Youth Games

Growing up, I went to youth group at my local church. We’d meet on Wednesday and Sunday nights, and each meeting would always kick off with a game led by our youth pastor. Sometimes the game would involve everyone, like dividing up into teams and seeing who could duck tape the lightest person on the team to the wall fastest. And some games would involve individuals, like blindfolding a volunteer and having them identify all the Chick-fil-a sauces by taste only.

I always wondered what the point of those games was, and I do even more so now as I’m tasked with coming up with games on my own. Were the games simple ice breakers to get students used to the environment they were in and talking with one another? Were they to help get their energy out? Or was there always something deeper than that? Could there be something deeper than that?

I don’t want to waste time, much less a kid’s time. I know when I was that age, I didn’t want my time wasted. So how can we make the most out of games, out of simple interactions?

I think it’s through intentionality. Learning someone’s name. Looking someone in the eye. Encouraging someone. Laughing with someone. Empowering them to succeed. All things we need. All things kids need.

So today, how can we do that?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Encourage in the Simplicity.

Communication, the Key

The other day, I had a bombshell dropped on my head, figuratively of course. It was a news bombshell - one of those times where you hear something totally unexpected and out of the blue, and it takes you several hours to recover. That bombshell hurt.

I hadn’t had news hit me like that in quite sometime. It wasn’t anything life-altering or earth shattering, but there’s something about feeling in the dark that’s scary, and we all know that the dark can be a scary place.

You can’t see what’s in front of you, what’s making noise or what may be creeping up behind you. And that’s kind of how it feels when you’re left in the dark in the communication world, too.

This had me thinking about how communication really is key; it’s key to not only addressing what needs to be addressed, but even more so, it’s key to maintaining relationships.

Lately, I haven’t been paying attention to communicating well in my own relationships, even in marriage. I’m not always communicating what’s going on in my head, at work or in other friendship circles, and i’m sure that’s hard for my wife, my best friend, to feel slightly, if not fully, in the dark sometimes. And that’s not fair, and it’s not healthy.

So, is communication a key on your keychain? Or do you sometimes leave it in a door somewhere, like me?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Communication can provide light in darkness.

Remembering Sunday

Yesterday morning was one of the best mornings I can remember in quite some time.

I got to sleep in longer than most days, and when I finally woke up to the soft sunlight seeping through the bedroom blinds, I felt rested.

After waking up, my wife Sarah and I went to church together. It was an outdoor service, and the air was a warm 70 degrees, with clouds providing shade and a light breeze working its way through the trees, bringing the smell of of spring off of the morning’s fresh dew.

The church message was one of those that isn’t always fun to hear, but one that you need to hear, and we were surrounded by friends and a community, all hearing the same message, which seems to make those types of messages ring truer - when you hear them with your family.

The morning rounded off with Sarah and I checking out a new barbecue restaurant near our house. We ate outside on the patio, sharing a plate of delicious food, while each sipping on a summer cocktail, and it was in those moments that I realized how great that morning had been. How much it had been needed. How special the good days feel.

I’m not sure that it’s all that interesting for you to read about my Sunday morning, but I felt like I needed to reflect on it and share it. Not to say, “i’m better than you,” or “look how good my life is,” but to wish the same to for you - that the good days will come and when they do, that you can sit in those small moments and smile, knowing how much of a gift they are because for some reason, the hard days always stand out more. But let that not be true. Remember the good ones.

-Cliff

Cliff’s note: Remember the good days.

Beauty & Neglect

The sun shines high on a man standing on the corner of a street. It’s a warm day, but not too warm. The temperature sits right around 70 degrees, and there’s a slight breeze in the air coming from the south that hits him at just the right moments, wicking the sweat from his brow each time it begins to form.

The man has no home, and he’s looking for marijuana, at least that’s what his cardboard sign says. There’s pain on his face. Physical pain based on the scars you see. Emotional pain based on the cars you see passing him, not offering the help he needs.

But still, the sun is shining on this man on this warm day with a warm breeze.

And isn’t that the irony?

That there can be such such beauty and relief happening to a person, while such pain and neglect are happening simultaneously to the same person.

And in that moment, as another human being, I too feel the beauty of the warm and the pain of the neglect, while also wondering, what would this man see when if he looked at me?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: “If we experience God’s blessings, we must accept trials as well.”

Chapter One

Today’s post is a simple, selfish one.

Today’s post is a marker on the calendar and a a totem of remembrance to the day that I finished the first chapter of a first draft on a first book.

It’s a small step, but it’s been a grueling big one that I want to remember.

I want to remember overcoming the obstacles of believing I have a voice, believing that I have what it takes to to a writer and believing I have words to share that might relate to someone else, even just one person who may feel alone in their thoughts.

That’s why I write. So others don’t feel alone and to share a story that might be relateable, even if it’s just to one other person.

So, cheers friends. Thank you for reading and being a part of this journey.

On to the next one.

-Cliff

Cliff’s note: You have what it takes.

Skills

I haven’t picked up a camera in a hot minute, which you have probably noticed if you’re a regular reader here. It’s been stock photos to the max.

And I don’t love that. I don’t love using other people’s work on top of my own. Maybe that’s a pride thing, maybe it’s a consistency thing. Either way, it’s been a long time since I’ve picked up my camera, and my craft shows it.

At my previous job, I had a camera in my hand nearly every day of the week. Photography was a skill I honed and got extremely good at with the consistency I was operating at. But now, I wonder what it will be like next time I pick up a camera.

How foreign will that body feel?
What will I see outside of the viewfinder?
Will I still be able to make my subject feel comfortable and confident?
Will I feel confident?

There’s something to be said for consistency in our skills. Sure, our interests fade and sharpen, but once we have those skills and have worked hard to obtain them, it’s a shame to lose them.

Maybe it’s piano or guitar? (Two more skills I have lost)
Maybe it’s cooking?
Maybe it’s writing?
Maybe it’s running or exercising?

We all have skills, and we are all at the mercy of time and how often we can use them, hone them and become masters. So I ask you, what’s your skill or that one that has faded away?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Find an excuse to do what you love.

Trusting in Cliches

This weekend, my wife, her parents and I spent the weekend painting the interior of our home, and I learned a lot doing so. But possibly the biggest lesson I learned was that I don’t like painting. I mean, the painting is fine, and even kind of mentally relaxing, but the set up and preparation to paint, that’s another story.

There’s this lame saying that everyone knows by heart, “Good things take time.” It was one of those sayings that your parents used to tell you to be patient for things, and it was a saying I kept hearing in my own head as I put yet another line of painters tape down across a wall fixture or baseboard. It was just as mentally taxing as it was physically, and the entire time, I was trying to come up with a better saying to focus on rather than, “Good things take time.”

We were listening to music while we were coloring the walls, and I heard the lyrics to Elton John’s, ‘Rocket Man’ telling me, “It’s going to be a long, long time.” I thought those were fitting words, too, but still not quite what I was looking for to describe what I was feeling; however it was right after that track that another quote came to mind, one that fit the summation of my painting experience.

“Trust the Process”

Another cliche, sure. But a more fitting one, yes. I was in a process. The process of cleaning everything only to make it dirty. The process of moving everything into a cluttered heap to ensure it didn’t get paint on it. The process of moving that heap to a new location to paint where it once stood. The process of taping, newspapering, laying out papers, mixing paint and adding layer after layer of new color to every square inch of a room. The true definition of a process.

But sometimes that’s all life is, a series of processes. One’s we go through day-today, both comfortable and uncomfortable. Some old, and some new (typically the uncomfortable ones), but it’s what makes up life. And that’s a process I don’t ever want to get bored with.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Cliches are okay, sometimes.

Different

I’m a 29-year-old white, Christian male. I live in the middle of the United States.

I’m not a minority.

I don’t have a right to tie that word to my name.

I’ll never know what it’s like to be a:
African American
Asian
Jew
Latino
Poor
Samoan
Woman
Insert any other minority group here.

My life will never be challenged in those ways, and yours might not either. Myself, and those like me, rarely, if ever, will have the opportunity to feel ‘different.’

But how can we try? How can we begin to put ourselves in situations where we are different? Where we are outsiders. Where we are forced to think differently and empathize with how the majority of others feel when they are around us.

That is a kind of person I long to be.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Be exposed to different.

Acknowledgment

Gyms are full of mirrors. Mirrors to get ready in front of in the bathrooms, and all over the walls in front of weight stations and cardio machines. I used to think they were there so you could watch yourself flex and check yourself out as you picked up your weights, drenched in sweat. But now, I feel like the mirrors are there to help you watch your form. You don’t want to drop your body or the weights too low, and the mirrors are there to help keep you accountable to the angles, movements and ways one moves their body.

I look at the wall, the small brick or concrete sections of the gym that lack mirrors. Why?

I used to think it was because I didn’t want to feel prideful in myself or catch myself flexing in the mirror. But now, I feel like I don’t look at the mirror because I’m scared to acknowledge myself. I’m scared to see the reflection that would be looking back at me - its age, its change, its face. I don’t want to acknowledge myself or be acknowledged, out of fear, not humbleness.

Today is National Admin Professionals Day - a day when we’re supposed to acknowledge and celebrate those secretaries, schedulers and those around us who probably work the hardest carry a lot of stress. I hope today is a day when they are acknowledged. When teammates are able to look them in the face, without fear of vulnerability and say ‘Thank you.’ Thank you to some of the most unacknowledged people in the workforce who work the hardest.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Acknowledge those around you, and yourself.

Truth(s)

I care a lot about unity. Unity that is real, not the marketing buzzword that lacks the reckoning and grace people deserve. But caring about unity raises questions.

Does Truth matter?

Is riding the fence an okay option?

Must we always pick a side?

I do believe Truth matters. I believe riding the fence is compromise that we must make sometimes. I believe picking sides is like picking teams - people get hurt, and sometimes you end up on a side you don’t want to be on.

The other day, some friends and I were discussing some of the day’s hottest political issues when I began to start processing how subscribing to a truth can immediately create division. Truth is necessary. Without it, life would be in limbo. But Truth is also problematic, which leads me to another question: Can there be more than one Truth?

Aside from two truths and a lie, most people would say, ‘no.’ Whether it’s based on personal circumstances, experiences or convictions, most of us subscribe to absolute Truths, whether we admit it or not, and when we’re met with opposing beliefs, we tend to unsubscribe, myself included.

But what if we didn’t? What if we were okay with the world holding more Truths than the one we hold so tightly to? What if that Truth in itself was one we subscribed to?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: True or False questions are harder than they appear.

Waking Up When Waking up is Hardest

I wish I knew how to wake up.

You know, when you’re supposed to be working hard, focused on a project, but you’re using all of your energy to simply keep your eyes open? Or when you’re on a road trip, and the windows down, loud music and sunflower seeds aren’t enough to keep your eyelids from dropping and your head bobbing.

Those are the moments when I wish I knew how to wake up.

I can wake up fine when my alarm goes off in the mornings. I wake up fine on Saturdays, too - my only real day of the week to sleep in. That’s always the day I seem to wake up the earliest.

I just can’t seem to figure out how to wake myself when I really need to. When its life or death, a project deadline or when someone’s counting on me. Those are the times I’d much rather just shut my eyes, even for a few seconds, without feeling guilty.

But the guilt comes. The thoughts of not needing rest. The ‘you don’t deserve to shut your eyes; you can’t shut your eyes’ thoughts… which is helpful when driving of course.

But sometimes I wonder whether or not shutting the office door and getting 15 minutes of shuteye instead of 15 minutes of trying to stay awake would be better? If resting is okay, even when it’s not always the most convenient thing for your schedule. Maybe the key to waking up is actually letting your eyelids down.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Fifteen minute power naps might be the cure to 2p fatigue.

The Value of Expertise

If you’ve ever owned a house, you know that owning one is essentially like paying to have a series of projects that never end, half of which you probably don’t know how to do. That’s how I feel anyway.

Sarah, my wife, and I bought our first home this past December after years of renting ourselves, and so far, it’s felt a bit like being put into high school calculus without having any algebra in middle school. There’s problems and projects in front of us that we have no idea how to do because we’ve never seen anything like them before.

So, what do you do? You hire the professionals. And professionals get paid like professionals.

It pays to be an expert. An expert plumber, an expert electrician and expert handyman. You have a skill very few others have, and you can put a price tag on that value. I’m always a little shell shocked when I hear a quote back from these folks and think, “Wow! You make that much. I’m in the wrong field.”

But in reality, we’re all experts in something that others aren’t. Some just pay more than others. But being an expert is something to take pride in, no matter what it may be.

Maybe you’re an expert gamer? Or an expert at Microsoft Excel? Or an expert friend, knowing everything about your loved ones and caring for them deeply in ways no one else can?

It can’t be valued by money, but you’re valuable. Your expertise is needed. You’re needed. It’s about finding that Truth in yourself and leaning into it. When you do, the world around you is a little bit better - fixed. Just like my electricity will be today.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Own your expertise.

Celebrating Selflessly

This morning, I had a friend invite me to his bachelor party. I’m not a groomsman, and I have only known this guy a few months, but he still felt like he wanted me to be a part of the day celebrating his next season of life. When he invited me, I responded horribly, and now I feel terrible about it.

I could blame it on being caught off guard, or I could blame it on being 6a when he invited me, but I’m going to choose not to. Instead, I’m going to blame it on this fact: that more times than not, I value my plans, my happiness and my joy over celebrating other people.

*gulp

That’s a hard truth swallow and think about. It’s gutting to reflect on having someone ask you to be a part of a once-in-their-lifetime celebration and to not respond with love, joy, thankfulness, excitement and brotherhood, but instead to respond with, “I think I have some plans that day, but let me see what I can do.”

If I had been him and gotten that reaction, I think I would have been pretty hurt, and I’m pretty sure that’s how he felt too.

It wasn’t a proud moment, but it’s certainly a moment to learn from, enough so to process, write about it and share it with you, reader(s): Loved ones deserve to be celebrated at all times, even when those times aren’t always what’s most convenient for oneself.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Celebrate must be selfless.

Slow Trucks

Have you ever wanted to be a semi-truck driver?

Count me way out on answering yes to that question. Although, my dad might be someone who’s up for it. Lynn likes driving and taking things slow.

But that’s exactly why I wouldn’t be able to stand it - I cannot for the life of me take things slow.

Think about how frustrating it is to sit behind a truck anywhere on the road:
If you’re at a stoplight, you can’t see over it.
If you’re driving around town, they make wide turns.
If you’re driving through construction, they might run you into a guardrail.
And we all know what happens when you want to pass a truck but you’re stuck behind another truck trying to pass the same truck you are - it’s slow! And frankly, I would compare that specific instance to watching grass grow.

The point is, most of us don’t like going slow, and most of us don’t want to be truckers; however, there’s still a few, like Lynn, who do.

I suppose if you’re a trucker, you have some things going for you:
You get to see the countryside.
*Nice people get out of the way for you.
You get to listen to the radio all day.
You have one job - get from point A to point B safely and on time.
All not bad things. All slow things.

And sometimes I wish I were more okay with slow. With trusting the process and waiting in traffic. With looking at the grass on the side of the road. With slowing down enough to help carry big loads for those around me. With being like a trucker.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Next time, give your friendly truck a slow wave (but not with your middle finger).

A Lyric of Advice

There’s a line from a song that i love stuck in my head, which is much better than having a line from a song you hate (or an entire song you hate) stuck in your head.

The lyric is, “Speak up now. Have you said it before? Why don't you say it again, a bit louder?”

And I’ve been trying to figure out why I love that line so much, why it feels so relatable. And I think I’ve put my finger on it - I’m quiet.

For the most part, especially in big groups of people I don’t know exceptionally well, my voice doesn’t carry. I don’t know if it’s my natural tone, mumbling or a lack of confidence, but often times I say things, and they won’t be heard. It could be a joke that I’m not sure anyone will get, it could be an idea or even just a question. But no matter what it may be, it typically comes out quietly and can go unheard except for a couple of people who are close by. And it’s always those people that I wish would ask me:

“Speak up now. Have you said it before?
Why don't you say it again, a bit louder?”

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Speak up.

Failure. Escape. Acceptance. Relationships.

Today’s question I ask to myself: Does every beginning need a beginning?

In the past, every time I’ve sat down to write, I felt like I had to explain why I had stopped writing previously and why I’m starting to write again.

Maybe it was because I felt the need to explain myself to the few people who read my words. Maybe it was because there had been so many large gaps between each writing session that I feel like a new person compared to the person who last wrote. Or maybe maybe it was a way of forgiving myself. 

Either way, here I sit, having started down the writing journey again with a new goal, not to write a book but to become a writer. Not apologizing to myself or apologizing to you, the reader, for not writing, but making a promise that I will become a writer, that I am slowly but surely becoming who I want to be, that I’m pushing past fears.

Past unspoken fears have led to unspoken thoughts, and those fears have driven my do’s and don’ts, my words and my silence. It’s a reason why my writing process takes so long, why it’s taken me years to fulfill promises I’ve made to myself. FEAR. 

Failure. Escape. Acceptance. Relationships.

All things that scare me. All things that motivate me.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: A prayer: While my words are not solutions, may they be a nightlight, a friend and a reassuring, ‘It’s going to be okay.'‘

The Healing Process

What does it take for you to heal?

Personally, the more I go through life, it feels like healing only happens through more pain.

I’m not specifically talking about physical healing here, although these thoughts could apply there as well, but I’m talking about emotional pain. Spiritual pain. The kind of pain that you can’t see on the surface, but that wrecks havoc internally, under the surface of your veins, organs and insides. The pain that you hide, that you mask, that you bury, that eventually turns into a numbness but rears its wounded head every chance it gets, often in new and improved ways.

That’s the kind of pain I’m talking about healing from. The pain that seems hardest to heal from. What is that process for you, and is it important?

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot, and for me, writing is processing. Processing is where I’ve begun to think more about this healing process because processing has been causing me a lot of pain. It’s been turning up a lot of memories, thoughts and experiences I haven’t addressed in years, and with that, it’s revealing pain that I haven’t seen rear its head in quite some time. I buried those memories. Pretended they never happened and grew a thick skin over them to number the pain, hoping to never think about them or feel them again.

Not healthy, and I wouldn’t recommend.

So, here I sit. Addressing old pain in a new way. Almost talking about it with myself. And I’m honestly not even sure if that’s healthy, but It’s better than what my process was before.

That’s why I ask you, what does it take for you to heal?

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: We all have unaddressed pain. Search for healing.

Exertion's Growth

Exercise.

This, writing, is an exercise.
It stretches my mind, my thoughts, my spirit.
And it takes them to places I don’t know exist inside of me.

Physical, team training is an exercise.
It strengthens my body, my motivation, my commitment.
And it pushes me to grow in ways I could not do alone.

Spirituality is an exercise.
It tests my faith, my hope, my love.
And it anchors me when I fail at those tests.

Exercise.

It’s rarely comfortable, but it’s always consistent in the goodness it gives back.

-Cliff

Cliff’s Note: Keep going. Breath. Stretch. Grow.

A Gas Station and an Answered Prayer

A few years ago, myself and a group of friends were coming back from a road trip to Portland from Seattle when our 2002 Jeep broke down at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. We felt stuck, since know one new anything about cars, and we were still several hours from home. It was late at night, and we knew the likely hood of getting one of our friends in Seattle to drive down and fetch us was slim to none.

So, what did we do?
We prayed.

Yes, the most cliche of Christian answers to solve what seemed like an extremely minor worldly problem, in the grand scheme of things. But we prayed.

Not 30 seconds after we finished our prayer, we saw the door of the truck stop diner up the street fly open and a burly, bearded man walk out - a typical trucker if there ever was one. He looked at us from the door and immediately started walking our way. When he reached us, all he said was, “You guys look like you’re having some car trouble. Why don’t you try inserting the key into the outside, driver’s door lock and locking and unlocking it a couple times?”

As we all looked around at one another thinking, “There’s no way this works,” sure enough, it worked.

Immediately after the engine roared back to life, the guardian angel turned around to leave with a low-key, “Looks like that did the trick. Y’all be safe.”

It’s this moment that I hold onto as a pivotal anchor to my faith. A small, but truly answered prayer in the heat of the moment. Both unexplainable and explainable, but a moment that I refuse to chalk up to circumstance.

Event when it feels like God isn’t listening, shouldn’t listen or has better things to hear, He hears us.

-Cliff

Tim’s Note: “Even when it feels like God is absent, He is with us. He is always working, turning the world’s bad to His good.” - Tim Keller

Good Friday Questions

Today is Good Friday, and I have some questions.

God,
What did You feel on Good Friday all those years ago?
Did You feel angry?
Did You feel sad?
Did You feel reckoning?
Did You feel justified?
Did You feel love?
Did You feel hope?
Did You feel victory?
Did You feel loss?
Did You feel pain?
Did You feel anything at all?
Do You feel?

Christ,
What is it like to care so much that You sweat blood?
Did You feel scared? If so, why?
Did You know what you were going into?
Did You feel angry?
Did You feel let down?
Did You feel alone?
Did You know you would win?
Did You see good in us, despite our bad?

Spirit,
Where were you this day all those years ago?
Did you abandon us?
Did you give us strength?
Did you pray for us?
Did you ever leave Jesus?
Did you see what happened?

These are some of the questions I have today. Some are old, some are new. One day, maybe they can be answered because today happened, all those years ago.

-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: Ask God.