At a high school basketball game concession stand at the age of 4

Growing up in the midwest wasn’t that bad.  I think we all look back and see the goods and bads of our childhood.  People who have a negative bent probably believe there childhood sucked and people with a more positive outlook on life probably believe theres was all good.  Of course it could and has been argued that people have a positive or negative bent because of there childhood, but I digress.

One of the more interesting things about growing up in the midwest was the conversation.  While in New England, politics tends to be the conversation of choice, in the midwest, that distinction belongs to sports.

“Hey, how are ya?”

“Good, how are you?”

“Good thanks.” (I’m pretty sure in the midwest it’s illegal to let someone know you’re having a bad day)  “see the game last night?”

And we’re off.  The person could have been talking about high school, college or pro sports, it doesn’t matter.  It’s the default conversation piece, and it’s much easier than talking about the fact that my marriage is falling apart, or I’m in debt over my head because of the large screen TV I just leased with astronomical interest or I lay in bed every night crying wondering if my life has any purpose.  Nope, just good clean sports, and it takes all chances of sharing our real problems away.  Why would someone want to hear about what I’m going through when we could talk about the freakin fastest 6’9″ guy on the planet – Lebron James.

So I learned a bad habit I’ve tried to break for the better part of my life.  Out of church, I talk about sports.  In church is where we talk about spiritual things.

Of course, we could talk about how stupid our pastor is, and all the mistakes he makes too.

Yeah, that could take some of the pain away!

Sometime in 2005 I took a test to find out what my strengths were.  I found that my top 5 were as follows: 1.  Ideator, 2.  Positivity, 3.  Connectedness, 4.  Competition, 5.  Developer

I noticed as several of my friends took the same test that several of us had one of those in common.  Out of the 7 people I know that took the test, 5 of them had connectedness as a strength.
Some qualitites of someone with this strength – “That I gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it;  I am part of a larger picture, and I must not harm others because I will harm myself;  and I am a bridge builder between people of different cultures.”

Enter the beauty of web 2.0 to people like me. 
I’m not a fan of compartmentalizing my life.  I like things, whether it’s people in my life or web sites I go to, to all be connected to one another.  This makes my mom and google both very happy.

How does this affect me?
I like it when my family and my friends and all the people in my life meet.  What makes this interesting is when they don’t get along.  I think everyone should get along.  Not like each other, just get along.

I like using google and itunes.  My friend Clay swears against itunes, and probably rightfully so, but I like when things connect together easily, so I use it.  I know, I know Clay, I sacrifice things to use itunes.  Google connects a lot of things in my web life, like my Calendar, my way to find where I might be going, my blog reader, my connect with Fellowship Church podcasts, and even my weather, not to mention my documents (I don’t have to pay for Microsoft office again!)

Weather

Holden, MA

58°F
Cloudy
Wind: N at 0 mph
Humidity: 84%

Today

74° | 54
Fri

74° | 58°

Sat

79° | 61°

Sun

76° | 61°

I like learning from anything or anyone.  Whether it’s a great pastor, a marketing expert,
or a book that gets me thinking.  This is probably why I fare better in New England than I
might have in the midwest.

I don’t like to keep people that are an important part of my life apart from each other. 

I think that there is a terrific connection between Don Miller’s “Blue like Jazz”, Vince Antonucci’s
“I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt“, and Gregg Easterbrook’s “The
Progress Paradox”

What can I say, I like being connected.  Do you?

This has been a cultural post with Randy Elrod’s Watercooler Wednesday in mind.

I returned last night from my weekend trip to Ohio.  I have several great stories for you that I’ll share next Monday for “Monday’s Moments”, but for today, I’ll just give a story from my wife Carie and what she thought of our first trip together back to my hometown.

It has been 15 years since I graduated from high school and left Fremont, Ohio.  The town has not grown any and seems to be slowly headed for extinction by way of run down buildings and businesses that hardly seem used anymore, save for the liquor stores and tattoo parlors.

To be honest, Carie found the whole experience in Fremont to be creepy.  This coming from someone who grew up in some of the smaller towns of Massachusetts, that’s saying something.  It also didn’t help that it was a dark day due to a storm system across most of the midwest.  I really don’t think it was as bad as she did, but she’s my wife, so I certainly will respect her opinion.

What also didn’t help was that everyone who we talked to made her feel like a martyr for being a Christian and living in Massachusetts because “It must be so hard to be a Christian and live there,” or “How do you live in that blue state?” to which we constantly were saying, “Actually, we like it” or “We just take it one day at a time.” (yes, I occasionally use sarcasm)

Carie also wasn’t thrilled that everyone she talked to said “God bless you” as if it were a pat on the back or a handshake. I told her it was just a common greeting in the midwest, and this didn’t make her feel any better.  “Why would they want God to bless someone they don’t even know?” she asked. Good question. 

All in all, I enjoyed my time in Fremont, though there were moments of awkwardness and moments of resorting back to a religion (please don’t take this to mean something it doesn’t, like that I hate God or something) I have no desire to return to. But going back into memory lane can be a lot of fun, and on this day, it was….about 50% of the time.

Going back any time soon?

Until next time…