Mikey He Writes It

Why I LOVE The Star Wars Prequels (And I Don’t Care Who Knows It)

Yesterday I traveled through time and space.

I visited an alternate reality, one in which I was able to watch Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on the big screen.

It was EPIC.

Today, I’m back in my current reality. One where 20 years ago, I was living abroad as a missionary in a foreign country, unable to see any movies on the big screen for a period of 2 years. In an era of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest, Casino Royale, and Batman Begins, I longed for a galaxy far far away where I could escape my busy life on this solitary planet, and witness the monumental conclusion of the Skywalker saga.

While abroad, I caught glimpses of a long-haired Hayden Christensen with a light saber from pirated footage on occasional bus rides or video stores, but in an attempt to not spoil the story line and save myself for a at least a minimized DVD full experience when I returned home, I forced myself to look away. These were not the droids I was looking for.

Alas, once I returned home from my 2-year church mission, I entered the now ancient ruins of a Blockbuster near me and rented this experience alone from an itchy couch, cheap headphones, and crappy laptop. Far from the big screen, but even still, the Force was able to to penetrate through this admittedly Dark Side of a viewing experience and I absolutely LOVED THIS MOVIE.

I have loved it and watched it many many times since. But I always felt cheated in some way that this was the only Star Wars movie (besides the originals) I had never seen in a movie theater.

Until yesterday, when an opportunity in the form of an unexpected 20th Anniversary Celebration re-release presented itself as this movie returned to the big screen. I danced around the house with excitement that I could FINALLY experience this trilogy finale in all it’s immersive, Dolby Atmos, high resolution, popcorn chomping and soda popping glory! Mediocre plans and reasonable bedtimes were put on hold as I hauled my Jedi wife and padawan children to the movie theater, skipping all along the way.

As I watched the film, I reflected in my mind on why I love this and all the prequel movies.

Nostalgia

I will not deny that much of my love for these movies is deeply entrenched in nostalgia. Of COURSE it is. How can you not be romantic about Star Wars? I don’t own shelves of Star Wars memorabilia or anything, I just really enjoy movies with originality and creativity. And for a man like George Lucas to think up this incredible universe of Star Wars and share it with us, well, it really inspires me. I can only dream of creating something so memorable, entertaining, and profound.

In 1995 I was 10 years old and in 4th grade. Back then when it was Halloween, you did a parade around the halls of your elementary school to show off your fun costumes. You know, the good ol’ days. I’ll never forget seeing my friend Jared strolling down the hall wearing a Darth Vadar mask and black cape. He looked so cool! I stood there, wrapped in toilet paper, feeling embarrassed about my feeble attempt at a mummy costume, and decided I needed to know more. I knew OF Star Wars, but had never seen the movies. I knew OF Darth Vadar, but in reality had no idea who he was. All I knew was that he was a bad guy who carried a lightsaber and he was somebody’s father.

Over the next few years, between friends houses and recorded VHS tapes from our TV at home, I watched all the original Star Wars movies and fell in love. Lightsabers, blasters, spaceships, light-speed, super-natural powers, robots, aliens… as a 10-12 year old boy, what’s not to like????

At that age I even picked up on overarching themes of good vs. evil, light vs. dark, romance, friendship, loyalty, hope, honor, betrayal, destiny, redemption… Star Wars had it all.

Then in December 1998, shortly after my 13th birthday, I’m sitting in the movie theater with my family waiting for some movie to start, and I see a trailer for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

WHAT

I was stunned. I had no idea there would be more Star Wars movies. I did not fully understand that the Star Wars movies I had previously seen were part of a larger untold story. We were going to go back in time to learn how Darth Vadar became Darth Vadar???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

My 13 year old brain exploded. I was so excited. I was EXACTLY the target audience for this film. The following year when Phantom Menace came out, I went and saw it in theaters and loved every second of it. Zero complaints. Not even about Jar Jar Binks; he made me laugh. The pod racing scene was JAW DROPPING, I had never seen anything like it. My parents later got me the Pod racing computer game and I played it constantly. To this day it’s one of my favorite racing games I’ve ever played and I currently own the Nintendo Switch version of the game and play it occasionally with my young sons. I loved all of the new characters and couldn’t get enough.

Three years later in 2002 at age 16 I went and saw Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones with my family. Then again with my friends. I remember discussing at length with my best friend Seth how much we loved the movie and all of our favorite parts, especially Anakin’s speeder chase scene on Coruscant, Obi-wan’s fight scene with Jango Fett, and of course the final battle arena scene on Geonosis. Oh and storm troopers are clones? And they used to be good guys? Yoda kicking ass with a lightsaber? HELL YES.

I was primed and pumped for the next and final installment of this trilogy. The nostalgia was real, and it continues to this day.

Narrative

It wasn’t until several months after seeing Attack of the Clones that I started to hear negative talk of the prequel movies. Keep in mind, I was in high school at the time and I lived a cell phone free and social media free life. The internet was a place I barely visited on our home computer except to do school assignments, download music on Napster, chat on msn messenger, and look up Homestarrunner videos. Other than that, I was basically unaware of what the outside world thought of the Star Wars prequel movies.

Over the next year or so, more and more people I knew hopped on the Star Wars prequel hate bandwagon. Hayden Christensen’s bad acting, overreliance on CGI, Jar Jar, cheesy dialogue, lack of emotional depth, and so on… I could see what people were saying, but I honestly just didn’t care. I did not want to hop on this hate bandwagon, but I was also a teenager desiring to fit in with my peers, so much like my love of N’SYNC music, I had to keep my love of the the Star Wars prequels to myself and my pleasure slowly transformed to the guilty variety.

I remained a closeted prequel fan for the next decade or so, only revealing to trusted family and friends just how much I love these movies. Some time around 2011 I finally bought episodes 1-6 on blu-ray and have watched them several times a year since.

Over the past decade, and especially over the last five years, I’ve noticed something happening. People are hopping off the prequels hate bandwagon. The narrative has changed. Audiences are tired of the corporate sludge movies and are desperate for creative original stories. They are more willing to overlook some movie making flaws and cling to the actual story being told.

For Star Wars, I believe this is mostly sparked by the critical response to the sequel movies, episodes 7-9. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those movies as well! But there is one very clear difference that I think people are starting to realize, and it revolves around THE ultimate Star Wars hero-turned-villain-turned-hero again.

Yes, I’m talking about George Lucas.

Storytelling

Say what you will about George Lucas, but he made the movies he wanted to make, he told the story he wanted to tell, and nobody told him what to do. And for that, I give the man the highest creative praise. He was honored as a legend of creative story telling and movie making with the original trilogy, only to then be torn down and Death Star hate-blasted into oblivion after the prequel trilogy. He has probably endured more undeserved backlash than any creative writer and filmmaker out there. All for what? Telling the story he wanted to tell. Some people think that because George Lucas shared his story of Star Wars with the world, somehow this story belongs to everyone. I could not disagree more. Here’s why:

Take out George Lucas from Star Wars and what do you get? Star Wars episodes 7-9. Great movies, sure, but rather than a story being told by one man with a plan and a vision, it’s a story being told by a corporation. And I think that consumers of entertainment have realized that a concise and well told story with some bad acting and mediocre CGI, is preferable to sloppy money grabbing corporate machine-fed story, with great acting and amazing CGI.

George Lucas had a vision. He gave us an amazing hero’s journey with Luke Skywalker. We were all along for the ride. But he understood one of the most important aspects of any story:

Every story is only as good as the villain.

Imagine a world where 1977 Star Wars was the only Star Wars movie ever made. EPIC movie, obviously. But what do we really know about Darth Vader from this movie? Almost nothing. Cool villain, amazing name, master of evil, killed Luke’s father supposedly, and… that’s pretty much it. Good vs. evil. Good wins. Darth Vader defeated. Death Star blows up. The end.

George Lucas understood what a lot of story-tellers today still don’t understand about villains: They need to be relatable in some way. We need to understand what motivates them and maybe even care about them.

Every story is only as good as the villain.

So in 1980 when Empire Strikes Back came out, people were likely confused. Episode V? How can this be the 5th installment of a movie franchise that doesn’t exist? George Lucas took a huge risk in 1980 by letting the world know that he had a plan. He would finish his hero’s journey with Luke, but then there was a much larger plan that didn’t revolve around Luke Skywalker. And that story is much MUCH more interesting. In Empire Strikes Back we’re teased with possibly the greatest reveal of all time, Darth Vader IS Luke’s father. Ugh how I wish I could go back in time and experience THAT for the first time in a movie theater. It’s at that moment that George Lucas hooked us. He opened our minds. Made us ask questions. Questions the world wouldn’t get answers to for another 25 years.

Finally with the prequels, he took his time and he told that story.

I actually remember this moment, when I was walking into the movie theater to see Attack of the Clones for the first time, I walked by the door of a theater just finishing up the movie and I could hear John Williams amazing score of “The Imperial March” playing through the door. I thought to myself Oh my gosh, Darth Vader’s going to be in this movie! That’s his song! This is it! But that’s not what happened. Yes, the theme song played at the end of Attack of the Clones, but Anakin Skywalkers transformation had not fully taken place yet. George Lucas took his time, he knew exactly what he was doing. He had a plan.

He gave us innocence in a young child Anakin Skywalker, a slave with the gift of piloting a pod racer. He turned that innocence into a young adult Anakin: a talented jedi, arrogant, impulsive, tortured and afraid. He gave us Jedi heroes to admire, mainly a young and familiar Obi-wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor truly is one of the BEST characters in the prequels). He created depth in a familiar villain, Palpatine, who tortured us as we, the audience, knew he was playing both sides, but the characters in the story did not. We got to see how that villain was able to manipulate Anakin all along the way, using his romantic relationship with Padme to get Anakin to complete his journey to the Dark Side.

IT’S A GREAT STORY. It’s RELATABLE. Cheesy line delivery and mediocre acting be damned, we CARE about Anakin. After seeing this on the big screen last night, I don’t care what anyone says: Revenge of the Sith has great emotional depth. What wouldn’t we do to save the ones we love? I really FEEL for Anakin as in a moment of desperation, he turns to a man he doesn’t realize is manipulating him, and pledges his allegiance to the Dark Side. Who hasn’t felt that feeling of Well, I’ve gone this far already, it’s too late to turn back, I might as well lean in. I know I have. We then witness Anakin become the “the very thing he swore to protect” and it truly is sad. We watch hate quickly consume Anakin and next thing we know, he is truly lost.

For me, the emotional peak moment of the Revenge of the Sith is when Obi-wan Kenobi, our constant beacon of light in this increasingly dark consuming world, after having defeated Anakin and left on the ground him limbless and dying, turns back to him and says:

“You were my brother Anakin, I loved you!”

It gets me every time.

The Best Part

I think good, authentic, original story-telling is making a comeback.

There will always be the corporate sludge; entertainment executives who have money to spend and no risk if it doesn’t work out. Just throw it all against the wall and see what sticks, as long as money keeps coming in and they check some political and cultural boxes, they’re happy to keep the machine running. In all sincerity, I don’t blame them. In fact, I think they are necessary. They are the counter-balance to true creativity. They help us see the creative stories more clearly. There is value in learning what not to do, as Anakin Skywalker’s prequel journey illustrates.

The best part is it’s not the end of the journey. Sure the Galactic Empire might rule and oppress the universe of creative stories for a while, but eventually a new creative hero comes along, reveals the Dark Side for what they are, defeats them, and reminds us all of a better way.

The icing on the cake is the story of redemption. Yes even those prequel movie critics, those bandwagon haters who unleashed upon George Lucas, Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen, and even Jar Jar Binx, might come around one day and speak the same words Anakin did to Luke at the end of his journey:

“You were right… you were right.”

Eyes And Heart Wide Open

Terrified

Terrified.

I was terrified. Of being a dad. Of feeling helpless at the hospital. Of the earth-shattering life change that was coming.

Then, all of a sudden, pure joy. The world stopped as I watched a tiny head and delicate body immerge from an opening that should defy the laws of physics. It shouldn’t be possible. But somehow it was, and I saw it happen. The image is burned in my brain and imprinted on my soul forever.

A child. My child. A taste of creation.

I had never seen anything so incredible in my life. A healthy, beautiful, baby girl.

My amazing wife. How the hell did she just do that? My love and appreciation for her as a woman, my wife, and now a brand new mother, deepened. Everyone faded away and it was just me, her, and our newborn baby.

“Dad, do you want to cut the cord?” a male voice asked from somewhere.

“Huh? Dad?” I mumbled, my eyes glued to my daughter. My DAUGHTER. I’m a DAD. Wait, who was speaking? I really wasn’t interested in anything that didn’t involve staring at this child.

I re-awoke to the reality that there was a doctor in the room and a nurse standing next to me holding up a tray of sterilized surgical instruments, indicating to me what looked like a small pair of scissors. Honestly, I didn’t really want to, but I was so hypnotized by what was happening that I unwittingly just went along with whatever he said. He probably could have asked me for my wallet and the keys to my house and I would have given them to him. I grabbed the little sterilized scissors from the sterilized tray, he pointed where to cut, and I cut, and set the now unsterilized scissors back on the sterilized tray. Oops, I guess I wasn’t supposed to do that I thought to myself as my eyes caught a quick glimpse of panic in the doctor’s face staring down at his now tainted tray. Well, he’ll figure it out because that’s all the energy I could put towards anything else in that moment. My focus returned to my family.

My FAMILY. No longer just my wife and I. Just like that we were now a family of three.

Little cries filled the room as the nurse handed our baby girl to my wife. A precious moment. This tiny human, miraculously grown and carried inside her body for the past 9 months, now being held in mother’s arms.

“Hello there” my wife says as she embraces our daughter, the first of many consoling hugs to come. Already connected and familiar, just seeing each other in a new light.

What happens next is something that I’ll never forget. Something that will grow to define our daughter for years to come.

She’s placed on a scale, poked, prodded, and cleaned up. Nurses lovingly work hard to making sure our baby is healthy and strong. Often babies cry big gulping cries when all this is happening (this is exactly what my boys did when they were born a few years later). They’re naked, cold, and scared. But none of this seems to bother our little girl.

She doesn’t make a sound. I get up close, my first real good look at this heavenly creature, and I see these big beautiful eyes. How can her eyes be this big? Immediately it’s her most defining feature. These eyes are darting all around the room, taking in everything she can from her surroundings. I know she only sees light, dark, and blurry shapes, but I get the sense that she is not going to waste any time to take in and take on the world around her.

She’s perfect. And in that perfect moment, her eyes tell me exactly who she is. It’s as if she was saying “Hello daddy, I hope you’re ready to show me all the beauty here on this earth, because I can’t wait to see it.”

Feelings of terror resurface like waves pounding on a warm beach. Am I ready for this? I have no earthly idea. But maybe this heavenly human will teach me to overcome my earthly ideas.

We spend the next few hours feeling all the joy and fear of new parenting. A strange powerful feeling enters into me. It starts small, but slowly electrifies my body. I’ve felt slivers of this before, for my wife, my family and siblings, my baby sister, and even other small children. But that feeling really pales in comparison to this. What is this?

It resembles the feeling of love, but it’s more than that. Connection. Belonging. Furious and raging. Then gentle and soothing. She is a part of us. A part of me. Something that can never be separated. The feeling was expansion, like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes that day. All of my heart. The pain and the elation. The sorrow and the happiness. The fear and the fierce. She tugged on every emotion. She picked up the violin of my heart strings and let me know she would not only become an expert musician, but she would turn this into a symphony.

We named her Zoe. Can’t explain it other than it just felt right.

Zoe Dance Christensen

Beauty Mark

When Zoe was four years old, my wife took her and our two boys to the zoo. It was a weekday and I was at work. Sometime in the middle of the day I got a stressed phone call from my wife that Zoe had climbed onto a big rock and fell, cutting her forehead just above the left eyebrow. It was a deep cut and there was a lot of blood. I left work and met up with my family at the urgent care.

There was a panicked calm on my wife’s face as she dealt not only with the stress and sadness of the situation, but also 2 little boys clueless to what was going on. She took the boys home and I stayed with Zoe to meet with the doctor who would let us know what the best course of action was.

Stitches.

While we waited for the doctor, I chatted with Zoe about what happened. She said she climbed on top of a rock to see something and then lost her balance and fell. I asked her if it hurt when she fell, she gave me a 4-year look of duh dad, of course it hurt, what a dumb question. It was a dumb question, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to ask it. I’ve never cut myself so deep to need stitches, I live life much too cautiously, so I genuinely wanted to know how it felt. At the age of 4 she had experienced an injury that I, at age the age of 30, had never experienced, and I was curious.

Overall, she had cried her cries and was in a good mood. The doctor came in and let us know that she would need some stitches. Zoe, a much braver soul than I, sat nervous but calm in the chair while the doctor went to work. I watched her face while each stitch went in. I could see her reaction to the pain and her tears leaking out slowly as he went. But she endured it well and within seconds of completion, jumped up at me for a hug. I was truly impressed. Wow, how did she do that?

9 years later, a tiny scar remains. Over the years, I started calling it her “beauty mark.” Obviously she is beautiful with or without the scar. It’s more of a reminder of the beautiful life that she lives. Zoe is adventurous, daring, always wanting to try new things, and not afraid to get hurt along the way.

The reminder really isn’t for her, although it can be if she wants. But her memory of that day has faded. She now only knows what we have told her, and seen the evidence and photos. No, the reminder is for someone like me. Someone who looks at her. That there is beauty in imperfection, and she is proof of that.

Her scars don’t make her more beautiful (that would be quite impossible!) but rather her scars show anyone that sees her or spends time with her that Zoe knows how to live, and that life is beautiful. All of it. Including the painful parts.

Matilda

When Zoe was 9, she surprised us when she expressed interest in wanting to try out for a musical production our local theater group was putting on of “Matilda the Musical, Junior.” She had been involved in dance for a few years, living up to her middle name, and put on a few performances with her dance studio, but she hadn’t yet showed an interest in theater. Since my wife and I both grew up doing theater, we of course encouraged her.

Now this was during the early years of COVID. So auditions for Matilda were held virtually. First she submitted a song and a monologue. Now I knew my girl could sing, I’d heard her many times and she had even sung with me a few times on my YouTube channel. Singing with Zoe is one of my favorite things to do! But I did not know the full extent of her ability to be a little expressive sassy convincing actor! My wife says that Zoe inherited my facial expressions and mannerisms so combine that with her inherited gift of dance from her mom and Zoe’s outgoing and explosive personality and, well, we may have created a theater monster!

She blew us and the directors away with a great audition tape and then virtual callbacks. It was her first show audition and she was cast in the ensemble AND Matilda understudy! Wow! We did not expect that for her first show! For the next few months we dropped Zoe off every week to rehearse. Because of COVID, we were unable to enter the building and watch any rehearsals whatsoever. So we really had no idea how things were going besides listening to her practice at home.

When Zoe wants something, she will work incredibly hard at it and give 110%. As Matilda’s understudy, she had the opportunity to perform one show as Matilda, and we were so nervous and excited. Performing on stage and especially playing a main role is incredibly nerve wracking! I’ve been there, but not at the age of 9!

It’s another one of those moments burned into my brain. I’ll never forget Zoe entering the stage, all eyes turn to her, she literally steps up onto a box, the center of attention, and she starts to sing. Solo. I’m sitting close enough that I can see her shaking, I hear the nervous pauses in her voice and breath. I’m on the edge of my seat. Is she going to make it through? Of course she does. We applause. I’m crying cuz my heart to tears valve broke a long time ago.

I’m so proud of my baby girl. She is so brave. I’m in awe of her.

Zoe singing her solo “Quiet” from Matilda the Musical.

She sang with heart. She performed with confidence. And she had a blast doing it. For the next few years, theater became her thing.

Heart

Look I could go on and on gushing about my daughter. Music, dance, theater, piano, saxophone, flute, cross country, basketball, track… It really doesn’t matter, if it’s something new and there’s a chance Zoe can experience it, she will, and nobody can stop her. Her talent, creativity and imagination knows no bounds.

She has incredible heart.

If you’re lucky enough to know her, you don’t need me to tell you any of this. You already know. Her eyes to heart valve is wide open. One look and you see exactly who she is. She’s your friend. She can talk with you. Whether you’re 5 or 50, she is fun to be around.

I love being with her. I love giving her rides to dance or church activities. Sometimes we chat. Sometimes we sing Taylor Swift songs. Sometimes she reads in silence and I just enjoy being next to her.

Today, my baby girl, my little buddy, my cuteness wonder, today… she turns 13. I feel like she’s already been a teenager for a while now, she is so grown up. But today it’s official.

I’m still that same terrified father. I have no idea what comes next or what to expect. But I do know Zoe. And that’s reassuring.

Because Zoe lives with her eyes and heart wide open.

The You You Are

Me, at the beginning of my innie work day at the office, wearing my leather jacket I found at Goodwill.

“What indeed is YOU? How can you mean different things to millions of readers around a vast earth? And perhaps most importantly, who are YOU?” -Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD

If you’ve read the ridiculous and presumptuously profound book by Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD, you may know what I’m talking about. Or you may not, as the book makes almost no sense.

If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. It’s a real treat (and it’s free right now on the Apple Books app!). From odd bee metaphors, to weird film analysis of the movie Sister Act, to hilarious commentary on sex, witless self encouraging poetry, and much more, it’s absolutely worth the read. I smiled the whole time.

One of the reasons I find this short read so delightful is because I’ve gotten to know the author, the character of Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD, from Apple TV’s hit show Severance. If you’ve watched Severance, there’s just no way not to love Ricken. He is unassumingly odd, obliviously self-aware, graciously gentle, and modestly self-deprecating.

The book serves as a companion piece to the show so if you read this book and haven’t watched the show to familiarize yourself with Ricken’s personality quirks, you’ll undoubtably be very confused. Hell, even if you’ve watched the show, you’ll still be confused, but readers everywhere will at the very least be illuminated and amused. Especially if you listen to the audiobook, read by none other than Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD himself.

I have a lot to say about Severance, but I’m saving that for another post at another time. For now, I simply want to bask in the enlightenment channeled by Dr. Hale and provide my own take on the me I am.

Who am I?

The book is all about YOU and diagnosing who YOU are and what that means. For a long time I pondered daily who I was. The simple answer was something engrained in me since I was a child, singing in primary: “I am a child of God.” And while that provided some peace and comfort to the extent that my adolescent self could comprehend my own existence, 39 years of life have taught me that there is much more to me than that. After all, my own children are not just children of me, they are their own little people with personalities, talents, brains, hearts, words, thoughts, ideas, and feelings. I don’t want them to just be a product of their parents, I want them to be who they are. And I hope that that person is very different from me.

But as for me, who am I?

Michael

Who is Michael? A name my mother only called me when I was in trouble, which if you’ve read any of my posts about my childhood you would know, that hardly ever happened… 🙂 It’s a proper name, reserved for legends with last names like Jackson or Jordan. It was also #1 name on the list of most popular baby boy names the year of my birth, 1985. I guess my parents were goin’ with the flow that year. Michael also is of Hebrew origin and means “who is like God” or “gift from God.” But I don’t aspire much individual connection to that as I’ve already stated we are all children of God and all children are truly gifts from God. Also, people at work sometimes call me Michael as that’s the name I put on my resume, and sometimes it just sticks.

Mikey

Who is Mikey? For my family and friends that grew up with me, I’m commonly known as Mikey. A name I enjoy still to this day (hence the title of my blog- a play on words from a long running popular 1970’s Life cereal commercial) and has always been more acceptable by those who know me on a personal level. To this day, if I run into anyone I’ve known since elementary school, they’ll still call me Mikey and it’s totally fine. There have also been friends I’ve met as an adult, and since my wife calls me Mikey, she will introduce me as Mikey to her friends, her friends become my friends, and voilà, I’m almost a 40 year old grown ass man people still call Mikey. Sounds strange, I know, but it works.

Mike

Who is Mike? At some point during my teenage years, I started to go by Mike. It felt weird to make friends and introduce myself as “Mikey.” So for as long as I can remember, when I make new friends, meet new people, or talk to others in a professional environment, I introduce myself as Mike. Short, sweet, simple.

The only times this presents a problem is when people from these different areas of my life collide, and they all know me by their version of my name. It doesn’t happen often, and it’s sometimes entertaining to watch people all of a sudden question themselves in regards to my name.

In reality, I don’t really care what people call me because when it comes to who I am, I’m more than just my name.

Somebody That I Used To Know

Last year was my 20 year high school reunion. 20 YEARS! Yikes. Well, I wasn’t able to make it. But I messaged a few old friends, and saw the Facebook photos, and it was fun to remotely reminisce about those days and the people I knew.

KNEW. I intentionally say that in past tense because, since I haven’t kept in touch real well over the years, I really don’t know them anymore at all. My version of who they are more than likely no longer exists.

Hopefully, they’ve changed.

Think about someone you know, but haven’t seen or talked to in a while. What are they like? Who are they? You really have no idea. They are just somebody that you used to know. Have your friends collect your records and then change your number.

Change

We live in a world where we can often digitally observe other people’s changes. Physical changes, political changes, spiritual changes, or whatever people are willing to share over the internet.

Like a picture of themselves (above) that clearly shows a wrinkled face, emerging grey hairs, and one eyeball that refuses to open as much as the other. The moles look questionable, the eyebrows like furry caterpillars, and Indiana Jones called, he wants his jacket back. That right there is a different looking person than the awkward, nerdy, skeleton of a boy that graduated high school over 20 years ago.

But more than that, the man pictured up above thinks different. Has different habits. Has a changed perspective of priorities and goals. Has new responsibilities and challenges thrust upon him. He has 20 years of experiences. He may not believe all the things he believed 20 years ago. Or even 10 or 5 years ago. He’s probably changed his mind on all kinds of social, political, or religious points of view. If you sat down and had a conversation with him today, you might be surprised at something he says, believes, or does today. He might not fit the past version of him that you may have had in your mind.

Acceptance

This is what acceptance is. Accepting and loving someone as they are, not as they were, or who you’d like them to be. As they are, right now, in front of you.

It’s human nature to put people into boxes and label them. It simple, easy, and doesn’t require much effort on our part. It streamlines our worldview. Especially if we think we know everything about someone after a brief conversation, or worse, a social media post of some kind. Social media is the epitome of a floating iceberg. What we think we know about someone just barely scratches the surface. I know I do this. I’ve got someone neatly tucked away in my brain as a specific kind of thing and label, and then, all of a sudden, they go changin’ on me and I weirdly act surprised by this?! How could they! I maybe even get a little judgy in my mind. Wow, that person did that? Said that? I never would have thought! They pulled out my neat little box, ripped off the label, and emptied it all over the floor. Then lit it on fire.

It’s hard to accept things we might not understand, even though we actually do it all the time. I don’t understand how cell phones work, I just know how to use one. I don’t understand how gigantic metal shafts full of people are able to fly in the air at crazy fast speeds, but I’ll watch a movie and sleep soundly in my barely reclined chair as I gaze down upon mountains below, like a mythical Greek god. I’ll never understand how a woman’s brain operates (and I’ve been married to one for over 16 years!) but I accept that somehow the female species can manage to think, speak, listen, and act simultaneously on a regular basis and still function. Not only function, but thrive.

Accepting people, not what they do or say, but who they are, may or may not help us understand them, but it will increase our love for them.

Beeeeee Yourself

So who am I? No idea. I don’t ponder this question daily anymore. The less time I spend worrying about who I am, and the more time I spend just being myself, the happier I realize I become. I like myself. Whoever that is. You can put me in your box and label me, stick me up on your shelf. You can judge me all you want or think you’re better or worse than me, whatever that means. We all do it, myself included.

It’s simple and perhaps cliché, but just beeeeee yourself. Whoever that is. Roll with the punches. Change. Accept. Love. Look forward to a time where you can look back and be proud of how much you’ve changed.

If you can do that with yourself, I think you’ll find you can do it with other people around you. Let others beeeeee themselves. Whoever that is. Roll with their punches. Their changes. Accept and love them. Be proud of how much they’ve changed.

The more you allow them to be themselves, they’ll allow you to be yourself, back and forth like a symbiotic dance where change, acceptance, and love deepens. You care less and less about The You You Are, and more and more about the love you have.

For others and for yourself.

So I’m Sorry Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD, as much as I absolutely love you and your fictional self, and as fantastic as your book is, I don’t want to spend any more time thinking about the me I am.

I just want to be it.

Learning To Be A Peacemaker

Are you a peacemaker?

What does it mean to be a peacemaker?

In preparation for a talk I recently gave in church, I thought a lot about this. There have been several instances in my life that have taught me what it means to be a peacemaker. Here is what I’ve learned.

My Family

I’m all about family. I always have been. As number 5 of 8 children, I come from a big one. Too big, I’ll say, yes too big. Don’t get me wrong, as a kid I loved it. I was smack dab in the middle and always had someone to play with. But as a parent now, with my own children, the idea of having 8 children puts me into a coma. For us, three is good. Three is the number and the number shall be three.

There was something about being in the middle of all of my siblings that had a profound effect on my life and personality. I observed silently as my older siblings would summon conflict with my parents and each other, and I learned how to avoid said conflict. I watched my older siblings get in trouble, get grounded, and receive a wide variety of creative punishments my parents were quite expert in crafting. I, of course, never got in trouble… And since they aren’t likely to contradict on a blog post you’ll just have to take my word for it that my parents would wholeheartedly agree I was a perfect child.

Not because I actually was, but because I was a certified expert in avoiding conflict. Something that would later come back to haunt me in my first few years of marriage. But that’s a story for another time.

I guess as a result, I was told multiple times by my siblings that I was a peacemaker. I rarely ever got contentious, angry, or visibly upset. I developed a very passive and easy going personality. I thought I had it all figured out. Was this really all there was to being a peacemaker?

Missionary Companionship Inventory

The first time I ever had to forcibly deal with real conflict resolution was as a missionary serving in the Ecuador Guayaquil South mission. For those of you that have served, you know what I’m talking about. It’s called companionship inventory, and we scheduled it every Wednesday. It was your time to sit down with your companion, someone you did not choose to spend 100% of your time with, begin with a prayer, and then proceed to tell each other that they walk too slow, chew too obnoxiously, snore too loud, or talk too much. As much as I tried, I could not avoid the conflict of having another human around me 24/7, especially one I didn’t get along with. Luckily not every companion was like this, and for the ones that were, there was an end date in sight you could look forward to.

In the mean time, however, I tried as hard as I could to remember the words from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

This attitude was also encouraged from my mission president, who must have intentionally stuck me with certain companions to provide me this conflict learning opportunity. What this meant as a missionary was, if you aren’t getting along with your companion, go make their bed. Fix them some breakfast. Offer to do something kind, in spite of whatever conflict there might be. I wasn’t always great at this, but the few times I did do it, the tension in the room would cease, tempers dampened, and love increased for that companion.

It’s amazing how quickly service brings love and peace.

Among the many things I learned as a missionary, I learned that being a peacemaker was more than just avoiding conflict, but putting forth some conscious effort, in spite of that conflict, to choose to love that person with acts of service.

BYU Folk Dance Performance in Belarus

After my mission I went back to BYU provo, where I was immediately placed on to a folk dance team that would, unknowingly at the time, determine my future in more ways than I knew, despite my lack of dance experience. I entered the rehearsal room and introduced myself to the team, my awkward posture, perfectly parted hair and thin frame glasses speaking louder than any words I may have said about how recently I had just returned from my mission (it had been 1 week). Nobody on the team knew me and many faces stared back at the skeletal figure before them with wonder, possibly fear, at the idea that it seemed nobody had fed me the entirety of my mission. But there was one freckled face that saw past the gangly body and instead saw a future husband, father, and friend. Her name was Amanda and it was everything I could do to keep her off of me, to give me some space and not smother me as she relentlessly pursued me for a year and a half until I finally gave in and agreed to marry her.

Ok, Amanda’s version of those events might be slightly different, but since I have a blog and she doesn’t, you have no choice but to believe everything I say.

While attending BYU, Amanda and I both had the amazing opportunity to perform internationally with BYU’s Folk Dance Ensemble. Now before you get overly impressed, please understand that while all of the amazing women, including Amanda, were incredible dancers who had trained and prepared themselves most of their lives up to that point to be on a team like this, it was always difficult to fill up these teams with men, so for most of the men, including myself, if you could walk and chew gum you were on the team. Regardless, I began to grow an immense appreciation for the power and emotion that dance could bring to everyone we performed for.

While Amanda and I were dating we got to go to many eastern European countries with folk dance. One of those countries was Belarus. As we entered the country by bus and prepared for our show, we were instructed several times from our leaders that we were not to talk to people on the street or even smile too much, so as not to be accused of proselytizing in any way. We were even given expectations that many people might not come to the performance, and those that did might not give us a warm welcome and response that we were accustomed to. We barely knew anything about the people of Belarus or the politics at the time, just that we should put on a good show regardless of the response. So we did.

Halfway through the show, we could see ushers lining the aisles with additional chairs. The venue was at capacity and they were trying to make more room. It would have been a full on fire hazard. But not just that, out of all the crowds we performed for spanning across 6 different countries, they were the loudest, most energetic of all of them. They were on their feet, clapping, dancing, and fully enjoying the show. We couldn’t believe it.

I share this story because I learned another way to be a peacemaker. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t know their struggles or lives or conflicts they were going through. But somehow, through music and dance, peace was made all the same.

Construction Conflict

In a previous career, I spent 8 years as a construction superintendent and construction manager building new houses in the Seattle area. I learned everything I could about construction, safety, building codes, homeownership, but most importantly, I learned another lesson in how to be a peacemaker. You see, a construction manager is really a glorified babysitter of adults. From the foundation guy, to the framer, the plumber, the electrician, the drywaller, on and on, you have different companies, cultures, and people from all walks of life, stepping foot inside your house being built, and you are in charge of making sure they do their job. The environment is just ripe for conflict. Everybody is mad at each other, or mad at me, or the customers, or mad at the weather, or whatever else is preventing them from doing their job that day, and since I was the man in charge, it all came down on my shoulders. In the construction world, there are very aggressive personalities. People with short tempers. People that seem to enjoy yelling, arguing, and threatening. People that were so different than me in almost every way that it was difficult not to get pushed around for my first few years on the job.

I had to learn to be a peacemaker. And what that meant in this environment, was learn how to be a good listener. I’ll never forget one time in particular being yelled at several inches from my face by the drywall supervisor about some kind of scheduling mistake for his drywall guys to install. He seemed to have a lot to unload as he went on for about 20 minutes straight barely taking a breath. I stood, silent and didn’t say a word. Over the course of those 20 minutes, he began to slowly back away, almost looking exhausted. After a long pause, once he was all done and got it all out, I asked, in a sincere tone, if there was anything else. He waved his hand, slumped over on a bucket now, signaling for me to go away, which I did. About an hour later, he gave me a phone call, and calmly apologized for his behavior. Strangely, from then on, we got along pretty well. Any future conflicts or issues were handled with much more respect and mitigated tempers. I learned from this experience that most of the time when people got upset, they just needed someone to listen to them. I realized that I could be that person.

I ventured from the world of passive easy going nature, into one of assertiveness. It was uncomfortable. I wasn’t perfect at it and I’m still not. But it allowed me to better communicate and listen to everyone, and more effectively do my job.

In The Home

The most important example, however, of being a peacemaker, is within the walls of my own home. Some days start with “Love at Home” and end with “Master The Tempest Is Raging” (just a little hymnbook joke there, can’t remember where I first heard it).

I often worry about the example I set for my children. Am I a peacemaker in the home? I sometimes get upset when children don’t listen, or argue, or fight, or wipe their boogers in their sisters hair, or spew mouthwash all over the floor after being tickled by that same sister. I often have to ask myself if I can put forth the same effort, like I did with the drywall supervisor, or the crowd in Belarus, or that annoying missionary companion, to serve, to show love, and listen to my wife and children in times of conflict.

My children will be the first to tell you that dad can frequently get upset, and they enjoy mocking my authoritative voice every now and then, in a loving way of course. Now, as a father and husband, learning to be a peacemaker is a daily challenge. Nearly every day there is something that puts me on edge, tests my patience, or causes me to loose my cool. And that’s okay, that’s kind of the definition of parenting and marriage. It’s all a bunch of hard work. Peacemaking ain’t easy!

There’s a trick to getting through each day, despite those tough moments. And it’s actually quite simple, if you make time for it…

Find time for daily personal peace.

For me, it’s in the morning. Before the kids are awake. While the house is still silent. I know what time the kids wake up, so I get up before they do. I give myself whatever time I need to get ready, eat some breakfast, and spend some time alone. Meditate? Sure. Pray? Of course. Read? On occasion. Maybe even just pulling out my calendar and going through in my head what I have going on that day. It varies from day to day. But the point is, it’s my time. It’s my few minutes of peace. Like the calm before the storm. Like taking a breath before jumping into the deep end of the pool. Like the hushed silence from a crowd when the announcer yells “On your mark” moments before the race.

Although I think it’s ideal, it doesn’t have to be the morning. It can be whatever time works for you. I personally can’t stand waking up to the sound of screaming children. It makes me feel like I’m starting my day already underwater.

Also, daily personal peace doesn’t solve all your problems. But it does help you to feel some of that peace and remind you that you can offer some of that same peace to somebody else that day. Maybe a spouse, a child, a co-worker, or a friend. I believe that maintaining some semblance of inner peace, even just for a few minutes each day, and help you contribute immensely to the world around you, a world in desperate need of the peace you have to offer.

I don’t have teenagers yet, but those days are just around the corner and I’m sure my peacemaking abilities will be tried, scrutinized, and challenged in ways I don’t even understand yet. But I know that with acts of service, love, listening, and finding time for daily personal peace, I’ll hopefully be able to navigate those days ahead as I continue to learn how to be a better peacemaker.

A Heavy Heart

A heavy rock is solid,
A heavy truck can pull,
A heavy clock an antique,
A heavy backpack full,

A heavy box keeps memories,
Of photos, books, and plaques,
A heavy bat hits harder,
And doesn’t freely crack,

A heavy sigh releases,
A heavy breath to catch,
A heavy boot is sturdy,
A heavy door will latch,

A heavy lion noble,
A heavy tiger roars,
The heaviest of mighty birds,
The Albatross, can soar,

The feeling of a heavy heart,
The weight inside your chest,
Is simply just a symptom,
Of the love that you invest,

Look back at all the heavy things,
I’ve listed up above,
And see if their descriptions,
Match what you might be made of,

That heavy heart that aches you,
That pains you to your soul,
Is actually a sign that you,
Are stronger than you know,

So like a sodden heavy sponge,
That’s dripping, wet, and full,
Just take both hands and squeeze it out,
And feel each weeping pulse,

Let it take root inside of you,
Find comfort in that part,
And know that great peace follows,
Right behind a heavy heart.