishing thanks on Michael at Plums?

This was my personal blog entry asking my friends to help… http://jimazing.com/blog/2010/06/a-plum-day/

Thank you,

Jim Anderson

family, random, reflection, stories

If only…

When I was a young man, I had all the answers.  In fact, I still have most of the answers, but they changed.  Now I am not so sure of these new answers.  One of the reasons for this lack of surety is because of those very changes.  Why should I think that I would stop and settle on “the truth” as I know it now?  I’m pretty sure I’ll keep “adding to” and “taking from” as long as I am breathing in and out.

Being the father of four teenage daughters at the same time was a challenge.  I envisioned myself as the stoic leader of my family.  the one with the answers and the rules.  Of course, I expected them to believe the truth as I knew it and to live by the same rules that I was trying to live by.  I was mostly unaware of how little they were interested in following those rules. I thought it was a phase and they would eventually come around.  Rules are created to prevent pain, which is a good thing until the rules become the point and we stop feeling pain because we don’t feel anything.  When the kids were living at home with us, I felt the need to be the example for them to follow.  After all, If I broke the rules, how could I possibly expect them to follow the rules?

Now that they are all out on their own, the scales begin to fall from my eyes.  I realize now that I do break the rules and no one knew that better than my daughters.  In 2004, I went to France to play music with LaClef. The group was mostly people my kids’ ages at the time (late teens early twenties).  I kind of became “the dad” on the trip.  I remember hearing their stories and on one occasion in particular, several of them were sharing their painful family stories.  As I listened to them talk about their parents shouting and how it frightened them, I cried with them.  I was angry that anyone could do that to such great kids.  Later when I had some time of prayer and reflection, I thought about the pain they felt and related it to my own pain.  I remembered how I too shouted where my girls could hear.  I remembered one of them coming to me in tears asking if her mom and I were going to get a divorce.  It hurts to write that.  In that moment I realized that I was not only the recipient of pain, I was also the giver of pain.

It is humbling to realize that finger-pointing works both ways.  I want grace for all the dumb things I do.  I want to be let off the hook for my mistakes.  I think the best place to start is by giving grace.  Giving it to others and to myself.  Letting others off the hook and me too.

Over the years, I have always thought it was silly when I heard people say, “If only I could go back and do it over with what I know now.”  It’s goofy to think you could win the lottery or buy Microsoft (even though it makes for a pretty fun movie).  As I step into a new understanding of graceful living,  I find myself wishing for the first time every that I could go back and do some things over.  I wish I had understood grace better and lived it better rather than so much rule giving and following.

grace, observations, reflection

Fathers Day today was terrific.  I am thankful to have such a wonderful family!  I feel blessed.

P. S.  The memberships at Plums are growing.  Their wall is covered with messages of thanks for taking care of our Danae!  I am so thankful for friends partnering with me to bless someone they never met.  If you don’t know what this is about, here’s the explanation… http://jimazing.com/blog/2010/06/a-plum-day/

family