Blinded by an Apple

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Andy

Smartphones are addictive. If you have one, you might already realize that. I’ve had one for a few years now, but it wasn’t until I got an iPhone with easy Internet access and 200,000+ available apps that I truly became an addict. Almost any time I have a free moment, I reach for my phone to check personal and work email, Facebook, various news sites, the weather, my financial accounts, or sports scores. I check it before I run. I check it after I run. I check it at the grocery store. I check it first thing when I wake up and last thing before I go to sleep. I even check it on the pot. (don’t lie – you do it, too!)

When Jenny and I leave US mobile coverage for a cruise and I shut off my phone for a few days, I go through withdrawal. Ask Jenny how many times I reached fruitlessly to my hip on our last cruise in October. I felt cut off from the world, and it took a few days to adjust. At first my iPhone was just a fun toy. Now it’s an obsession.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m not the only one. Jenny does it. Most of my friends with smartphones do it. Our obsession leads to a curious phenomenon when we get together with other people:

Instead of talking with each other, we bury our heads in our phones.

Have you noticed that? It doesn’t seem to be a problem with our parents’ generation. Perhaps it’s because they simply aren’t obsessed with their smartphones, even though many of them have jumped on the smartphone bandwagon for various reasons. Perhaps it’s because they still believe that spending time with friends and family should involve actual interaction rather than simply sharing the same air in the same room.

Are we hiding? Feeling shy? Maybe. As a shy person, I can understand that. People tend to leave you alone when you’re playing on your phone, interpreting it as a GO AWAY sign. Interaction can be stressful, and your smartphone is a paper bag to pull over your head. In some cases, maybe we just don’t like the people nearby. Or maybe we’ve had a hard day and just need to be alone in a crowd of people.

But in many cases, at least for me, it can be the addiction. I want to engage with the people around me, but I’m drawn to the phone like an alcoholic to a fifth of Jack or a smoker to a pack of cigarettes. I read articles on my phone sometimes when I’m watching the boys. I’ve played on my phone during dinner with my family. I’ve been to family gatherings with people I hardly ever see, and some of us simply sit there and text or read their Twitter and Facebook feeds. I’ve looked around during our home group meeting and seen almost every person silently fiddling with their phones.

Why do we bother being together if we’re not going to actually be together?

Obviously my little blog post can’t change the world, but I can pledge to you that I will try to change myself. When I’m with my friends or family, unless I’m tending to some urgent business or looking up something worthwhile to share with you, I will do my best to keep my phone stowed.

Things I Don’t Get

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Andy

A few things to ponder this beautiful Saturday morning…

Why do normally modest women, women who wouldn’t dream of hitting the beach in a bikini, buy formal dresses that flaunt their boobs? (not a complaint, just a question) And why is significant cleavage considered appropriate in a formal setting but potentially questionable or even slutty in other settings, such as work or school?
Why do we still observe daylight savings time in most parts of the country? Do you know anyone who thinks it’s a good idea? And for that matter, why are we still the Neanderthals who use the English measurement system instead of metric?
Why are donut shops around here run almost exclusively by Asians? (again, not a complaint, just a question)
Why am I willing to contribute to Baylor’s new on-campus stadium campaign but not to its scholarship fund? If I remember correctly, I went to maybe three football games as a student, but Baylor convinced me to enroll with a generous scholarship package. Seems like I got a bit more benefit from the latter.
Why is obesity skyrocketing in our country? And why do so few people seem to care? We’re gradually ostracizing and limiting the smokers enough to force people to quit, which is awesome, but as a society we’re taking the opposite approach with obesity.
Why does $25 buy a cheap sit-down dinner for two in America but nearly a month of food for a child in Africa?
Why do baseball players, fans, and managers continue to tolerate the wildly inconsistent strike zone used by the various umpires throughout the league? The Hawk-Eye technology used in tennis could solve that problem right now, but it seems that everyone prefers not knowing where the strike zone actually is on a given night.
Why is it legal for men to run around without a shirt but not for women (except in New York City and some other places)? Many men have bigger boobs than many women. They’re called moobs. They’re not cool, but they happen. Without the hairy chests, you might not be able to tell the difference.
Why does the US government still mint pennies? I’d rather have everything rounded to the nearest nickel. Pennies get on my nerves.
Why do so many people, especially in Texas, hate Obama so much? I can understand disagreeing with some of his views. So do I. But it’s amazing to me how quickly people label him a foreigner, even though he’s published his Hawaiian birth certificate, and a socialist, even though many of them don’t even know what that term really means, and a Muslim, even though he’s been a documented member of a Christian church for decades, and even the Anti-Christ, even though that term (as they understand it, in the Left Behind sense) is an product of the American evangelical church rather than the Bible itself. I guess people just believe what they want to believe.
Why roaches? (I’m looking at You, God.)
Why do so many people use Christianity as an excuse to hate and look down upon people who disagree with them?
Why do labor contract negotiations in the airline industry generally take 2-5 years?
Why don’t we have the ability to vote online? (this article tries to answer the question, but I still think the explanation is flimsy)

What about you? What exactly don’t you get?

Random Thoughts

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Andy

I’m interested in lots of things today, so fire up your randommeter.

End of Iraq War – Obama announced today that virtually all U.S. troops will return from Iraq by year’s end. I didn’t like this war when it began. I voted for Kerry and Obama largely because they promised to end it. And now it’s almost over. Is Iraq better off? In some ways, yes. In other ways, no. Is our country safer? I doubt it. Was our “victory” worth over 4000 American lives, countless Iraqi lives, $750 billion, and the huge strain it placed on our military and military families? I don’t think so. I’m not a fan of everything Obama has done (and left undone), but he delivered on this one. Now, if we could do the same with Afghanistan…
33 Years – My birthday is tomorrow. I’ll be 33 years old. Supposedly that’s how old Jesus was upon his death. And He didn’t really start his ministry until age 30. So he changed the world in just 3 years. I’ll try to remember that next time I start feeling like the big kahuna.
Quit Sending Your Leftovers to Foreign Countries – Few things opened my eyes as much this week as Haiti Doesn’t Need Your Old T-Shirt. It describes how well-meaning Westerners destroy local economies in foreign countries by flooding their markets with unwanted goods. Free or super-cheap Western goods undercut the local merchants, growers, and manufacturers and make it much harder for them to make a living. You know how Americans are complaining about being unable to compete with the low pay and poor working conditions in foreign countries? This is a similar situation, only reversed. According to this article, the best way to help struggling people in other countries is to pump money into their economies rather than goods. Why? They can spend that money and move it around, where it works like rising water in a dry marina, raising all boats together.
Just Let It Go – I’m fighting the temptation to own and solve other people’s problems. From what Iâ€™ve seen and heard, other people struggle with that, too. Perhaps youâ€™ve might have noticed that I can be a bit opinionated? Itâ€™s not necessarily bad to be opinionated, but it does give me the tendency to want to jump in with solutions when other people might not want my help. People donâ€™t usually like that. It also stresses me out because I get frustrated if they donâ€™t follow my wonderful advice. Itâ€™s so easy to forget that thereâ€™s only one person I can control â€“ not my coworkers, not my wife, not my children, not my friends or family, just ME. And I donâ€™t always do even that little job all that well. So Iâ€™m trying to stop getting so worked up about what other people do, say, and think.
Rangers – Nolan predicted Rangers in 6. Who am I to argue with that? So as of now, that means we take two of three in Arlington and then wrap it up Wednesday night back in St. Louis. But for the sake of the fans, I hope we win in five so itâ€™ll happen at home. Imagine the wild rumpus at Rangers Stadium Monday night if we can pull that off.

Thirteen Years

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Andy

It’s so easy for me to get frustrated and stressed out by the little difficulties of parenting – tantrums, poop disasters, defiance, pottytraining accidents, having to interrupt my terribly important task of surfing the Internet to do something for them. Sometimes my goal is simply to surviveâ€¦until Jenny gets home, until naptime, until I can carry my screaming toddler outside the busy restaurant, until their bedtime when I can rest and have an adult conversation with Jenny. The boys and I have lots of fun together, but sometimes parenting is just really, really hard.

Part of the reason itâ€™s so difficult is the tension between wanting them to be happy and wanting to help them become good people. As a father, I love to see my boys happy. Their laughter is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. Their smiles are sunshine with an on-off switch. But I also have a responsibility to mold them, train them, and inspire them to become the young men God wants them to be â€“ men of honor who accept responsibility, know right from wrong, think for themselves, lead courageously when necessary, and live for things greater than themselves. Molding clay requires effort, pressure, and time, and my boys donâ€™t always enjoy being molded. But Iâ€™m too duty-oriented to simply give up and let them do whatever they want. They deserve more from me, even if they canâ€™t see it right now.

Arrows

The sermon tonight was about children. Our pastor has five of them, and his youngest just left for college in August. Despite all the freedom that empty-nesthood provides (money and time and vacations, oh my!), he and his wife cried like babies on the way home. They had prepared their children well and launched them all into the world, like arrows toward a target in his analogy, and their home would never be the same without each of those arrows. Jenny and I have two arrows to launch, Brenden Matthew and Jonathan Andrew. Right now they are merely sticks with the vague shape of an arrow. Each day we try to whittle them a bit. Someday we’ll help add feathers and tips, pull them back, and let them fly.

Tomorrow

Later tonight I read a fantastic article called Notes from a Dragon Mom. If you have some Kleenex handy, I highly recommend it. The author has an eighteen-month-old son who is dying of a rare genetic disorder and probably wonâ€™t live past three years old. While she understands â€œnormalâ€ parentsâ€™ desires to prepare their children for the future, for her son those aspirations are a waste of precious, precious time. Instead, she simply tries to make his life as comfortable as possible and to love him as well as possible while she still can. (May God give each of us such a person, no matter when our end might come)

Brenden is already over three years old, older than the boy in the article will probably ever be. Jonathan is roughly the boyâ€™s age. Three years is not a long time.

Before I know it, theyâ€™ll both be in elementary school, wearing braces, shaving, leaving for college, getting married. Thirteen years from now, Brenden will likely have his driverâ€™s license. Maybe heâ€™ll be driving my old Fit. (Or the minivan, heh heh) Maybe heâ€™ll have a girlfriend. Thirteen years isnâ€™t that long a time, either. Thirteen years ago, I was a sophomore at Baylor living with a sports-nut roommate, working for Camp Fireâ€™s after-school program, and trying to figure out what to do with my life.

It wasnâ€™t that long ago.

A few more blinks, a few more sleeps, and weâ€™ll be looking over college brochures with the boys, only by then maybe colleges wonâ€™t even publish brochures anymore because all marketing will be online.

Before I know it, I’ll be the one subtly begging for their attention instead of them begging for mine.

Today

I spend too much time screwing around on the computer and on my phone instead of being present with my children. I spend too much energy worrying about whether theyâ€™re going to turn out right. I work too hard trying to survive instead of simply enjoying every minute I have to spend with them, both the fun moments and the difficult ones. Iâ€™m too quick to get mad at them for behaving like toddlers instead of mature adults. I spend too much time working on my arrows and not enough time simply appreciating them. And Iâ€™m tired of it.

The New York Times author said it perfectly:

Parenting, Iâ€™ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, thatâ€™s all there is.

I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I want it. One day, one way or another, they’ll fly away. I want to enjoy them and make them happy and love them well while helping them grow into Godly young men, not instead of. I want to be all there instead of partially there. I want to embrace every snot-, poop-, and Ranch dressing-covered moment with them while they’re still here.

Figuratively, of course, because that’s just nasty.

Sex Is Better When You Can Get Some

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Andy

You and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals
So let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel
– The Bloodhound Gang, “Bad Touch”

Our church just started a new series on sex. Yep, we talk about sex in our church. How hip is our pastor? He quoted the song above during the sermon, which made me want to get up and dance. I remember hearing it on the radio as a horny college student. It made me laugh then. It makes me laugh now.

When this song came out in 1999, sex was a big deal to me for two main reasons: 1) I was 20 years old, and 2) I wasn’t getting any. Not a pleasant combination. When you can’t have something you want, what do you think about? Part of the reason I liked that song, besides its juvenile cleverness, was its honesty toward the subject of sex. It wasn’t ashamed to tell the truth: We Like Sex, and We Want Some From You. Granted, the Bloodhound Gang’s approach might have turned some women away, but at least they knew where the guys stood. (sorry, had to)

Suffering Back in the Day

As an evangelical teenager, I generally believed the formula sexual thoughts = lust = sin. Blah. I didn’t like it, but I believed it. I didn’t like it because it didn’t match 1990s reality in which, as a preteen, my hormones started kicking like Van Damme, but I wouldn’t be getting married until…who knew? My mid-20s? 30? Even later? So basically God was torturing me. By the time I got married (assuming I did someday), I would have spent at least HALF MY LIFE with a sex drive even though God had said no sex until marriage. Double blah. Maybe saving sex for marriage worked OK in Biblical times when people started puberty later and got married younger, but these days…not so much.

Believe it or not, like a small fraction of the population, I was a virgin when Jenny and I got married. I was 24 years old, younger than the author of a great article called Tales of a 25-Year-Old Virgin in Relevant. But don’t put me on a pedestal by any means. Yes, in high school, I tried to be a good and moral person and saw virginity as the right thing to do. It certainly helped that none of my close friends were sexually active. But after high school, it wasn’t any desire to be holy or please God that led me to say no when opportunities arose to turn in my V-card. And it certainly wasn’t lack of interest. It was a single, powerful fear: pregnancy. I just knew that we would be the 1 percent whose birth control failed, leading to some very awkward conversations with our families. Plus, you know, a BABY. In light of how quickly Jenny and I conceived Jonathan, perhaps my fears were not unfounded. My swimmers could get it DONE.

Enough of This

Jenny and I got married in January 2003. Sex finally became something to enjoy rather than the punchline to a joke or something to giggle and whisper about. One of the many great things about being married is the freedom to treat sex as a legitimate part of life rather than a taboo, obsession, source of embarrassment, or guilty pleasure. I can listen to a fun but raunchy song like “Bad Touch” or Ludacris’s “Stand Up” without feeling like I’m filling my mind with impure thoughts about women who aren’t my wife. We can flirt with each other via suggestive texts or emails. If we’re watching a movie together, we don’t need to blush or squirm or make awkward comments if a sex scene appears. Plus we can, you know, actually have sex without feeling guilty or worrying about whether we’ll get caught. We can even discuss sex with our friends. (And blog about it on occasion to boost my web traffic.)

Nothing but Mammals?

Let’s go back to the Discovery Channel song for a minute. My pastor’s point in the song reference was to bemoan our society’s reduction of sex to a simple animalistic act rather than a complex emotional, physical, and spiritual union that needs to be protected by the institution of marriage. Itâ€™s a much bigger deal than simply two people having fun. Is he right?

He does have a point. Sex IS a big deal. It can have real consequences. As my friend Kelly said, itâ€™s the only activity in the universe that has the power to create another human being, and it deserves respect. It can also have a huge impact on relationships. Sex prolongs some that really ought to end. Illicit sex with one person can end a relationship with another person. It can make people feel loved or used, beautiful or ugly, pleasantly content or bitterly dissatisfied.

But looking back, I also wonder whether I made it too big of a deal, whether our society in general makes it too big a deal. On this side of the fence, sex is an important and fun part of life, but it’s not the all-consuming, mysterious obsession that it was before I crossed over. I also know plenty of people who had sex before marriage, some with multiple partners, and turned out just fine. What would have happened if I hadn’t said no? Would it really have made a difference?

And I have other questions, such as whether the Bible actually says sex between unmarried people is wrong or whether that’s simply what most churches teach for more practical reasons. And what and when I should tell my boys about sex. Obviously, abstinence is the best form of birth control, but is it realistic to expect it from them when most of their friends will not wait for marriage? But those are questions to ponder some other time.

Right now, I’m just glad I don’t have to wait any longer. And thankful for free music on YouTube.