Face forward - even if not moving forward

Recently, our Christian singles group began a study series based on Bill and Pam Farrel's book Single Men Are Like Waffles, Single Women Are Like Spaghetti. I’ve kind of taken to the analogy of men being like waffles. No, this is not to mean that men are indecisive, but that they tend to compartmentalize their life and thinking. Their general style is to put their thoughts and skills into manageable boxes similar to the layout of a waffle. This became somewhat apparent just this morning when responding to a person and putting my thoughts into individual paragraphs in the reply. The paragraphs (boxes) were contained thoughts of a particular subject matter. All neat and orderly, right?

Yes and no – particularly when it comes to the subject of pain – in the human psyche sense of emotions, their spirit (by which I mean a man’s drive for living) and their ability to get along with others. Now you’re just going to have to get the book or read the snippet on the previous link to understand the woman’s perspective, because that’s not what is being dealt with here.

The thing about waffles is that there can be a sort of disconnect between different areas of a man’s life. During many formative years and experiences, there can be many horrendous things that get dumped into the “compartments” of family, friends, dealing with the opposite sex, school and so on. Formative years continue into early adulthood with work, the responsibility of being on your own, perhaps looking for a serious relationship, or even getting married and having children. The issue here is about the crap that gets left in a compartment of life and just “ferments”, so to speak. My good blogging friend, Cheryl (aka: DuckyChickenLady), will hopefully be kind enough to enlighten me on the finer points of manure, seeing as how she takes care of a hobby farm near our nation’s capitol of Ottawa.

Pain, like manure, although horrendous at the time it happens, can serve to be a tremendous catalyst for personal growth and understanding of others. The experiences I’ve had (among other factors) have made me somewhat introverted and sensitive, but there are other things where I just light up with anger out of proportion to the situation – and that’s where I want to get to. If I recall rightly, manure dries up and gets kind of flaky. It’s usually handled with a pitchfork. In some areas of my life, I need Divine help in using a spiritual pitchfork to clean out the waffle compartments. A pitchfork to dig out the pain that is hindering me from genuinely caring about people. A pitchfork to level out the build-up in areas of my life where I spend too much time (primarily tech stuff that avoids real face-to-face interpersonal contact).

Our church recently had a one-day seminar on being a more effective leader by appreciating the volunteers who work under you and how to accomplish that. My area of leadership is in most all things with an electron flowing through it: the sound system and computers. But here’s the rub: most people in my church don’t know more about me other than my tech skills! One activity was to tape a sheet onto our backs and have others write on it what they appreciate about each other. My “challenge” to those around me was to write something they appreciated about me as a person that had nothing to do with techie stuff at all. Most people couldn’t think of anything (but some still wrote techie appreciation anyway)! The last straw was our pastor praying for each leader at the seminar. Don’t get me wrong: I love and appreciate him and his family dearly for their contribution to our little church and the restoration of a strong sense of community over the past 6 years. His prayer over me was something to this effect: “Lord, we just thank you for Henry and the leadership he provides in the area of sound and technology stuff here. I don’t know half of what he’s talking about, but I know I don’t have to give a second thought as to whether things will be working around here because he’s looking after that even when we don’t think about it.” Even during the prayer, people laughed at his comment about not knowing what I’m talking about. But it hurt – maybe more than I’m really letting on.

It’s time to use the pitchfork and uncover other areas of my life for others to see:
- I write (as you can tell by now...)
- I enjoy art.
- I love antique furniture (having refinished many pieces years ago).
- I love music and the creativity behind it.
- I like finding obscure cemeteries that represent lives and communities long forgotten.
- I enjoy theology.
- I enjoy history and how it affects our lives today.
- I enjoy the grandeur of Victorian architecture.
- ..and there are many other things if the time is taken to listen.

It’s also time to use a pitchfork to get to some compartments that have had their manure fermenting for too long. And if you’ve read this far, you will realize many entries in this blog are not for those with short attention spans or quippy quotes. If you want to know more, grab a pitchfork...