Of Pogo Sticks and Reading Glasses—Revisited

The post that follows was originally posted 6 years ago and mentions turning 50. Tomorrow I turn 50 so I decided to repost with a few updates at the end.

I recently bought in the same week two Pogo Sticks and a pair of reading glasses. I am 44 and, to most people, considered to old for pogo sticks and (admittedly to lesser degree) possibly to young for reading glasses.

Since I juggle for a living, use a pogo stick in my show, and bought both of them trying to find one that collapses small enough to fit in my prop box, therefore, the pogo stick purchases don't seem all that unusual. However, one of them was purchased at ebay's United Kingdom site and cost $132 ($110 of that for shipping) and is advertised as being able to get 6' of air, thus giving me visions of being the man to take extreme pogo sticking mainstream. One small bounce for a teenager, one giant leap for a middle aged man who needs reading glasses.

One might consider this a desperate and potentially stupid attempt at trying to relive ones youth, aka, a mid life crises. If you can't afford the sports car, go for the coolest pogo stick you can find. (By the way you can spend up to $500 on a pogo stick, without going out of the country, so I think I showed great restraint.) Honestly, I think for me, it's the same thing it's always been: I like showing off physical skills that I can do better than other people, the more skills the better, and the current skill du-jour is pogo sticking. Besides, I need to exercise and stay in shape for my job anyway, so why not have a little fun and excitement in the process. If the day comes where I hurt myself pogo sticking (referred to as "sticking it to your self") then I'll have to reconsider using it beyond my little trick in the show and be content with aggressive inline skating. One has to adjust as necessary.

The reading glasses cost a dollar and while not as cool as my sunglasses, ($10 at a scratch and dent sale) they do look better on me than my wife's spare pair. I don't actually need them for reading per se, but have used them for looking at a map, pulling out slivers, or doing close up work for more than a few minutes, such as sewing or certain household repairs. Which is simply to say, I am getting older and my body is reflecting that.

I'll confess, I wasn't completely sure where I was going with this entry when I started it but the juxtaposition of the two items purchased seemed to have so much potential, I couldn't pass it up.

As I have started writing this and thinking more about it, two lines of thought have emerged in my head.

1. The Pogo Stick: Old dogs can learn new tricks.

They may not be quite as exciting or impressive but they can be learned. I bought my first pogo stick when I was 40. I enjoy it; learning tricks on it is a challenge, but it rarely goes more than a foot off the ground (the new one may change that and I will need to be careful). On the other hand, when I was a kid, I would jump off the roof onto the front yard. Last winter I learned to jump on our trampoline on my mountain bike. It's a very soft landing; low impact bike jumping. When I was a kid, I set up a jump that progressively got bigger and bigger and never had a soft landing. My point is, we (those over 40?) can still enjoy and have challenges (for the moment I'm talking physical) doing things that might not be considered appropriate for our age, not out of some desperate attempt at recapturing our youth, but simply for the joy of learning something new and having a fun way to get exercise. And of course mentally, there's always new things to learn and ways to challenge your self. My wife has started taking piano lessons again after not playing since childhood. My stepfather is learning about particle physics. We've all heard of authors who didn't start writing until their sixties. The possibilities are endless: learn a new language, a musical instrument, tap dancing, the history of Bulgaria, if you've lived long enough, you probably have some things to say, write a blog.

2. The Reading Glasses: We age, it happens, get over it.

There is no question that we live in a culture that tends to celebrate youth and make fun of aging. From the jokes made about peoples age, to the "funny" cards and black balloons used on milestone birthdays (40-50-etc.) reverence for age is no longer a given in our culture. I can hear the arguments: "It's just for fun" "Nobody really means it." Why make a big deal out of it." A couple of reasons.

First, I would argue that it's just these sorts-of-things that have contributed greatly to the lack of respect that is too often shown to older people (whatever that means) in our society. If youth (whatever that means) constantly see age as the butt of jokes, or black ballooned birthday parties for 50 year olds—with the implication being that it's all down hill and your almost dead—it's no wonder they don't show the respect and honor that age deserves.

Second, age in the Bible is always looked upon with reverence, as something to be honored and associated with wisdom. So—and I don't think I'm making to big a leap here—if God says we shouldn't make fun of aging, then we probably shouldn't. How about a birthday party where someone is truly honored, with cards that reflect that, and decorations that reflect that, and people tell their kids about what this person has meant in their lives and so teach what it means to honor and show reverence for our elders.

In conclusion: I guess the main point of this whole entry is. . .

I don't want black balloons or cards that joke about my age when I turn 50. However, if you all want to pool together and get me one of those $500 pogo sticks, that would rock.

Additions on the eve of my 50th:

I now wear reading glasses for all reading and have a pair within a few feet at any given moment of the day. Still use one of those pogo sticks for fly-to gigs. Never got into "extreme pogo sticking." Still do inline skating in skateparks when the opportunity arrives. Still trying to learn new skills: juggling and other. While one of those $500 pogo stick would be fun to try I have enough sense to know that at some point I'm going to come crashing to pavement form 6 feet of air and that healing time isn't what it used to be. On the other hand I am in the process of learning kiteboarding so if you all want to all go in on a 12 meter, 4 line, arc style, kiteboarding kite that what would be awesome.

Avoid Your Vomit

Sorry about the title. But it will (if you haven't figured it out already) make sense.

As I've stated in the past, you never know where a blogable idea will come from.
In that case it was Proverbs 12:6 and X Men 3 (you can read that here).
Today it's Proverbs 26:11—no movie.

Proverbs 26:11 Like a dog that returns to it's vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.

Now I've read that verse before and never thought much about it. However, this time I read it and thought "Ohhhh! Wait a minute. That's talking about me".

Before I give my line of thinking, here is an oft used quote attributed to at least three different people (mostly Albert Einstein) and a Chinese proverb.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

So, I read the verse and thought of the quote and kind of put the two together and started thinking of "different results" that I would like to see in my life. How I've done the same thing over and over (returning to my vomit) and of course got the same results.

In my last post (New Years Eve) I talked about things that I want to do more or less of this year, and I now see this as kind of a continuation of that thought process. Stated simply, if I want to see different results, I will need to do more or less of certain things as they pertain to that result. A simple example would be: if I want a healthier diet, I need to eat less sugared cereal and more vegetables. A fool returns to his Sugar Puffs. (which by the way I have not had a bowl of sugared cereal this year)

Identifying The Vomit–

I started trying to think of things that people foolishly return to and as a result don't get different results—aka the vomit in their lives.

–Not following through or finishing what was started. (my biggie)
–Getting caught up in the day to day and not getting the big things done. (again me)
–Bad eating habits. (of course if your not after different results then don't worry
about it)
–Not exercising. (ditto)
–Going to bed later than I should to get up when my alarm goes off. (oops, did write
that in first person?)
–Wanting a better, more loving relationship with your wife (spouse) and keep
treating her the same way as always.
–Not do anything about the great ideas you have. (I'm looking to make big strides on
this one)

You get the idea. I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said in relationship to this and maybe I'll write on it more in the future. Who knows, maybe I'll come up with enough for a book. . .

I can see it now, a whole rack full right as you come in the doors of Barnes and Noble and on the cover of each of those books, in big bold print, Avoid Your Vomit - how to keep from regurgitating the messes in your life.

Killing Time

I was walking through the aisles of the grocery store the other morning and heard one employee say to another that they did something the other night and referred to it as just "killing time".

I suddenly had thoughts about that phrase that I've never had before and the more I thought about it, the more I felt that it might be a good blog idea, and some good inspiration (for me if for no one else) heading into the new year.

To start with killing is, at least generally speaking, a pretty negative term. It has associated with it the idea of waste—as in the waste of a life cut short when someone is killed by a drunk driver. I realize that "killing time" can also be used to describe something positive—"I had some time to kill so I folded some laundry"—that sort of thing, however for the sake of this topic that's not what I'm referring to.

We can all think of times (if you're like me probably today) when we can look back and see time that we have truly killed in the wasted sense of the word. I for one think that if I only have a few minutes available, I might as well look at the weather online again or something just as useless, when in fact I could take care of the dishes on the counter, empty the dishwasher, or any number of other things that really don't take all that long.

Another thought I had relates to how much time do we spend with thoughts, attitudes, words, actions, etc, that are negative and unproductive in our relationships, our reactions to situations or events—just stuff in general. For the sake of this entry, I'm thinking that we could refer to the time spent in that state as "killing time". Time which could be spent uplifting, hoping, loving, encouraging, etc, is instead being spent "killing" with actions and attitudes that are opposites of what I listed. Which brings me to the phrase I would like to replace "killing time" with—(drum roll please).

"LIVING TIME"! Pretty clever huh? Came up with that all by myself.

Just to clarify, in reference to actual use of time, while "killing" to "living" can certainly apply to unproductive to productive (an area I need work) it doesn't specifically need to be related to accomplishment (at least in the "I got this done" realm). One example could be: instead of watching more youtube videos that are completely unrelated to what I was looking at in the first place, I could play with my kids. All it takes is a five minute pillow fight and I've gone from "killing" to "living." Just this evening I watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas with my youngest daughter snuggled in my lap—stroking her hair. I got "nothing" done, but that was really living! The examples that could be used here are pretty endless so I'll let you come up with your own.

In reference to the thoughts, attitudes etc. I'm not going to give specific examples, but instead point out what I think is a good guide line for living in a "living" and not "killing" way. Galatians 5:22-23 says "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." That's a sure recipe for making anytime "living time" instead of "killing time".

I know myself well enough to not make new years resolutions, however I am making a list of things I want to do more and less of in 2009 which, if I look at it regularly, (my plan) will hopefully, help me to do more "living" and less "killing".

More: love my wife and kids, read, eat vegetables and so on.
Less: hurt my wife and kids, frivolous computer time, eat sugared cereal and so on.

MC said it was hammer time—I say it's "LIVING TIME" and I invite you to join me on a journey to fill 2009 with more living than ever.

Command–Z or Me and My Moron Chip

On my Mac, in just about every application, "command–z" is the keyboard shortcut for undo. If you're on a PC running windows, it's "control–z". When you use the undo command on a computer, its as if the previous action never happened. As one who's done a fair amount of video editing, photo editing, page layout, and word processing for my promotional materials, I've used "command–z" a lot.

I recently read an article that used the computer "undo" as a metaphor for something,
(I don't remember what)... and that got me thinking how nice it would be to have a "command–z" for life, specifically the things that we say. How many times have we said something that we wish we could take back, or undo. Of course we try... We've all heard the expression at some point in our lives "I take that back" or "I was just kidding". But I believe it was Jerry Seinfeld who said "Take it back? You can't take it back! It's already out there!" Of course there is apologies and forgiveness and we should all be doing more of those, especially the apologies. However, since there is no shortcut to simply "undo" what we've said, it would of course be much easier to simply "not-do" in the first place.

And that brings us to the moron chip. Radio talk show host Joe Souchery coined the term "moron chip". The moron chip, as I understand it, is that little chip in your brain that kicks in and says "Hey moron! That's really stupid idea, don't do that!" or "Hey moron! That's a really dumb thing to say, keep your mouth shut!" Or, as is not often enough the case with me, (just ask my kids) "Hey moron! That's not going to be funny, don't even try!" So when you have what Joe calls a "moron chip problem" that's when the chip doesn't kick-in and stop you from doing what you shouldn't do or say.

If your married, most of your moron chip failures probably happen in interaction with your spouse (especially if your a husband). Here is an example of my chip failing yesterday. My wife was going to make a chicken and rice casserole that my daughter had requested for lunch. I mentioned there was a couple of chicken breasts and she could use the bigger one and save me the other. The ones I was referring to were in the fridge but I had not made that clear. Shortly after telling her, I walked into the kitchen where my wife had two bags of chicken breasts (I buy them at Sam's Club and then freeze them two to a bag) thawing in a bucket of water. My mind said "I meant the thawed chicken not the frozen! and two bags!That's four chicken breasts! You only need one for a small casserole for lunch.". At the same time I said "Thats a lot..." And stopped—but it was to late. I may as well have spewed out the whole thing because she knew exactly what I meant. I apologized right away which she appreciated but the damage was done.

It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized exactly what was going on. She wasn't thawing it all out for her. One bag was for me and one was for her. She was doing exactly what she had heard me tell her to do. Use the bigger and save me other. Because I wasn't clear about it being in the fridge she took it out of the freezer (99% of the time that's where using chicken would start) and was taking care of one for me so that it would be ready when I needed it. So consequently to he,r it came across as "You dummy what are you doing using that much chicken don't you know better".If my moron chip kicked in properly, I would have realized that she never puts that much chicken in a casserole, so obviously it's not all for that purpose, and therefor some of it must be for something else, and since I said I needed some, it must be for me, and I didn't get across clearly that there was chicken in the fridge, so moron just say thank you for thawing the chicken and move on. Needless to say I went and apologized again.

To go back from the moron chip to the computer chip. If we did our word processing, video editing, or whatever, without ever or rarely needing to use our undo shortcut, imagine how much smoother, easier, and less frustrating that task would be. Not to mention the savings in time and mental energy. If we apply that same line of thinking to the things we say, where our moron chip is functioning properly and we didn't feel the need to command-z our tongues so often, our relationships, and thus our lives, would also go along smoother, easier, with less frustration, and save us the time and energy, that goes into the repair work, of apologizing and forgiving.

So for the sake of my wife and kids, say a prayer for me (add yourself to the list while your at it) and the proper functioning of my moron chip: no short circuits, no bad wiring, and frequent upgrades to a bigger, better, more powerful chip. As this is one chip that will never become outdated, obsolete, or to powerful.

My January Entry

Just to clarify. This was supposed to get posted last night (January) but due to sickness in the house I simply forgot and as such, as far as I'm concerned, this is a January entry.

In a desperate attempt to post a January entry and thus get a start on posting at least one entry a month this year, I came up with this. . .

The Top Ten Reasons I didn't write a better blog this month:

10. What's better than a top ten list.

9. The same reason Letterman doesn't come up with something better to fill three minutes of his show.

8. It's a beautiful sight, I'm happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland.

7. My brother didn't write one in Oct, Nov, or Dec, so it took the pressure off.

6. Blogger's block.

5. I have young children and I'm back home—Snuggle Time.

4. I have a wife and I'm back home—To Do List.

3. Blog shmog.

2. Extreme Jump Rope instructional DVD I got this month.

1. It's 10:30 on January 31st and I need to go to bed

Next month: the top ten reasons not to use a top ten list as a blog entry. This just gets easier and easier.

Bloody Words, The Video

You never know where a blog idea may come from. For instance this one came about from reading a verse in Proverbs, the same week I watched X Men III, The Final Conflict. Bloody Words, The Video, to the best of my knowledge does not exist. Rather it is my concept for the video, that this entry is more or less about.

We'll start with the verse in Proverbs and this will all start to make more sense as I go along.

Proverbs 12:6 The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, But the mouth of the upright will deliver them. NAS

It was the first part—the words of the wicked lie in wait for blood—that caught my attention. It got me thinking about the whole idea of how words can be used as weapons. Think of some of the terms used to describe the use of words: low blow, cut like a knife, that really stung, and I'm sure plenty more that I'm simply blanking on right now. The point is, they are all associated with the idea of physical pain or violence. In James 3:8 it refers to the tongue as a restless evil and full of deadly poison.

Which brings us to the X Men influence and the idea for the video, which gives a visual that I hope might be helpful. In the movie, Jean Gray's mutant power allowed her to do essentially anything with her mind, which included inflicting wound after wound on Wolverine, who, with his mutant power of self repair, promptly healed himself of each wound until he was able to save the world (a very simplified description of the scene). So it was this visual image, recently burned into my brain, accompanied with the verse in Proverbs, that brought me to Bloody Words, The Video.

The video would start with a little girl standing in front of the camera, when a male voice (intended to be her father) starts yelling at her "your stupid" "I can't believe you did that" things of that sort and through the use of special effects, a physical wound (most likely something along the lines of being cut with a knife) is inflicted on the girl with each thing that is yelled—bloody words. It's not something that would be easy to watch even without the wounds, but with them, it would be that much harder and therefore, as I see it, that much more effective in driving home the idea of just how wounding words can be. Other scenes could be: a husband yelling at his wife, a wife making cutting remarks to her husband, a boss to his employee, kids picking on another kid, people gossiping about someone, all with the same result of physical wounds being inflicted. Less blatant and yet potentially just as damaging things like sarcasm or the very self centered, I-care-more-about-me-than-you, parental phrase "you know what you do reflects on me" should also be included.

Then follow all that up with people (I think it should be the same voices as did the wounding) saying loving positive things and with each thing said, a wound heals. But the mouth of the upright will deliver them.

James 3:10 puts it like this: from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

With words we have the power to wound and to heal. It's our choice. How easy it is to go on wounding when the scars are inside and we don't immediately see the damage. Imagine if when we started in on one of our kids, with the first wrong thing said, we saw a cut appear on their cheek and blood started flowing down their face . . . would we continue? I don't think so. I think it would stop us dead in our tracks and bring us to our knees in tear filled repentance.

Bloody Words: a strong visual image that just might help us think twice before we wound again.

Additional Thoughts

I posted this blog last night and after listening to a Living On the Edge podcast this morning, I wanted to add some additional thoughts.

The title of the broadcast was How to Overcome Hypocrisy in Your Heart - Part 1* and while there where a number of things that tied into the theme of the blog, what stood out for me was Luke 6:45.

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. NIV

If we have blood dripping from our mouths on a regular basis, we need to ask ourselves "where are those bloody words coming from, where is my heart at?" Maybe we need to be praying "Lord my mouth is speaking blood, I need Spirit filling, help me to be yielded to the Spirit so the fruit that overflows from my heart is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self control, and not bloody words".


PS To both of my loyal blog readers that I know about, and any others that might be out there, you may have noticed this is my second post in one month. . . don't get used to it.

Filled Smiles

This entry came about from a song in church this morning. It was the first song of the service (yes I was there in time for the first song, thanks to some Holy Spirit conviction delivered via a Chip Ingram Living On the Edge podcast) and was a fairly typical, contemporary, not very theologically deep, worship song, (don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash those types of songs, I have a playlist full of them on my ipod) when a line came up that caught my attention:

When we laugh fill our smiles with You.

My first thought was "huh. . . what is that supposed to mean" and seeing as I was now fully distracted from singing the song, I thought about it and I don't know if I came up with what the writer intended it to mean (I later found out it's the song Our Love is Loud by the David Crowder band) I did come up with my idea of what it could mean.

The gist of it is the question: what do we smile at or what do we laugh at? In other words: what's the motivation behind our smile or laugh?

There are a lot of things in our society, media in particular, that people laugh at, that—from a Biblical or Christian world view perspective—we should not be laughing at. From sexually explicit "humor" to the Don Rickles extreme-put-down, make-fun-of-others, sort of "humor" (much of which I've laughed at) television, movies, and the rest of it, is full of stuff that is meant to be funny. However, at the time we are smiling or laughing at any of it, it is very safe to say that are smiles are not filled with—as the song puts it—You.

There a couple of quotes related to this that I like and were in fact what set me on this line of thinking in the first place. There are two from Joshua Harris's book Not Even a Hint (about sexual purity) and one from a John Piper Sermon. Even though they are very similar, I include all three.

Jesus Christ died to rescue me from darkness and sin. How can I willingly immerse myself in that darkness for the sake of entertainment? What a tragedy it is that I’ve sat idly by during movies and television shows and watched the very sin for which Christ had to die being laughed about, even celebrated.

Joshua Harris “Not Even A Hint” p124,125

Why would I want to gain enjoyment or soak my mind in the sins that Jesus had to shed His blood to free us from?

Joshua Harris “Not Even A Hint” p125

My parents almost never went to movies and I almost never go to movies. The reason is very simple: there are almost no movies that don't ask me to be entertained by attitudes, motives, and actions which Jesus died to eradicate.

John Piper


Strong but very true words. I really could have just posted the intro, the quotes, said Amen and been done.

So where does that leave us? Does that really mean we shouldn't watch Seinfeld reruns? I'll leave that up to you, however, speaking as one who has watched a lot of Seinfeld reruns (I really don't watch TV at home but when I'm in Branson for three months with cable and time. . .) let's just say that some of my other options could have been: reading one of the many books I brought with, video chatting with my wife without trying to read the closed captioning at the same time, going to bed, and dare I say it—praying. Which is to say, when I stand before my Maker someday and am asked to give account for the time I spent watching Seinfeld reruns in Branson, MO . . . I got nothing.

Watch little kids at play. More often than not, their smiles and laughter have a You filled, innocent wonder, excitement, and joy of living, that we don't tend to show enough of in our adult lives. It's worth trying to cultivate more of that, as well as being more aware of when our smiles have a less than wholesome filling.

When we laugh let our smiles be filled with You.

A fluffy, meaningless line from a feel-good worship song? You be the judge. As for me, I say no.