Power in Memory

I was watching Limitless last night with my wife. This was brought upon after seeing that there is a new Limitless TV show coming out. I remembered the movie being kind of good, but I didn’t really remember what happened at the end.

Turns out I didn’t really remember what happened in the middle either. I just remembered the beginning.

This happened because I was “distracted” while I was watching it when it was on Netflix. I was cleaning and doing other odds and ends while watching it, and besides the beginning I didn’t remember much. I remembered sort of what happened at the end, but then I think I may have fell asleep. Now that I think about it, it doesn’t really sound like that great of a movie if I don’t feel the need to sit down and watch it, and when I finally do I fall asleep.

All this to say, I think sometimes we remember things wrong. We remember some things better than they really were, and other things we remember worse than they could humanly possibly be.

I remember hiking up Pike’s Peak with some of my friends. It was ridiculously hard, and I felt miserable. I’m pretty sure I got altitude (and maybe a little attitude) sickness above the treeline. After passing Barr Camp, I remember seeking the tops of the trees and thinking that we were close to the treeline. The only problem was, somehow inexplicably the treeline was following us up the mountain. No matter how far we walked, the treeline would keep rising with us.

When we finally got above, I came to a point on the Golden Stairs where I just wanted to lay down and pass out. A $500 helicopter ride might be worth it. I pressed on. Then, about a mile from the top, my brain decided it may be easier just to go back down the mountain even if it took another 6 hours. A friend of mine even offered to go down with me. I finally came to my senses and hiked the last mile with the group.

Like I said, I was pretty miserable. Yet, for some reason, I think I want to go back. I was physically at the end of myself, but I want to do it again. I may be crazy, but I don’t think I am.

The memories that really stick and matter are those moments where friends encouraged, “Keep going, you’re almost there,” or, “I don’t care if you pass out, I will drag you up the rest of this mountain if I have to.” The interdependence we developed on the way up the mountain is the stuff that will stick for years to come.

I may always remember the hike feeling physically horrible. However, the weight of friendship and community far outweigh the weight of the memories of physical exhaustion.

Influenced Pt 2 – Influenced by People

We all like to think that we are our own person. However, we’re not. Our lives are influenced. We are influenced by our family, friends, colleagues, mentors, and even our enemies in some cases.

Just like work the media, other people can influence in good or bad ways. I once had friend begin to realize that the friendships my friend has were not extremely beneficial. They were influencing bad attitude and bad behavior. This was hard, as this friend didn’t want to change their social climate.

Friendships are tricky. Most of is probably have friends from our past that we can say didn’t have the best influence on us. However, in many cases it’s a mixed bag. Friends encourage us, push us, and love us. When it comes do the bad things our friends may do, it’s easier to overlook when they make us laugh or feel special.

Grace is required in any lasting friendship. However, friendship cannot be defined by foolishness. It’s great to be goofy sometimes, but it’s not great to be stupid anytime. That may come across harsh, but if friends are encouraging you to do things that cause lasting harm to yourself or others, they are not your friends.

When it comes to the people that influence us, it is important to have someone who can speak truth to you. It is important to have a person or persons who can challenge you, ask you hard questions, and push you to grow. These are mentoring relationships. I encourage everyone to have at least one of these. This is the good of influence.

When it comes to becoming who God created us to be, it’s important to have a group of people who can see us clearly. It’s important to find people we can trust so we can confidently share who we are.

When you find this, you will have friends that will know the good and the bad. When you can’t see the goodness on your life, they will see it and speak it.

These are the friends to pursue.

“I call you my friend…”

An excerpt from Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning

“In what may be the most stunning sentence in the entire Bible, Jesus says, “I call you my friend” (John 15;15).

Commenting on these words, St. Augustine writes, “A friend is someone who knows everything about you and totally accepts you as you are.” Is this not the dream that we all share? Someday, somewhere, I am going to meet that person who really understands me –understands the words I speak and even the words I leave unspoken. The gospel proclaims that Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of that dream. Paul Tillich’s definition of trust remains the most meaningful of all to me. He defines trust as “the courage to accept acceptance.”

Raw honesty with Jesus about our doubts and anxieties, our lust and laziness, our shabby prayer life and stale religiosity, our mixed motives and divided hearts is the risk we take in the certainty of being acceptable and accepted. It is the mature expression of invincible trust. Jesus is the friend who will never fail, the faithful one who will never be lacking in fidelity, even when people are unfaithful to him, the stranger to self-hatred who estranges us from self-hatred.”