We have a TV in our house.
We have this awesome TV. It's big, not really really big, but big. It's got a great picture, good color, and it's perfect for us. Our TV is old. It's really old in TV years which is equivalent to dog years I'm pretty sure. Since I'm not sure what our TV's exact birthdate is I couldn't tell you how old it is exactly, but for sake of not exposing our TV to utter embarrassment we'll just leave it's age a bit ambiguous.
Even though our TV is old it's basically awesome. My husband is especially fond of our TV, not because he likes watching TV, on the contrary, he actually watches almost no TV, but he is especially fond of this TV because, like all good bargain hunters, he got it for a steal. A couple summer's ago at the height of garage sale season here in Bend (which, for those of you who don't know, is the other summer past time in our fair city) our previous TV bit the dust. It went out quite dramatically one day. I'll spare you the details but it was ugly. Daniel, however, saw this as a Divine excuse, I mean opportunity, to go garage sale-ing. Off we go in our Volvo station wagon to hunt for the perfect TV. Our standards for TV's aren't what most people have as standards. It doesn't have to be big, or pretty. It doesn't have to mount on the wall or even have the right color picture. If it doesn't smoke when you turn it on, then it's the one for us. Most of all however, it must, must, must be cheap. That is the number one quality he was looking for in a TV.
After a little looking around, maybe 2 or 3 sales, we happened on one. There it sat. The biggest, ugliest TV I'd ever seen. It was a monster and heavy!!! When Daniel asked the magic words "how much do you want for the TV", he almost fell over when they said "Oh how about $7!". Like any good bargain hunter he never let his eyes betray his excitement, he just nodded and got in the car and we drove on. I'm wondering what in the world we are doing. He wanted to see if there was any better offer anywhere else. We drove to a couple other places, never found anything better, go figure. As we headed back to the place of destiny, he was praying the TV was still there, I was praying another bargain hunter had snatched it away. As we pulled up, he was delighted to see it sitting there.
It was quite a sight seeing the two of us wrestle that gigantic TV into our car, but like all good bargain hunters, you do whatever you can to make it fit. Fit it did, barely, and after shelling out an enormous amount of $7 we were the proud owners of a new TV. To his joy and my dismay, we got it home and it actually worked, an added bonus.
Now that our TV has been a part of our family for a while we are beginning to notice some of it's idiosyncrasies. My daughter has a musical playlist that we run through our Wii and she loves listening to all the princess songs from the Disney movies. Some of these movies have an automatic link to put up the words on the bottom of the screen so you can read the words as well as hear them. This is where the joy of our TV comes in. Our TV is so old that this feature was probably fairly new when they made our particular model, so new that they hadn't worked out all the bugs and translating correctly wasn't a necessity, making for some hilarious bloopers.
As Gracie enjoyed Beauty and the Beasts song "Be our guest" the rest of us that can read were laughing at the translation. If you've enjoyed this movie you will know that the french candlestick sings this song. He's got a thick accent and if you aren't listening carefully you won't understand him. Well, our TV seemed to think it understood him perfectly and boldly declared the lyrics to us without even questioning their validity.
For instance - the song declares - "Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test"
TV translation - "Beef is laugh, dust is best, calling you to test."
As we laughed at the absurdity of many of the lyrics I realized a not so hilarious similarity between me and the TV.
You see, the TV was boldly proclaiming what it thought the song was saying. Many times I refuse to stop and really hear others. I choose to put on my translators and "hear" what I want to hear others saying. If they are saying something I don't necessarily want to hear I just switch on my translators and voila, instant relief as I enjoy what I want to hear instead of what is really being said.
I see this in my kids. This is one of the reasons it's so fun to hear a 2 year old sing a favorite song with their version of the lyrics. They are often silly and non-sensical, cute, worthy of recording, sending in to America's Funniest Videos, maybe even worth $10,000!! However, not so cute when you are 37, grown and fully capable of listening and understanding.
How often do we hear only what we want to hear and not what someone else is saying. I'm desperately desiring to be a better listener.
Adjusting my hearing today.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Cast
We have broken bones in our house.
I'm just going to be really really vulnerable here. This morning I have a cast on. It's not a cast you can see, it's an internal cast on my heart. Here is the analogy.
My son broke his leg a couple years ago. At first we weren't sure it was broken because he seemed to be ok after the initial pain was gone, but after a few hours we realized he was favoring it a bit much and we needed to take him in. He had never broken a bone, so he couldn't communicate that he thought it was broken and being only 7 he wanted to continue playing. Finally we got him into the ER and after x-rays we discovered it was indeed broken. Now there are two things that happen when you get hurt physically. 1- It feels like that one part is 5 times larger than life and pretty much all you can think about. You eat, sleep, play and rest differently than you otherwise would. 2- It seems to be the part that gets bumped more often than it otherwise would. Whether that is true because it is extra sensitive or because it is being used awkwardly doesn't really matter, all that matters is that it hurts, like the dickens and even more so because it is injured.
Now with a broken leg like Micah's you can do two things, you can tell everyone around you about it, making sure they take extra precautions around you, you can hang signs around your neck declaring your injury and eliciting attention, sympathy and usually drawing out in other people the stories of their injuries and painful experiences which leads to a retelling of the incident and proper responses on both sides. After such an interaction the two parties depart leaving each other temporarily relieved that they got to find common ground in their pain, and got to tell their story, but nothing has changed, no healing has happened, in fact it usually leaves the two parties even more sensitive to the existing pain and although the relief can feel temporary it often leaves them more hurt than before because the problem wasn't dealt with, only remembered. Misery loves company.
The second thing you can do is go to the physician. Get an xray, allow the Dr. to see past what we can see with our physical eyes and see what is really going on so that a proper diagnosis can be made. Once the problem has been properly diagnosed then a regimen can be prescribed and true healing can begin. In Micah's case a cast was put on, allowing the offending part to be protected from his environment and his 7 year old lifestyle. He returned to a somewhat normal life with relatively normal activity. Although his cast drew attention it was healing properly and after a while didn't hurt. I have heard that after a bone is broken and healed properly that specific part is actually stronger than before.
The same is true for our hearts and emotions. After years of life and experience (almost 40) I realize everyone has places of wounding, pain, raw insecurity. I even want to be so bold as to say most of us have become experts at ignoring those offending places. We protect, ignore, try to control our environments so that we can keep those hurt places "safe", but life happens and unfortunately we have to live with other people that can't read our minds, remember our places of pain or watch out to keep us pain free.... It's like being in a room with a whole bunch of wounded people and trying to move around without bumping someone's broken leg, arm, head or toe... it's impossible.
Many of us try hanging a sign around our necks declaring our place of pain. This feels so good because we think "if people only knew what I've been through they would treat me differently" or "no one understands my profound pain, it's worse than anyone else's pain and the life they have lived is nothing compared to mine". We reason that we have a "right" to be treated with extra care. When we try to get the proper care from others we find they are also injured and literally incapable of properly caring for our needs. There is wide gambit of dysfunctions that come with this kind of thinking, way to many to get into in depth here, we've all seen the effects.
However, there is a better way. Every once in a while we meet someone that has seen the Physician about their pain. They have gotten a proper diagnosis, have had the root of the pain revealed and a regimen of healing prescribed. They have allowed themselves to be set in a cast and protected like only a Dr. can. Although the cast itself will illicit some attention for a time after a while the healing takes place and when the cast is removed the internal healing has happened and the injury is removed. It has healed properly and can become a place of greater strength than ever before.
I need to go to the Dr. often. I'm getting good at it. If you see me don't ask how I'm healing. My cast is doing it's job and I'm under expert care.
I'm just going to be really really vulnerable here. This morning I have a cast on. It's not a cast you can see, it's an internal cast on my heart. Here is the analogy.
My son broke his leg a couple years ago. At first we weren't sure it was broken because he seemed to be ok after the initial pain was gone, but after a few hours we realized he was favoring it a bit much and we needed to take him in. He had never broken a bone, so he couldn't communicate that he thought it was broken and being only 7 he wanted to continue playing. Finally we got him into the ER and after x-rays we discovered it was indeed broken. Now there are two things that happen when you get hurt physically. 1- It feels like that one part is 5 times larger than life and pretty much all you can think about. You eat, sleep, play and rest differently than you otherwise would. 2- It seems to be the part that gets bumped more often than it otherwise would. Whether that is true because it is extra sensitive or because it is being used awkwardly doesn't really matter, all that matters is that it hurts, like the dickens and even more so because it is injured.
Now with a broken leg like Micah's you can do two things, you can tell everyone around you about it, making sure they take extra precautions around you, you can hang signs around your neck declaring your injury and eliciting attention, sympathy and usually drawing out in other people the stories of their injuries and painful experiences which leads to a retelling of the incident and proper responses on both sides. After such an interaction the two parties depart leaving each other temporarily relieved that they got to find common ground in their pain, and got to tell their story, but nothing has changed, no healing has happened, in fact it usually leaves the two parties even more sensitive to the existing pain and although the relief can feel temporary it often leaves them more hurt than before because the problem wasn't dealt with, only remembered. Misery loves company.
The second thing you can do is go to the physician. Get an xray, allow the Dr. to see past what we can see with our physical eyes and see what is really going on so that a proper diagnosis can be made. Once the problem has been properly diagnosed then a regimen can be prescribed and true healing can begin. In Micah's case a cast was put on, allowing the offending part to be protected from his environment and his 7 year old lifestyle. He returned to a somewhat normal life with relatively normal activity. Although his cast drew attention it was healing properly and after a while didn't hurt. I have heard that after a bone is broken and healed properly that specific part is actually stronger than before.
The same is true for our hearts and emotions. After years of life and experience (almost 40) I realize everyone has places of wounding, pain, raw insecurity. I even want to be so bold as to say most of us have become experts at ignoring those offending places. We protect, ignore, try to control our environments so that we can keep those hurt places "safe", but life happens and unfortunately we have to live with other people that can't read our minds, remember our places of pain or watch out to keep us pain free.... It's like being in a room with a whole bunch of wounded people and trying to move around without bumping someone's broken leg, arm, head or toe... it's impossible.
Many of us try hanging a sign around our necks declaring our place of pain. This feels so good because we think "if people only knew what I've been through they would treat me differently" or "no one understands my profound pain, it's worse than anyone else's pain and the life they have lived is nothing compared to mine". We reason that we have a "right" to be treated with extra care. When we try to get the proper care from others we find they are also injured and literally incapable of properly caring for our needs. There is wide gambit of dysfunctions that come with this kind of thinking, way to many to get into in depth here, we've all seen the effects.
However, there is a better way. Every once in a while we meet someone that has seen the Physician about their pain. They have gotten a proper diagnosis, have had the root of the pain revealed and a regimen of healing prescribed. They have allowed themselves to be set in a cast and protected like only a Dr. can. Although the cast itself will illicit some attention for a time after a while the healing takes place and when the cast is removed the internal healing has happened and the injury is removed. It has healed properly and can become a place of greater strength than ever before.
I need to go to the Dr. often. I'm getting good at it. If you see me don't ask how I'm healing. My cast is doing it's job and I'm under expert care.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)