by Al Van Dyk | Jan 20, 2019 | Attitude is Everything
I thought you were dead!
~ John Fain, bad guy
How do you want your story to end? Consider Big Jake! The storyline is familiar, an unlikely hero emerges seemingly from out of nowhere to right a wrong and punish the villain. Jacob had a stake in the outcome of this fight but was disengaged and aloof. When he did engage, those engulfed in the battle questioned his sincerity and commitment. Jacob prevailed in such a fashion that even the villain was unsure who he was and had to ask, “Who are you anyway?”
Gaps Force Change
Are we almost there? It’s those four dreaded words emanating from the back seat of an SUV that can make even the most seasoned traveler cringe. We like to think that those we travel with have the same understanding of the complexities of our journeys and this distance we must travel. Seldom is that the case, maybe because we don’t fully understand it ourselves until the scenery has changed and the familiar is a distant memory.
It’s like living in a gap, a valley between the mountains. For those in the club, many of you have been where I recently found myself, suspended between conflicting ideas of what I can do and what I no longer can; of what is realistic and what is idealistic. It’s a place where simple hobbies and interest that used to bring enjoyment now add an unnecessary risk of harm to myself and to those around me.
Living On the Edge
It is in the gap where victory celebrations are forgotten, where words of encouragement are just that, mere words without passion now muffled by stiff fingers. It is a place where actions are hindered by another sleepless night. Many of you know all too well to which I speak. It is the realization that there is something fundamentally different about us as a result of our journey; a journey that keeps us at the edge of the abyss.
It is in this place of darkness that breeds a toxic mix of anger and bitterness that clouds our judgment. The same bitterness, when we give it unfettered access to our very essence, our soul, will influence our decision-making process, crowding out virtues such as hope and faith. It is these virtues that we desperately need to be victorious over the challenges we encounter each day.
The question stands. “Who are you, anyway?”
Accidental Victories
Every warrior knows that the battles we fight will be won before the day begins; each of us must begin with the heartfelt belief that, today, we can overcome the challenges we face, and we will stifle the attitudes that do us harm. Victories don’t come by accident. They are the result of many hard-fought battles that require nothing short of trench warfare, fighting tooth and nail at every turn to protect what we have and reclaim what we lost.
How do you want your story to end?
Living Our Story
The epitaph on his gravestone reads:
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life.
Comes into us at midnight very clean.
It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands.
It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.
~ John Wayne a.k.a Jacob McCandles
Are you ready? Are you prepared to leave the gap? It can start today.
–<O>–
Thanks for reading, liking – feel free to share it if you must,
Ivy wants me to take her shopping. She is dreaming of new weaponry.
Al and his faithful, but overzealous sidekick, Ivy the wonder pup.
It’s a holster — for your scoop, Ivy. You didn’t think I was going to carry that thing, did you?
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Al Van Dyk | Dec 30, 2018 | Attitude is Everything
If you don’t think that your life reads like a story, guess again! We have a tendency to think that our lives are linear because that’s the way that we live; Tuesday always follows Monday, just as June follows May. If you take a step back, you will notice that your story may intersect with someone who was instrumental during those defining moments, even if the occurrences are months, years or even decades apart. If it were possible to strip off the unintentional boundaries we place on our story, how do you think it would read like?
An Old Friend
About a generation ago, someone entered my life who thought differently and saw the world differently than anyone I had ever met before. He was looking for part-time work so he could finish college. I was looking for an employee. He, along with his wife and young children, moved to West side of Michigan from the East side; a distance of only 120-miles but decades in terms of cultural nuances.
I grew up in a bubble, one defined by its Dutch heritage and theological ties to a particular Protestant denomination and the expectation that I would strive for inclusion in one of its many cliques. The rules were many, the rationale behind most were ambiguous, and at the time my willingness to fall lock-step into its rigid life-style was non-existent. It toed the line so I would not embarrass my parents, however, blinded by arrogance, I did so anyway. Growing up, the bubble was all I knew and I was not alone.
Our families were close and I decided to hire him not because he was like me but because he was nothing like me. He was an academic with the heart of a teacher enrolled in a rigid Master’s of Theology program at a nearby Seminary. I had a past that bordered on drinking excessively, working tirelessly, and barely making it through high school, which I did in spite of two “D’s” in Art and Phys. Ed., respectively.
It was he that planted the seed that education was a worthy investment of my time and treasure. The months he worked for me turned into years, and during those years our lives, and those of our families, became even more intertwined. Soon he graduated, and in a matter of a few months, he and his family moved away.
It was after he and his family moved away I realized there was something missing, even though I wasn’t sure what it was. It took me a few years, but ironically, I found myself enrolled in an accredited Bachelor’s of Business Administration program. In my mid-thirties, married with two small girls, I was officially a college student. He had left his mark.
A Blast from the Past
We lost touch during the next few decades, having spoken to each other only a few times in a span of twenty years. I learned through FaceBook of all things, that he moved back to the East side of the state. Coincidently, I often find myself on the East side. I made the bold move to try to reconnect. He agreed and we decided to meet for lunch.
I didn’t know what to expect since we hadn’t spoken in at least 15 years. That all changed when a familiar face approached my table. His greeting was sincere, “It’s great to see you.” He sat down, and without effort, we picked up where we left off. It was as if time stopped and now restarted.
The elephant didn’t arrive for some time, but it did; it always does. It was he that brought up the subject. I choked down my emotions and told him that it’s true. In the blink of an eye, we jumped forward 20-years, but for those brief moments, I was able to forget my recent past and was given the freedom to relive my distant past.
When we said our goodbyes, he mentioned that I was one of the few in his life with whom he could have a normal conversation. Standing before me, an intellectual grasshopper, was someone I considered a giant, the Master, who valued my friendship. Who would have thought that I, too, left my mark?
It’s Your Story
There is fluidity in this narrative when you tell it like a story. In about 900 words, I was able to span thirty plus years with sufficient detail that you and I could make a connection. If I were a gambling person, I would wager that most, if not all, of you were able to recall a similar friendship with someone in your life. If so, my story is now connected to yours.
The story of our lives is not a secret to hold…it’s a story to be told. Why does it matter?
Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading and liking — share it if you must.
Ivy, not every story will come with pictures. Sometimes you need to use your imagination.
Al and his faithful, but pictorially enable sidekick, Ivy the wonder pup
You imagine that my friend looks like the guy on your favorite TV show with spooky eyes, who lives in a monastery and teaches young boys Marshall Arts? You’re good.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Al Van Dyk | Nov 22, 2018 | Family and Friends
Great friendships are formed not so we can be somebody, but so we can be ourselves.
~ Al Van Dyk – Husband, Father, Renaissance Man and Average Joe
I have a secret, in fact, I have many. I’m sure that I am not the only one who keeps their past guarded, zipped up tighter than Newman’s mailbag. It’s okay. I really don’t need to know about your past and I presume that you will offer me the same smattering of grace. If there is something that I am hiding from you and you are hiding from me, we are equals, would you agree? But what if we are not supposed to keep our past a secret? What if The Story of our Lives is Not a Secret to Hold but a Story to be Told?
Secrets Equalize
I have Parkinson’s. Okay, it’s not much of a secret. It has been one of the worst kept secrets, ranking right up there with tips on how to get in on the initial public offering of High Times. In the case of those coveted stocks, as long as the company can keep their dirt a secret, their silence is the great equalizer putting both of us on a level playing field. As long as there are enough stocks to go around, we are both good with each other. If neither you nor I have inside information, there is parity between us, but if I know something that you don’t, no such parity exists. And where there is no parity, there is no peace.
There is something appealing about maintaining secrecy. We can make assumptions about what secrets others hold close, and choose to let them into our world or keep them at bay. On a recent trip, I needed to catch a cab to the airport. On the way, the driver and I started to make small talk to fill the awkward silence in the car. Out of curiosity, I asked the driver how long he had been driving. He responded, “Only a few months.” Next, he proceeded to tell me that he had just retired from a high-level position in one of the many branches of government that conduct secret missions all around the world. As he was speaking, my mind must have drifted a bit because the only thing I remember saying when he asked me what I do for a living was “Yeah, me too.”
What are the chances that two people that spent their entire careers doing top-secret work all around the world would meet in a taxi in an undisclosed city traveling to an airport that I am not at liberty to identify? In hindsight, I have my doubts the driver believed me.
Secrets Protect
Not all of the secrets that we keep are for our protection, some we keep for the protection of those we care about. We think that we can protect them from what they may see or hear. Case in point, a friend invited me to have breakfast with him. Even though I have only known him for a relatively short time, there is an uncommon transparency in our relationship. I am not sure how or why it happened so quickly, but it did.
He knew the highlights of my life but I knew very little about his. Growing up in a bubble, I had the misconception that those with whom I cross paths lived in a similar bubble. When he began to share with me his story, he kept me at the treetops, never delving into the details. Yet he said enough for me to appreciate his candor and openness, and in doing so, conveyed this powerful message: We all have a story, and it’s likely that it is much different from what others think that it is.
The next few minutes felt like hours, as he took pieces of my story that I had shared with him and weaved them together into a picture of someone I didn’t recognize; one of a person with tenacity and resolve, who brings with him a message of hope. Ironically it’s these same attributes, that I am drawn to in those I respect and admire, that he found in my story. He left me with this challenge — It’s time to let go, it’s time to tell my story.
Secrets Destroy
There are a few people that I was once very close to, that I never told that I had Parkinson’s. I just drifted off. I let my secret, as poorly kept as it is, destroy my friendships. I let my secret take the place of transparency for reasons that still elude me.
I have a story, one that has taken me places I never intended to go and to impact others and be impacted in ways that I never thought possible. How can, or why should, I deny a narrative that few can fathom and far fewer could endure. But then again, there are so many more, like my friend, that lived through pain and abuse on a scale that I cannot fathom and am doubtful that I could endure.
Secrets Revealed
I have a secret, in fact, I have many. But so do most, if not all, of you. In all honesty, the jury is still out as far as what I will do with them. In the past, I used them to build walls, so impenetrable that they could withstand a band of rogue Trojans fleeing from a defunct trade-school in California. Now, those same barriers seem unnatural and unhealthy. So, now what?
Can I live with shallow and superficial friendships based on half-truths, tall tales, or is it tails, and outright lies? Do I take my cues from the likes of C. S. Lewis, and other dead European Inklings? Or should I opt for a hip, soulless, contemporary voice of our time? Funny, John Boehner never came to mind as hip or contemporary.
Welcome to my extraordinary life! Thanks for reading, liking, and sharing!
Good Idea, Ivy, we can sell our story, and T-shirts, too. Do you want to go on tour — to California? You do realize that California is still part of AmeriKa?
Al and his faithful, and intercontinental sidekick, Ivy the wonder pup.
Nice catch on the spelling error, Ivy. It’s good to see that all those years of homeschooling paying off.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Al Van Dyk | Nov 10, 2018 | Attitude is Everything
The Antithesis of the Way We Were
There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
~ C. S. Lewis; Scholar, Novalist, Apologist
Great memories are made when we least expect them. Do you long to return to the days when your cheerleading outfit was a symbol of your place in the social order, or the size of the engine in your hot-rod was your best pick up line? If so, you may be missing out on the best that is yet to come. To hold on tightly to our past, longing for yesterday negates the prospect that the future can offer an even better life. We sell ourselves short when we think only in terms of what once was, instead of what can be.
Unstoppable
There will be times that we want everything around us to stop so that we can take in the sights, the scenery or the sounds. But stagnation is not our friend; whatever it was that we want to hold on to tightly, will soon lose its appeal. When we look past the present, our here and now, to what the future has to offer, our focus can change from what it is that serves as a tether to what it will take to propel us forward.
Do you have a sense of purpose that is unstoppable? How can we shed attitudes that breed complacency and replace them with ones that foster optimism? Can the malaise, the uneasiness we see in our circumstances, be pushed aside and yield to intentionality and momentum? What will it take to gain traction and Inertia that make us passionate and unstoppable?
Consider these words from C. S. Lewis:
We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore, draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.
We don’t get to choose when we encounter a fork. Forks happen, and all too often we see them as an obstacle to overcome, forced upon us when we may be at a personal or professional low point. Frequently, it is when we are in these troughs, in the worst condition to make decisions, that we are forced to choose between forks that will be the most consequential.
Ironically, when confronted with possible life-changing decisions about our future, we draw from our past, taking stock of the unique talents and treasures with which we have been entrusted. When we are able to leverage experiences from our past, harness our insatiable drive for a better life, applying lessons we have learned, we can boldly embrace the unforeseeable with a sense of purpose and passion.
Unapologetic
Still, there is a time and a place to live in the here and now, and quite possibly it’s place is where you find yourself, and it’s time is now. A friend of mine, himself a member of the club, reminded me just the other day that sometimes you have to stop and smell the gunpowder. Offensive as his comments may be to those who lean left, his words struck a cord, serving as a reminder to carve out time in our quest to attain dominion over our sandbox to live in the moment.
Great memories are made when we least expect them, just as great friendships are formed not so we can be somebody but only when we find those with whom we can be ourselves.
It was C. S. Lewis who wrote:
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.
Looking back over the years, I have encountered many forks, and those I have taken with the support and encouragement of friends and family, have been the most memorable. The forks I have taken, I have done so without regret!
Unmistakeable
Each morning, when I walk into my new office, I see before me a reminder of how my life is different from what I thought it would be. The view out my window is a panoramic scene of Muskegon Lake that reminds me of how my goals have changed and how I have changed. I have a fond memory of a wind-less summer Saturday afternoon on that very lake many years ago that Lisa and I spent on my sailboat looking for even the slightest breeze that would get us back on course.
The lack of wind, in its own way, was a fork that brought about change, incremental as it was that put me on a course that was neither fathomable nor imaginable. Had I dropped the sails and started the engine, I would have missed out on what is now a fond memory of a time when I was naive and idealistic, and my goals were far less virtuous and my motives less pure. But that story is for another time — maybe.
Welcome to my extraordinary life! Thanks for reading, liking, and sharing!
You will have to forgive Ivy. She is pouting since I put a stop to her version of Go Fish.
Al and his faithful, but unsportsmanlike sidekick, Ivy the wonder pup.
Sorry Ivy, until you learn to “release” you will have to fish off the dock
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Al Van Dyk | Oct 15, 2018 | Pivot Points
Meet Lewis, a young boy from a broken home with a brilliant mind, is on a mission to make something of his life. Along the way, he encounters some that encourage, telling him to look past his “failures” and learn from each and to keep moving forward, and others who would rather exploit his gifts, talents, and insecurities for their personal gain. Impatience and setbacks thwart Lewis’ progress, each lending credence to his doubts. Sound all too familiar, a simple exercise in taking the shortest distance between two points becomes a test of patience and resolve? Where did the year go?
Are We Moving Yet?
Greetings from the flight deck. This is your honorary captain speaking. Today’s flight from O’Hare back home to Grand Rapids will be a short 27-minutes that when lumped together with a 45 minute cattle call, another 35 minute “pause” on the tarmac while we reboot the planes navigation system, and taxying through three zip-codes, should get you on the ground in about 5 hours and 36 minutes. Yes, that would be 2 hours longer than it would have taken to make the drive in a Chevy Volt.
When this adventure started, we were sure that the road we were on would take us places that we wanted to go, but soon discovered that it might not be as direct as we would like. Try to imagine a scenic drive through the mountains only to find that the bridge over the gorge is out; the detour signs are missing, stolen by a drunken Sparty in search of kindling for an unexpected victory celebration; and the nearest truck stop replaced its entire map display with Where’s Waldo books and short-lived Disney experiments. Ironic and applicable, but neither useful in addressing our immediate needs.
The Quest
Occasionally, we lose sight of the fact that with an extraordinary life will come with the everyday frustrations and the all too common malaise that keeps our feet glued to the floor. Those in the club will know all too well of the sensation to which I am referring. It is this innate desire for an extraordinary life that prompts us to retrain our brains to keep moving forward, walking with intentionality, sharpening our focus on what lies ahead, instead of looking back over our shoulder to see what’s keeping us tethered to our past.
There are lessons we can learn from our journey, or quests if you will –pardon my shameless plug. Maybe its something about ourselves we didn’t know or did know but didn’t feel compelled to address; a subtle nuance validating how the world actually works, or even a reminder that there are those that we encounter along the way who don’t always have our best interest in mind.
As this chapter comes to a close, there are lessons I learned that I will never forget. This year, my life was touched by some extraordinary people, who selflessly extended a word of encouragement, a subtle act of generosity or a gentle glance across the room affirming their solidarity; all selfless acts of kindness, gifts from compassionate people living out their passions and purpose in ways that run contrary to a culture that edifies selfishness.
No Miracle-gro?
As Dr. Henry Cloud wrote in Necessary Endings, and I paraphrase, “For something new to bring forth life, the old and dying must be cast aside.” Painful and humbling as it may be, the Gardener prunes that which can still bear fruit. Who am I to argue; who am I to question?
Next week begins a new chapter in an unpredictable story, complete with a new cast of characters, whose lives were destined to cross paths with mine, for this time in history to meet some unmet need. Something tells me, none of us will ever be the same.
Welcome to my extraordinary life. Thanks, for reading liking and sharing,
Ivy, we are going have to look for Waldo another time. Waldo is the one with the red and white shirt.
Al and his faithful, but color blind sidekick, Ivy the wonder pup.
Sorry Ivy, that was a cruel trick to play on a dog….
Like this:
Like Loading...
