I used to think a wedding was a simple affair. Boy and girl meet, they fall in love, he buys a ring, she buys a dress, they say I do. I was wrong. That’s getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition. I know. I’ve just been through one. Not my own, my daughter’s. Annie Banks Mackenzie. That’s her married name: Mackenzie. You fathers will understand. You have a little girl. An adorable little girl who looks up to you and adores you in a way you could never have imagined. I remember how her little hand used to fit inside mine. Then comes the day when she wants to get her ears pierced, and wants you to drop her off a block before the movie theater. From that moment on you’re in a constant panic. You worry about her meeting the wrong kind of guy, the kind of guy who only wants one thing, and you know exactly what that one thing is, because it’s the same thing you wanted when you were their age. Then, you stop worrying about her meeting the wrong guy, and you worry about her meeting the right guy. That’s the greatest fear of all, because, then you lose her. It was just six months ago that that happened here. Just six months ago, that the storm broke.

And it’s definitely better to read this next one when your daughter’s nine and a half months old:

Who presents this woman? This woman? But she’s not a woman. She’s just a kid. And she’s leaving us. I realized at that moment that I was never going to come home again and see Annie at the top of the stairs. Never going to see her again at our breakfast table in her nightgown and socks. I suddenly realized what was happening. Annie was all grown up and was leaving us, and something inside began to hurt.

This day will come for me, no doubt, but thankfully I still have quite a few years before an experience like this creeps up on me.

I wonder what other moments elicit similar feelings the life of a dad?

I’m coming out of church last night. I’ve got Isabella on one arm and a diaper bag in the other.

A black Ford Explorer pulls up.

The old man driving it stops behind my car and rolls his window down.

“Sir, can you help me?”

I look at my daughter and then down at the diaper bag on my arm.

I should be asking him for help.

“Sure. Just a sec.”

I hand the kid off to her mother and make my way over to the passenger side of his car and our dialogue begins.

“I was laid off earlier this summer and I’ve lost everything. All I’ve got left is this car and I’m trying to get…”

I stopped listening when I looked down and saw a twenty dollar bill and a couple of ones sitting on his passenger seat.

Snapped back to reality by his question.

“…so do you think you could help me out with some gas money?”

“What about that money there in your passenger seat?” I ask.

“It’s not mine.”

“OK.”

Silence.

“Well do you think you could spare some gas money for me?”

I respond, “I don’t really carry cash and if I did, I’m not really in the habit of just giving it out to people I don’t know. I’ll tell you what though, if you’ll follow me to the 7-11 at the corner of May and Wilshire (about a mile and a half from our church building and on my way home), I’ll put gas in your car.”

More silence.

He asks, “Does their gas have Ethanol in it?”

“Uh… I’m not sure. Why?”

“Well I don’t put gas with Ethanol in it in my car. It’s not good for the engine. It’s like filling up with poison.” he tells me.

“Yeah… I hear that’s bad. I’m not sure if their gas has Ethanol in it or not.”

“Do you think you could just give me some cash so I can go somewhere they use 100% gas?”

Once again, silence.

I look him up and down, try to make eye contact (no luck), and wonder to myself how this is going to play out. Dumbfounded and a little bit taken aback by the audacity and boldness of his request, I finally respond.

“I’m actually headed to the 7-11 at Wilshire and May right now to put gas in my car. If you want to follow me there, I’ll put some in your car too. Otherwise, I can’t really help you.”

Another awkward silence.

“Hmmm… OK. Well… thanks anyway.”

He rolls up the window and drives off.

I get in my car, drive to the 7-11 where I proceed to start filling my trusty rubber-footed steed with 87 octane, all natural, from the goodness of the earth, corn enriched gasoline poison… $52 worth to be exact. I would have put just as much in his car too if he’d taken me up on my offer.

And so I’m left with two questions.

First, what is the world coming to when someone who’s hard up on their luck won’t accept my charity because it’s tainted with ethanol?

And second, why is the guy who just got laid off putting better petroleum products in his car than I am? What does that say about me and my pride of ownership?

Let’s just say that if the old rubber-footed steed knew what I was pumping into him, he would not be impressed.

but oh man… it was totally worth it. I need to A) start loving people like this and B) be more open to following the promptings of the Holy Spirit in my life.

Is there someone or a group of someones you know who would say that they feel forgotten? What can you do to show them some lovin’? How can you help them feel remembered?

1. Love her mom. Treat her mother with respect, honor, and a big heaping spoonful of public displays of affection. When she grows up, the odds are good she’ll fall in love with and marry someone who treats her much like you treated her mother. Good or bad, that’s just the way it is. I’d prefer good.

2. Always be there. Quality time doesn’t happen without quantity time. Hang out together for no other reason than just to be in each other’s presence. Be genuinely interested in the things that interest her. She needs her dad to be involved in her life at every stage. Don’t just sit idly by while she add years to her life… add life to her years.

3. Save the day. She’ll grow up looking for a hero. It might as well be you. She’ll need you to come through for her over and over again throughout her life. Rise to the occasion. Red cape and blue tights optional.

4. Savor every moment you have together. Today she’s crawling around the house in diapers, tomorrow you’re handing her the keys to the car, and before you know it, you’re walking her down the aisle. Some day soon, hanging out with her old man won’t be the bees knees anymore. Life happens pretty fast. You better cherish it while you can.

5. Pray for her. Regularly. Passionately. Continually. Let her know she’s got another daddy in Heaven who loves her even more than you do. She may not believe you today, but she’ll need that assurance someday when you’re not around.

Alright dads and daughters who’ve been one or the other longer than me and mine, what have I forgotten? This list is by no means (nor was it meant to be) comprehensive. Anything else you’d add?

It’s been a pretty busy week with not a lot of spare time for posting, but I have been keeping a running list of things I’m grateful for. In no particular order, here’s my list from the last 7 days or so.

1. God filling me with a sense of wonder
2. Waving at Isabella and having her wave back
3. Star Spangled Fried Chicken dinner at church
4. A high electric bill for June that reminds me how blessed I am to have electricity, a home, and air conditioning
5. AM’s commitment to keep our family eating healthy
6. A couple of really encouraging emails this week
7. Great feedback on a project at work that I’m leading
8. 3 and a 1/2 day weekends
9. A renewed sense of purpose
10. Planning several exciting fundraising projects from now until next spring
11. Three different lunch conversations this week with three different friends
12. No aliens coming to destroy our planet over the holiday weekend
13. Reliable cars to drive
14. Waking up to morning rain storms a couple days this week
15. Staying up late and sucking the marrow out of life
16. People who are willing to forward on resumes I send them… someone else’s, not mine
17. Freezing leftover watermelon in ice cube trays
18. Watermelon smoothies made from watermelon ice cubes, almond milk, and Greek yogurt
19. Dinner at the Isenberg’s house
20. Getting a call during dinner from the alarm company that turned out to be a false alarm
21. The Village Police Department
22. Sweet corn
23. Two weeks until my parents are stateside again
24. Two weeks until our second beach vacation of the year
25. AM’s booming Monday afternoon marriage and family therapy business
26. Good music that speaks to my soul
27. Free Southwest Rapid Rewards plane tickets
28. Sunscreen
29. Cookouts with friends
30. The smell of hot asphalt in the parking lot at work that reminds me of being at Six Flags and Frontier City as a kid
31. Good books
32. The seamstress who mended a tear near the pocket of my favorite pair of shorts
33. Watching Isabella crawling and scooting all over our house as she follows us around
34. Getting things done
35. Car trips with AM and Izzy
36. Babies who throw their cake on the floor at their first birthday instead of eating it
37. GPS
38. Dancing with Isabella for 30 minutes before bedtime while listening to our daddy daughter playlist
39. Naps
40. Being too busy fathering to do much blogging this week
41. The sound of locusts on a hot Oklahoma summer night
42. Watching Iz play on the floor
43. And so much more…

What is my purpose?

What am I supposed to do with my life?

Are all of the seemingly unrelated steps I’ve taken so far preparing me for something else? Something bigger? Something I was created for?

These are not new questions for me. In fact, I’ve been asking them for several years and though I see glimpses of answers from time to time, I still feel like I’m searching for that place where (to paraphrase Frederick Buechner) my deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

And I’m perfectly OK with not having all of the answers on this one. Where’s the fun in solving all of the great mysteries of life before the age of 30 anyway?

However, while I often wonder what my purpose in life might be, I know without a doubt what my shadow purpose is.

An extension of one of Jung’s archetypes, a shadow purpose is simply something that seems like our true purpose but in reality is just a poor copy. A shadow purpose is not inherently bad or evil — it is, in most cases, just a simple yet powerful distraction.

For example, if the purpose of my life is to throw everything I have into serving the poor, then my shadow purpose could be to simply live a decent moral life that is filled with good things but that does not involve serving the poor. That’s just one example, but most shadow purposes could probably be summed up by the phrase, “eat, drink, and be merry.”

And while there’s nothing wrong with a little food, drink, and merry making from time to time, I think we’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would honestly say that’s the highest purpose of their life.

Like I said, there’s nothing inherently evil about a shadow purpose.

For another example, consider Oskar Schindler (you know, the man who had a list and saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories). With history on our side, it’s fairly easy to surmise the purpose of Schindler’s life. His purpose was to save the lives of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.

I obviously don’t know a ton about Shindler, but I would guess that he was probably never in danger of becoming a Nazi. The thought of persecuting the Jewish and participating in the genocide himself probably never crossed his mind. Becoming a Nazi was probably not something that could have ever interfered with his true purpose. Schindler was clearly not a monster and he would have never wrongly assumed that something so terrible was his life’s purpose.

However, a shadow purpose for Schindler would have been anything that might have distracted him from protecting those people. What if Schindler had just kept his nose down and thought to himself, “My purpose is to run my factory and survive this war.”

Although there’s probably nothing wrong with that attitude, the lives of over a 1000 Jewish refugees might not have been saved.

Like I said, while I often wonder what my purpose in life might be, I am intimately and keenly aware of what my shadow purpose is.

For me, my shadow purpose involves living a life of comfort and ease. It’s going to lots of movies, reading tons of books, and enjoying time with friends and family. It’s chilling in my recliner and filling my evenings with the internet and television shows. It’s investing all my spare time and energy into renovating my house. It’s all those things plus a hundred other distractions, none of which are harmful in and of themselves.

But I know without a doubt that the purpose of life is so much more than those things.

I may not be privy to all the details on what it is my life is supposed to accomplish, but I know that it’s about more than the pursuit of my own personal happiness.

And so as I continually search for that place where my deep gladness AND the world’s deep hunger meet, I have to constantly remind myself that I’ll never find my life’s purpose if I’m only focused on the first half of that equation, that is, those things that make me happy.

What kinds of things make up your shadow purpose?

“But what does it really mean to be a man?

You can be more. You were created to be more — and better. The messages of the world are a cop-out: the messages of sexual conquest, of financial achievement, of victory in general. Not only are these messages not fair, but they also fall so short of what you can do — and more importantly, who you are.”

-Tony Dungy, from “Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance”

My lovely and talented wife suggested that we each come up with a list of things we’d like to do before we turn 30 later this year. I have included mine below knowing that I may not get all of them done before 30, but with any luck, I’ll knock out a good number of them before September 4th rolls around again.

1. Perform a wedding.

I did this on New Year’s day for a really great couple from our church. It was very cool getting to be a part of such a big life milestone experience between to people. I’m honored they asked me to do it and I will happily marry anyone else who asks me in the future. Now be sure to ask them if I did a good job before you go calling my booking agent.

2. Dropout or fully commit to grad school.

Dropped out. For the story, read On quitting my Ph.D. program

3. Run a 10k.

I ran the first leg of the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon in just over one hour, which is not bad considering it was the first time I’d ran in almost 10 months.

4. Lose a 20 pounds.
5. Read the entire Bible.
6. Start a mentoring relationship with someone younger than me.

I now have a handful of guys who are younger than me who I regularly try to stay in contact with. This has probably blessed my life way more than it has theirs but that’s OK for now. The important thing is that I’ve made myself available.

7. Start a class at church on how we should respond to homelessness.
8. Play with Izzy in the ocean.

Check! I think she preferred the pool over the ocean this year. That’s OK though. We’ll give her another shot or two before we start questioning whether or not she’s really our child.

9. Write a poem.

Done. It’s called, “You Can Always Come Home” and it’s dedicated, obviously, to Isabella Grace.

10. Start a side business and give away all the money it makes to other people or good causes.
11. Have a conversation with a complete stranger.

I did this while getting new tires earlier this spring. It was a pretty one-sided conversation as the stranger did most of the talking, but I’m going to count it anyway. I also did on the plane ride home from Los Angeles in June with an old man who happened to be from Midwest City.

12. Start blogging again.

Boom Sauce! Done.

13. Spend a weekend in complete solitude.
14. Slap a bull.
15. Build something with my own two hands.
16. Host a block party.
17. Back up our home computer on a weekly basis.
18. Chase a tornado.
19. Camp in the wilderness.

Joshua Tree National Park, June 24th – June 26th

20. **** * *** ***
21. Travel to a new place.

While I was at Joshua Tree, I took a little two-hour excursion in the heat of the day up into the San Bernadino National Forest and Mountains. I drove from 1900 feet above sea level and 102 degrees Fahrenheit to above 6700 feet and 72 degrees Fahrenheit. I made my way over to Big Bear Lake, took off my shirt, jumped in the icy cold snow melt runoff water, got out, dried off, and drove two hours back to the desert. I will take my family camping here some day.

22. Try 10 new restaurants.

1. Mercado Juarez in Ft. Worth
2. 1492 in OKC
3. Nhinja Sushi & Wok in OKC
4. Cafe Kranzler in South Padre Island
5. Thai Talay in Los Angeles
6. S & B’s Burger Joint in OKC
7. Kaiser’s in OKC
8. The Beatnik Cafe in OKC
9. Kamp’s 1910 Cafe in OKC
10. Hefner Grill in OKC

23. Start saving money for a trip to Greece for our 10th Wedding Anniversary.
24. Resurface our front porch.
25. Take the lovely and talented wife fishing.
26. Attend the funeral of someone I didn’t know very well (or at all).
27. Walk 20 miles.
28. Get in touch with a long lost friend.
29. Take a vacation without making any reservations or take an overnight road trip with the top down.
30. Create a new family tradition.

If anyone wants to join me on #’s 3, 10, 14, 18, 19, 26, 27, or 29 let me know. I better get cracking. I’ve got less than 9 months.

#20 is personal for now, but I will reveal what it is if it actually happens.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel to the desert of southern California where I joined 72 other dudes at Joshua Tree National Park for a men’s retreat put on by the Hilltop Church in El Segundo, CA. It was a great weekend and I will have more to say about it later, but not in this post.

This post is about something that occurred during my 2-hour drive back from Joshua Tree to LAX airport on Sunday afternoon.

If you know me in real life (outside of this blog) you probably know that I’m somewhat of an audiophile. I love music… all kinds of music. I don’t go anywhere without my trusty iPod or Grooveshark and Pandora accounts. I almost always have headphones with me and when I’m going to be spending more than 5 minutes driving somewhere, I always rely on my Satechi Bluetooth FM transmitter to keep my tunes playing. This is not a product plug for Satechi, though if they wanted to send me a few more of their awesome products, I’d be fine with that. However, I LOVE THIS FM TRANSMITTER.

It’s the best FM transmitter I’ve ever owned. It requires no wires. It simply plugs into the A/C adapter in the car and automatically pairs with my phone via Bluetooh anytime I start my car. For those of you that don’t know what it means for a phone to pair via Bluetooth, all it means is that as long as the two devices are paired together wirelessly, any audio that would normally come out of my phone (iPod, Grooveshare, Pandora, YouTube, etc) automatically plays on my car stereo on whatever channel I have the Satechi tuned to. It’s amazing technology and it’s quite possibly the best sound quality I’ve ever gotten from an FM transmitter… wired or otherwise.

As good as this device is, like any FM transmitter, my Satechi is only as good as the availability of a free FM station to play it over. In OKC, I use 88.3 FM. There’s nothing on the dial at that point and so the sound is AMAZING. There is no interference and I can listen to my music at the highest fidelity possible short of using an audio in cable or going analog.

Normally when I travel somewhere outside of OKC, I just leave the device set to 88.3 and that usually works out fine. There just aren’t a lot of radio stations (no matter where you go) that low on the FM frequency.

This past weekend was no different. I got in my car on Sunday morning for my drive back into civilization from the Mojave desert, the transmitter paired with my phone, I selected my favorite playlist, and I took off toward Los Angeles.

It was great. I hadn’t heard much music the last few days and I was jamming out. Everything was going good until I hit Riverside, California… home of KUCR FM, campus radio station for the University of California Riverside. Coincidently, KUCR just so happens to also reside at 88.3 FM.

As I approached the campus on the freeway, I noticed my music, which had been crystal clear up until that moment, started to get a little fuzzy.

And then it got a lot fuzzy.

Then, out of nowhere, what had just moments before been the classic Claude Debussy tune, Claire De Lune (it’s the song that plays at the end of Ocean’s Eleven when they’re all standing outside the Belaggio watching the fountains), all of the sudden turned into Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough. Now I don’t have anything against MJ or that song but it was not what I was in the mood for.

However, for some strange reason, I decided to see if the situation would work itself out on its own, so I didn’t mess with anything. I’m still not sure why I didn’t try to change the station on the radio or the device, but I didn’t. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was racing down a Los Angeles freeway at 75 mph and I have a strong self-preservation instinct.

As I kept driving, I got to witness an epic battle between the music on my iPod and the music being broadcast via KUCR — between my FM transmitter and a much larger radio tower only a few blocks away.

It was like David and Goliath all over again – minus all of the hubris, national pride, name-calling, and death inflicting smooth stones.

The sound went back and forth for a few moments with a bit of crackling static before KUCR and Michael Jackson drowned out my serene Claire De Lune.

But I didn’t give up. And neither did my Satechi.

Together we kept fighting. We’d go under a bridge and for a moment, Debussy would drown out MJ. Then we’d roll past the overpass and Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough would come roaring back to life.

This went on for about 3 minutes. And then, almost as quickly as the interference started, I was out of range of the UC Riverside campus radio tower and my trusty little FM transmitter once again dominated the 88.3 position on the radio.

Am I playing up the drama in this little scenario? Sure.

But I couldn’t help noticing at least a small parallel to life. You see I believe that within each one of us is a distinct and specific purpose. A purpose that our lives are supposed to fulfill during the twenty to one-hundred years or so that we’re walking around this dusty planet. And while some people have no problem knowing and living out their purpose on a consistent daily basis, most of us struggle with knowing exactly what it is we’re supposed to accomplish in our brief lives. Most of us have some idea what our purpose in life is, but sometimes it’s not nearly as clear as we’d like.

It’s almost as if a small localized FM transmitter is constantly there with us broadcasting our purpose just within the range of our consciousness. When we’re tuned into the right frequency, we have no problem hearing the signal. In fact, it’s crystal clear.

However, for most of us (myself included) life is full of interference.

We have different signals coming at us from every direction. These amplified signals can easily drown out the constant yet quieter signals of our true purpose because they’re broadcasting at a much higher strength.

And yet, if we can ignore the interference, tolerate it’s presence for a short time, and not get off track, eventually we’ll be outside the range of the interference. And because our purpose is always with us, even though it’s broadcasting at a much less amplified signal strength, it comes roaring back to life once we’ve distanced ourselves from whatever was causing the interference.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m gut level honest with myself, within the very deepest parts of my soul, I have a pretty good idea what my purpose is. It’s always with me and if I stop for just a minute and get rid of the interference, I can almost always tune in loud and clear.

And then I pass another radio tower. And another. And another. And another.

So it’s a constant battle to stay tuned into what it is I believe my life is really supposed to be about. My purpose is always with me… staying in tune with it is just a matter of how fast I can distance myself from the interference.

And so I have to be intentional.

Intentional about the things to which I give my attention, focus, and energy. Intentional about the interference I let into my life. Intentional about who I spend my time with. Intentional about what I pursue.

Intentional and fast. Because the faster I get past whatever it is that’s attempting to interfere with my purpose, the faster I’m back in tune.

For those of you who have at least a small sense of what your life’s purpose might be, do you ever struggle with staying in tune with it?

If so, what’s causing the interference? What’s causing it and what do you to get on down the freeway out of it’s range?