Posts tagged ‘life’

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December 3, 2010

black friday

I don’t get up early to shop on Black Friday.  Don’t need to.  Most of the deals can be found online somewhere.  Or they aren’t really deals at all.  Regardless of what Too $hort said back in the day, there are certain enterprises that are, in fact, easy.  WalMart proves it every single year.  Maybe I’ll just start referring to WalMart as America’s…nevermind.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t get a good deal on Black Friday. I sure as heck did. Even got to sleep off all that tryptophan the night before.

Friday morning I got around at a reasonable pace.  Drank a leisurely cup of coffee.  Dressed in layers.

Then I jumped in a pickup with my father-in-law.  He drove us out to a friend’s field, easily the most attractive pasture land I’ve ever seen.  For the first time ever in my whole entire life I said to myself, “Self, this would be a sweet piece of land to farm*.”

*I don’t mean that to sound condescending to farmers at all. Far from it. The reason I don’t farm (other than the fact that I grew up in the city) is that it’s so stinking hard. I don’t think I have the endurance and discipline to be good at it.

Flinthills on one side of the field.  Trees and the Southfork of the Cottonwood river wrapping around the other three sides. Never has a giant plot of worked earth looked so peaceful and serene. Granted, we busted up the natural serenity when we started running that chainsaw like Jason, but whatev.

Over the course of the day I got quite the haul.  Wood for our fireplace and stove, certainly.  But also an education.  My father-in-law taught me how to use and care for a chainsaw.  He taught me all kinds of stuff about trees.  How to identify different ones.  Which ones burn the best.  Which ones make the most attractive frames.  Which ones may be wiped out of Kansas completely within the decade due to an infestation of a very small, but very destructive beetle.

Really, it was one of the most amazing most anti-consumerist days I’ve ever had.  Relaxing even though the work was as physically hard as any work I’ve done in the last few years.  Unregrettable in every sense.

Can’t buy that at WalMart.  Not even on Black Friday.

Renew and Restore

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November 1, 2010

a response to lebron’s new nike commercial

 

Dear LeBron~

I’m not one to give unsolicited opinions to celebs.  But you asked, so here we go.

When I was doing urban ministry, one of the things I had to fight against was the teenage black boy paradigm that they didn’t have to be accountable to anyone.  They phrased it as “I’m just being me”.  And thus, free license (in their minds) to do whatever they pleased without acknowledging how their actions might affect others.

Who do I want you to be? I’m not sure.  To be perfectly honest, the bar I’ve set for pro athletes is pretty low.  I’d be happy if they didn’t say racist things, didn’t text pictures of their junk to women, and generally set a good example for kids.

From what I’ve seen, you’ve done a good job on those three fronts. As a result I’ve liked watching you play basketball. I thought the movie about your high school years was pretty sweet.  In fact, I made all of the kids I worked with watch it because I thought it taught good lessons about life and relationships.

I don’t want you to embrace the role of bad guy or enemy.  But I don’t understand why you have to be so standoff-ish about “The Decision”.  Everyone makes mistakes.  I get that.  And nothing is 100% good or 100% bad.  It’s cool that you raised all of that money for the Boys and Girls Club with the special.

But surely you can see in hindsight how it came off, can’t you? It just seems like it would make you seem more like a real person if you came out and said it wasn’t a good idea.  That it rubbed some things in Cleveland’s face.  That you had a good time there, but that you were excited to play basketball with two of your best friends in a trendy town while getting paid a lot of money.  And you could even throw in there that you wish you could have won a title in Cleveland before you left.  I think that would be a true statement.

Acknowledging those things in that way would make you seem like more of a person.  It would teach kids a lesson that even LeBron James makes mistakes, but he owns them.  They could see someone larger than life shuck the whole “I have so much bravado, I don’t have to answer to nobody” act that malignantly defining black manhood.

But then considering the low expectations I have for pro athletes, I won’t get all worked up when you don’t come around.
Renew and Restore

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