Tag Archives: personal

70. Talking Too Much

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I talk too much.

This wouldn’t be a problem, except for one small detail: when I talk, most people feel obligated to listen. Some of my acquaintances have probably perfected the art of Tuning Out Adam, but the rest have no choice but to suffer politely through my ramblings, rants and dramatic monologues.

Even after I realized I talk too much, I didn’t think it was a serious fault. Pastors don’t preach sermons about the sin of talkativeness. The Lord Jesus didn’t warn against being too chatty. The Bible doesn’t have anything to say about rampant loquacity.

At least that’s what I thought.

Once, years ago, I contradicted a high school teacher about a passage of Scripture. A grim expression came over his face. He busted out a Bible. One of my classmates whispered, “Oh, Adam’s about to get Scripture-owned.” As it turned out, my teacher was absolutely correct. I was chastened, humbled and embarrassed.

Pretty much the same thing happened in regard to my tendency to talk too much.

Much to my discomfort, I kept finding verses in Scripture that suggest talking too much is a foolish thing to do.

Solomon had all kinds of things to say in the book of Proverbs.

“When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.”

“A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered.”

“Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.”

New Testament writers were equally eloquent upon the subject.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen,” wrote the Apostle Paul.

“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,” wrote James the brother of Jesus.

Most discomforting were words spoken by the Lord Jesus himself: “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.”

Wait, I’ll have to give account for every careless word I’ve spoken? Every careless word I’ve ever spoken?

Dash it.

Once again, I got Scripture-owned.

One of my resolutions for this year is not to talk quite so much. Have I broken this resolution? Yes, yes I have. I’m still working on it.

64. The Fear of Not Being Perfect

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Do you ever suffer from the fear of not being perfect?

I do.

In fact, the fear of not being perfect has been one of my greatest struggles.

My Thursday Afternoon of the Soul, a year and a half of intense depression, occurred partly because I was constantly afraid that I wasn’t good enough.

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned impacted me so deeply because I was focused on trying to be perfect instead of trying to help others.

I’ve still got my fair share of qualms, struggles and insecurities, but I’m no longer afraid that God will abandon me if I make too many mistakes.

(That’s a really good thing, ’cause I make lots of mistakes.)

I’m still trying to reconcile myself to the fact that certain areas of my life are less than perfect. Some things are beyond my control: my tragic inability to grow a beard, for example. Other things, things over which I have a little more control, frustrate me because I want them to be perfect and they aren’t.

I wonder how many people have given up on something because they weren’t perfect.

I wonder how many violin players have stopped practicing because their performances never sounded exactly right. I wonder how many painters have thrown away their brushes because they were tired of finding flaws in their paintings. I wonder how many poets have quit writing poetry because their poems were met with criticism or disinterest.

Sometimes it’s best to give up on something. If a hobby is costing extravagant amounts of time, money or effort, and clearly going nowhere, perhaps it’s wise to let it go. But I think we sometimes kill our dreams before they have a chance to grow.

For example, when I write, my greatest hindrance is the nagging conviction that writing is just a colossal waste of time. An insidious little voice whispers, You’re investing so much time and effort in your writing, and for what purpose? Your writing is full of faults. Nobody will read it. Your novel is clichéd. Nobody will buy it. Your blog is pointless. Nobody will like it. There are tens of thousands of better writers out there. You should spend your time doing something worthwhile.

I think pretty much every person has heard that voice. Some people listen to it. Some people refuse to listen.

Blogger Jon Acuff is one of the people who has refused to listen. “The road to awesome always leads through the land of horrible,” he wrote. “Go be horrible at something. It’s the only way to be awesome at everything.”

Web cartoonist Wes Molebash is another such person. “There will be many obstacles on your road to success,” he wrote, “so don’t build your own.”

Amateur animator JKR is yet another such person. “Don’t worry about failing,” he wrote. “You’re going to, and it’s okay. Just learn from whatever you don’t get quite right.”

Perseverance, I keep telling myself, is a much better quality that perfectionism.

I recently saw Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of The Adventures of Tintin, and one of its characters offered a wise piece of advice.

“There are plenty of others willing to call you a failure,” he said. “Don’t you ever say it of yourself.”

58. Gangster Pastors

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One of my most prized possessions is a weather-stained, gray cloth cap. If my residence ever burns down, this cap is one of the first things I will try to rescue from the flames. I call it my gangster cap, not because it fits the so-called gangster style, but because a gangster—or rather, an ex-gangster—gave it to me.

I was touched when my ex-gangster friend, whom I’ll call Miguel, gave me his cap, because it has great sentimental value for him. He had once lost it while plunging into a gully to escape from a rival gang. It lay at the bottom of the ravine for four months until he sneaked back to retrieve it.

Miguel was a car thief and a gang leader in Quito, the capital of Ecuador and the city of my birth. Besides his other crimes, Miguel occasionally worked for Mama Lucha, a notorious criminal kingpin. (I guess she should actually be called a queenpin since she was a woman.)

On one occasion, Miguel and his comrades tried to steal a long sheet metal sign welded to a pedestrian bridge. Unfortunately for them, they weren’t able to divide the sign into pieces as they’d planned. In the end they had to carry it whole through the streets of Quito, weaving furtively through city streets like some sort of monstrous metal centipede.

Miguel is currently happily married, working at a government job in Quito and ministering as a lay leader in his church.

It is a source of amazement, amusement and wonder to me how many of the church leaders I knew in Ecuador are former gangsters, thieves or occultists.

I’m not using real names in this post in order to protect the privacy of the leaders whose stories I’m sharing. I assure you, however, that to the best of my knowledge all of these stories are accurate, factual and true.

Paco is a kind, gentle and fiercely amiable pastor from the coast of Ecuador. Like King Saul in the Old Testament, Paco is about a head taller than everyone around him. His skin is black, his frame is muscular and his cheek is scarred by a gash from a knife. He used to be a thief on the streets.

Armed with a knife, Paco once accosted a girl at night with the intention of taking her money. The girl, who was a Christian, began talking with him about God. Although it was a long time before Paco would know Christ, he eventually put away the knife and escorted the girl to her home because—as he explained—it was a dangerous neighborhood and he didn’t want her to get robbed.

Paco eventually wound up in prison. Some of his fellow prisoners were personal enemies who wanted to kill him. However, before they had the opportunity, Paco was released. He didn’t know how or why—the only hint he received was a vague explanation that “some lawyer” had made all the necessary arrangements. What those arrangements were, and who the lawyer was, he doesn’t know to this day. It has been suggested to him that the lawyer might have been an angel. He doesn’t deny the possibility.

Then there’s Luís, another ex-criminal from the Ecuadorian coast. His skin is black, which makes his dazzling white smile all the more striking. Luís is a fantastic storyteller, and my dad has been privileged to hear accounts of several of his escapades.

Luís, while stoned on drugs, once tried to murder another man, also stoned. Having crept up on him from behind, Luís put a pistol to the man’s head and pulled the trigger. The gun misfired. Luís examined the pistol, peering blearily into its barrel, while his victim sat peacefully unaware of the attempt being made on his life. Luís tried again to murder his victim. The gun didn’t go off, but this time the man realized what was happening and fled shrieking while Luís resumed his bewildered examination of the gun.

On another occasion, Luís entered a church and sat down—only for a huge army knife to fall out of his shirt and hit the concrete floor with a thunk. Nearly every head turned to look at him, and a little old lady sitting nearby picked up the knife and sweetly gave it back to him.

A turning point came when a taxi crashed into a light pole as Luís leaned against it. The pole absorbed most of the impact, but Luís flew a considerable distance and landed hard. Just a few minutes later he met a Christian lady from his neighborhood. “Did something just happen to you?” she asked. “God told me to pray for you five minutes ago, so I did.”

After Luís became a Christian, two attempts were made on his life, once with a pistol and once with a sawed-off shotgun. The guns misfired both times—two more miraculous interventions.

All three of these church leaders have told my dad that they’re grateful to God for never letting them kill anybody. They all came frighteningly close to it. Looking back, they can see the hand of God at work in their lives, even when they didn’t care for him.

I believe, if we look hard enough, most of us can see the hand of God at work in our own lives.

I know I can.

54. Random Notes of Appreciation

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Long, long ago, when I was just a freshman in high school, I was surprised to find a note tucked behind the latch on my school locker. It was written neatly on an index card folded in half vertically.

I didn’t know what it was, but I had a suspicion—a delirious, delightful suspicion. At age fourteen, having never experienced the charms of epistolary romance, I believed I had received a love letter.

The note stayed in my pocket all morning. I resolved not to read it until my lunch break, when I could examine it without being interrupted. My excitement grew hour by hour until it was almost too much to bear. When at last the bell rang for lunch, I ran home, bolted my food and dashed upstairs to my bedroom to read the note.

It wasn’t a love letter, but it turned out to be something even better.

A student in my Spanish class—I’ll call her Socrates—had written the message on the index card. It was a note of encouragement, an expression of appreciation ending with God bless you or some other kindly wish.

I kept that note for years.

I haven’t seen Socrates since she graduated from high school six or seven years ago, but I’m still grateful for her note. It was an encouragement at a time when I felt uncertain and out of place.

Why have I dredged up this story from the distant past?

It occurred to me that there are a lot of people whom I admire and appreciate. If I were somehow killed—run over by a car or shot in a robbery or murdered by Colonel Mustard in the library with the lead pipe—some of those people might never know how much they were admired and appreciated.

Inspired by the memory of Socrates’ note, I set about writing RNA.

RNA stands for Random Notes of Appreciation, by the way. Please don’t confuse it with ribonucleic acid.

(While we’re on the subject, please don’t mix up TMTF and TMNT.)

Writing RNA gave me a deeper thankfulness for some of the people in my life. If I’m someday slain by a car or a robber or the Mustard of my doom, some of those people will know that I admired and appreciated them. Most importantly, there is always the chance that some of those people were encouraged by the notes they received, just as I was encouraged by the note from Socrates long ago.

(I award +75 bonus points to anyone who caught the Fawful reference in the last paragraph.)

This is just a guess, but you can probably think of people whom you admire and appreciate—people who may not know how much you admire and appreciate them—people who may treasure a note from you for years.

I encourage you to try writing a few RNA as we begin the new year. It’s quick, easy and simple, and it’s amazing how much it can encourage, comfort and uplift.

51. Crying over Spilt Tea

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Uncle Iroh, a fictional character whom I hold in high regard, once remarked tearfully, “I know you’re not supposed to cry over spilt tea, but it’s just so sad.”

There’s an idiom about crying over spilt milk, but I agree with Iroh—spilt tea is much, much sadder. If I spill a cup of tea, tears flow like a river and anguished sobs sound forth like peals of thunder.

All right, I exaggerate. But the waste of a cup of tea certainly causes me some regret. It’s awful to lose something good irrevocably because of a mistake.

I lost a lot of good things this year—things much better than tea, and that’s saying something. Hours that could have been spent reading or writing or praying were wasted pointlessly lounging around the house or aimlessly surfing the Internet. Words that should not have been spoken were, and words that should have been spoken were not. Dreams were choked by anxiety or laziness before they could grow.

Looking back, I realize I’ve spilt a good deal of tea.

I don’t know whether anyone else is ever burdened with regrets, but I am sometimes. It’s so dashed easy to look back and say to myself, “You certainly made a mess of that, you blasted fool,” or “You had an opportunity to do something amazing, and you missed it.” Trying to let go of regrets seems irresponsible. “You made those mistakes,” I tell myself. “You’re just going to have to live with them.”

Fortunately, the Apostle Paul took quite a different view. Paul, whom I hold in even higher regard than Uncle Iroh, was quite a wise fellow. He once wrote, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Wait, what?

Forgetting what is behind? Straining toward what is ahead?

Seriously?

Awesome.

So we can live without clinging to regrets. Now what?

According to some people, the ancient Mayans predicted the world will end in 2012. Even if the Mayans did predict such a thing (which is pretty doubtful) I don’t put any confidence in their ability to foretell the future. The Mayans held human sacrifices, after all, so their views about the world were probably a little skewed.

Assuming the Mayans were wrong about the world ending in 2012, I’m going to head into the new year without any regrets about the past. There’s a saying about starting off each day with a clean slate. While it’s a little trite, I’m beginning to think that saying is also quite sensible.

It’s no good crying over spilt tea. It’s far better just to clean up the mess and brew another cup.

Speaking of which, all these metaphors are making me thirsty.

40. To My Dear Friends at Bethel College, IN

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Anyone is welcome to read it, but this post is intended for my dear friends at Bethel College, IN.

My time at Bethel College has been excellent: sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, always interesting. I’ve learned a good deal about English, pedagogy, writing, relationships, faith, coffee, culture, grammar and literature. I’ve also learned a good deal about myself, which has surprised me a little—at the beginning of college, I thought I knew this person named Adam Stück after wearing his clothes, drinking his tea and generally living his life for eighteen years.

One of the things I thought I knew about Adam Stück was that he was an introverted, solitary sort of person who wouldn’t find many close friends at Bethel College. He might develop friendships, but probably not any deep, lasting relationships. As a missionary kid, he had spent too many years moving around—or staying in one place as his friends moved around—to form many strong attachments.

I thought I knew Adam Stück pretty well, but I was wrong.

Here’s the thing.

I didn’t know that I, Adam Stück, would make quite a number of friends—or rather, that quite a number of people would graciously decide to make me a friend.

I didn’t know that my friends would give me coffee cups, coffeemakers, cookies, candy, brownies, pies, parties, tea, stuffed chickens, books about ninjas or pictures of Uncle Iroh.

I didn’t know that my friends would put up with my remarks that seemed witty until I said them or my long ramblings about my writing or my vicious tirades against Twilight and crazy fundamentalist protesters.

I didn’t know that my friends would be willing to share their lives with me, whether in long conversations or pleasant cups of tea or epic bouts of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

I didn’t know that my friends would be so quick to hug me or so patient when I grumbled about being hugged.

To wit, I didn’t know that my friends would be so kind, loyal, honest, generous, patient, fun or just plain awesome.

But they were. And they are.

My friends, you deserve all the points in the world. Thank you for everything. God bless you. Keep up the awesomeness. Drink much tea. Keep in touch.

With that, I take my leave.

39. Coffee (and Other Things for Which I’m Thankful)

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I’m thankful for coffee. I think there may actually have been three trees in the Garden of Eden—the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Tree of Life and the Coffee Tree—and God in his mercy allowed Adam and Eve to enjoy the Coffee Tree even after they had forfeited their right to the others.

All right, that apocryphal bit of Bible trivia is completely fictitious. Probably. Even so, coffee is a blessing of God and something for which I’m very thankful. It’s not the only thing. There are a lot of things for which I thank God. Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, this seems like a good time to mention a few of them.

I’m thankful for my friends, who brighten my existence.

I’m thankful for tea, which is every bit as heavenly and delicious as coffee.

I’m thankful for Bethel College and the financial aid that has allowed me to graduate.

I’m thankful for J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and all the other wonderful authors whose first and middle names are always initialed.

I’m thankful for the daily necessities of life, which God has never failed to provide for me.

I’m thankful for storytelling and creative writing, without which life wouldn’t be one half so interesting.

I’m thankful for humor, without which life wouldn’t be one half so tolerable.

I’m thankful for my family and relatives, who have put up with me patiently for more than twenty-one years.

I’m thankful for a God who makes things right.

For what are you thankful? Let us know in the comments!

31. The Art of Blundering Hopefully

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I like gloomy characters. Well, I like gloomy fictional characters; gloomy characters aren’t nearly as likable in real life as they are in fiction. There’s something strangely endearing about pessimists and their pessimism, so long as I don’t have to deal with them personally.

Puddleglum from C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair is one of my favorites. “Good morning Guests,” he says to the protagonists after they spend the night in his home. “Though when I say good I don’t mean it won’t probably turn to rain or it might be snow, or fog, or thunder. You didn’t get any sleep, I daresay.”

Then there’s Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and Eeyore from the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A.A. Milne, and Bernard Walton from the Adventures in Odyssey radio series, and a dozen more delightfully depressing characters from all sorts of stories.

The problem with pessimism is that it’s not nearly so pleasant in real life. It’s difficult to put up with pessimists—and it’s much worse to be a pessimist.

Some time ago I realized something important. (I was actually going to write about it weeks ago, but decided not to post too many serious reflections in a row.) What I realized was simple—so simple I couldn’t believe I had overlooked it for so long.

I had become a pessimist. Not a nice, lovable pessimist like Puddleglum or Eeyore, but a genuine, depressed pessimist.

I suspect my long, dark Thursday Afternoon of the Soul, a year and a half of intense depression and anxiety, had conditioned me to expect only the worst. I expected the worst from myself, wrestling with insecurity and self-doubt. I expected the worst from life, living in anxiety of whatever difficulties lay ahead. I expected the worst from God, struggling to believe he could really be as gracious, loving and generous as he claims. Every trial confirmed my belief that life was a dreary business, and every blessing made me suspect there were strings attached.

Since recognizing my tendency toward pessimism, I’ve been working to perfect the fine art of blundering hopefully.

We don’t have to live in perpetual fear of the future. It holds difficulties, true, but it also holds blessings. It’s certainly no good worrying about the difficulties. We can only deal with them as they come. In the meantime our business is to trust God and do our best: believing that his grace is greater than our mistakes, trusting that he will walk with us through our difficulties, holding on to his promise that his love endures forever—to wit, blundering hopefully.

So I’m doing my best not to burden myself with guilt for past mistakes or live in fear of future ones. By faith I blunder onward, trusting that God’s grace is sufficient for me.

God’s grace is sufficient for you too, in case you were wondering.

28. The Bend in the Road

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I really like Anne of Green Gables. Although I don’t usually enjoy sentimental stories about little girls growing up, there’s something about the book that strikes a chord with me. It could be that Anne Shirley (whose first name must never be spelled without the e) and her friend Matthew Cuthbert are delightful characters. It could be that Anne of Green Gables paints a beautiful picture of a simpler time, a time without Facebook or cell phones, when people took time to talk to each other and read books for the fun of it.

Whatever the reason, Anne of Green Gables is a favorite of mine.

One of my favorite moments in the book comes in one of the final chapters. Anne’s future plans, which had seemed so certain, are suddenly thrown into serious question. Rather than give up in despair, Anne decides to regard her misfortune as an adventure: “My future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does.”

My own plans for Life After College were pretty straightforward until a few months ago. I was going to apply for a job at my old high school in Ecuador, teach English and write novels until retiring and settling in California or Florida. Everything was neatly planned, and I didn’t doubt for a moment that things would work out precisely as I wanted them to.

Then my application to the high school was turned down. My future plans were no longer crystal clear, unless that crystal happened to be an especially foggy variety of quartz. I was discouraged for a little while, but it finally occurred to me that not knowing exactly what the future holds is kind of exciting. Terrifying, yes, but also kind of exciting.

I’ve been student teaching for the last eleven weeks, struggling to survive grading, lesson planning, sleep deprivation, faculty meetings, miscellaneous paperwork and the actual business of standing in front of students and teaching them things. It was like walking through thick fog: it was hard to see far behind or ahead, to think about the past or speculate about the future. Day by day all I could see was the road right in front of me.

Yesterday was my last day of student teaching. I’ve a few weeks of seminars and paperwork and whatnot, but I’m almost done with college. It was a little strange to emerge from the fog of student teaching and realize there’s still a long road ahead of me. Like Anne Shirley’s road, it isn’t straight. There’s a bend in it, and I haven’t the slightest idea of what’s waiting for me beyond it.

But I’m not worried. The Lord has led me this far, and I know he will continue to lead me to wherever he wants me to be. As the old hymn says, ’tis grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.

I just hope there are coffee shops along the way.

—

A note for those who know me personally and are wondering what my immediate plans are: I will be leaving Bethel College toward the end of November and staying with my parents and younger brother in Uruguay. I intend to search for a teaching position in South America, work seriously on a couple of novels, improve my Spanish, drink lots of coffee and spend time with my beloved family.

26. A Lesson from My Students

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My monkeys and I now have a Twitter account. I suppose it was only a matter of time. Is it possible to tweet using typewriters?

I’m just a week away from finishing student teaching. I still have a few weeks of paperwork and seminars and whatnot, but seven days from this moment I’ll have finished my work in the classroom. The last ten weeks have been stressful, rewarding, exhausting and interesting.

Especially interesting has been my time with the MEC students, kids whom the school considers at-risk—in danger of dropping out of classes due to misbehavior or failing grades. I felt rather apprehensive about working with at-risk kids, but some of them turned out to be pretty awesome. Granted, others turned out not to be awesome at all. Most of them fell somewhere in between, alternating between diligence and laziness, respect and disrespect, cooperation and insubordination.

Friday was my last day in the MEC classroom; in the week to come I’ll be phasing out of my other classes. I was reflecting upon my time with the MEC students, and it occurred to me that working with at-risk students presented two major frustrations.

First was when the MEC students refused to accept the consequences of their actions. They would break a rule half a dozen times, ignoring all warnings, and whine about the unfairness of it all when they finally received the penalty for their misbehavior.

Second was when the MEC students complained about school: it was boring to read a short story, stupid to learn vocabulary instead of playing games on the computer, impossible to sit and work quietly for forty-five minutes. No matter how often we tried to explain that school is not pointless, that they need a high school diploma to qualify for most jobs, that they can’t spend the rest of their lives living with their parents and playing video games—in short, that school is actually meant to help them—they wouldn’t listen.

It would be pretty easy to judge the MEC students, except for one little point. It occurred to me a day or two ago that I do the exact same thing.

If I have a bad day, I tend to feel put upon. I wonder grumpily why God lets unpleasant things happen to me. What I forget is that many of those unpleasant things are the consequences of my own mistakes, and many more of those unpleasant things are actually helping me in the long run. Yes, I might feel tired and unfocused all day, but it’s because I was up so late the night before watching trailers on YouTube. True, I might be totally worn out by a rough day of student teaching, but it’s teaching me to handle the responsibilities of being an English teacher.

Not all bad things are the result of my own mistakes, but some are. Not all bad things are part of the painful process by which God makes me a better person, but some are. Instead of grumbling and groaning and griping, I need to endure patiently.

That’s a lesson from my at-risk students, and a lesson I hope they can learn too.