Greg Proffit Writing

Category: Daily

  • What is A…?

    If posed with the question, ‘what is a Christian?’ would you have a ready answer?

    How about, ‘what is a Muslim’?

    And if asked, ‘what is a Republican?’ do you know what the answer is?

    Now, the million dollar question, ‘what is an American’?

    Your brain has already provided you with immediate conceptions as you read them. You may not have been ready to articulate your answers, but you have general ideas, nonetheless. Did you notice whether you thought first of what is (the positive, inclusive attributes), or what isn’t (those attributes that exclude). That may be revelatory to you. 

    With regard to at least one of them, perhaps your instinctive response is ”I don’t know.” 

    Kudos to you, if you’re that honest.

    Upon reflection, you will no doubt consult your experiences and familiarity with each of the designations. You may have definitions in mind for each of them that are accurate and factual, gleaned from study, observation, and participation. You may have answers that are based on hearsay, or bias. Your opinions may be entirely formed by what you’ve heard others say about Christians, Muslims, and Republicans, and Americans, and you’ve adopted those views as your own.

    Regardless of what your answers are, can you be confident that your answer would be agreed upon by any member of each of the groups in question? 

    In other words, when you answer ‘what is a Christian?’, can you be certain that all persons who identify as Christians would agree with you? If not, does that reveal anything about:

    A) the accuracy of your answer? and, 

    B) the definability of the terms?

    What about your answer regarding Muslims? Republicans? Americans?

    It is very conceivable that there are no objectively correct answers for any of the three questions you’re asked to consider in this brief essay. You no doubt have an answer. It may differ wildly from someone else’s. And even if you self-identify as a member of one or more of the groups above, others within that same group may have drastically different ideas and answers for what a member of the group is.

    Generalities differ from specific cases, as Greatest Common Factors differ from Least Common Denominators, by being more inclusive. 

    Are there any objective facts about the groups that can be established and agreed upon? Not once we go too granular.

    We are living in an age of heightened and aggravated political and cultural tribalism. We seek the emotional comfort of ideological kin. Even if it is the false-comfort of lies. We are willing to factor out one another based on least common denominators, creating such a climate of disinformation, distrust and division, that objectivity may be ready for the grave.

    If you believe it’s important to think about things; if it’s important to have reasons as a basis for your beliefs; if it’s important to abandon ”Absolutism” to God alone, with everyone else, including yourself, being prone to error and ignorance, then you and I are agreed.

  • Form Follows Function

    Form follows Function in Nature…almost as if it were designed that way, right?

    ”Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.

    It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”

    The above quote is from Louis Sullivan, an American architect of the late 19th-century, best known for his protegé, Frank Lloyd Wright, and for developing the shape of the tall steel skyscraper in 19th-century Chicago.

    His quote above, taken from an article about the artistic design of tall office buildings, has been condensed to one perhaps more familiar to most readers which is:

    Form follows function

    How something looks, its form, should reflect what it does, its function. 

    I really like the 21st-century rise of ”Lifestyle Design”. Tim Ferris, author of books including The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and Tribe of Mentors, would be one of the leading proponents of this school.

    I find that most of the people I’ve met don’t think much about designing their lives. Their lives are designed to serve a function created by someone else.

    Perhaps this is inherent in what Thoreau meant when he said,

    The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…

    Does the form of your life follow a function you chose? Or did someone else choose it for you?

    If you’re living a life that looks the way it does out of necessity to fulfill a function that is more useful for someone else than it is for you, stop and think what you can do to re-design it so that it functions first for you. 

    If there is anything essential and exceptional about American Freedom, it’s to be found in the answer to that question.

  • Covid Transition

    Time for a PEP talk: Praise, Encouragement, and Progress

    In another life, I taught Bradley Method natural childbirth classes for over a decade. That’s a lot of babies! I learned more than anyone who doesn’t aim to be an obstetrician would ever care to know about pregnancy, labor, and birth itself, including tricks for coaxing a stubborn placenta.

    I always get a good chuckle and an eye roll when I watch a pregnant woman in the movies announce that her water has broken, grab her swollen abdomen, and induce panic around her as if the baby will fall out in the next three minutes. 

    The process of labor is long. (My apologies to my readers who are moms. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know much better than I do.) The average labor is 15 hours in duration. Many can safely go 24 hours or more, as the mother’s body and the soon-to-be-newborn work together to achieve a birth without arbitrary time management procedures.

    There are three stages of labor, with an additional period that seems like it should be a stage unto itself. 

    In first stage the woman begins having contractions. The bag of muscles that is her uterus is shortening. As they flex and shorten, the opening of the uterus know as the cervix is flattened and pulled open. I always imagine this as pulling a thick sweater on over ones head.

    Like this? Sorry, Moms everywhere!

    In second stage, the cervix is as open as needed to allow the baby’s head (hopefully: I won’t go into breech births here) and body to pass through, and the muscles of the uterus change to a more expulsive type. This is commonly referred to as pushing stage, lasting from the time the cervix is open enough to allow the baby out to the actual appearance of the little miracle.

    Third stage is the delivery of the placenta, which is usually accomplished in half an hour or less. A retained placenta is no beuno, and creates a potentially serious bleeding problem for the new mom. So, don’t forget the placenta!

    These are neat and tidy stages. First stage is from the onset of contractions to the full dilation of the cervix. Second set is from dilation to birth. Third stage is the placenta.

    I’ve attended over a hundred natural births. I’ve been present as a coach, husband, father, mid-wife (for my own seven children), photographer, videographer, or general support person. In every birth there is one stage not listed here that every woman in labor goes through. It’s known as Transition.

    It is that stage when the uterus is working its hardest. The contractions last longer, sometimes over two minutes from the start to the peak, and they are much more frequent, sometimes stringing together with very little rest from one to the next.

    There is a universal emotional signpost. Self-Doubt. No, really. It is the, ”I cannot do this! I’m dying! Make it stop! Something’s wrong!” kind. It’s severe. It’s real. It’s uncontrollable. It is also temporary. Thus the name given to this period. Transition. 

    It marks the time that the mom goes from doing her best to relax and allow her body to work for her and her baby, to the time when she gets to bear down and be an active participant. But in all the births I’ve been to, I’ve never been to one during which the mom didn’t feel like it was impossible for her to finish the task. Most felt like they had to give up their claim to their own lives in order to bring a new one into the world. And I mean, they really felt that struggle!

    In that period, the best thing I could do as a coach, a husband, support person was to offer genuine admiration and encouragement. In Bradley, it’s known as a PEP talk. The coach offers Praise, Encouragement, and Progress. Like this:

    ”You are doing it!” ”You’ve already been through so many contractions!” ”You are phenomenal!” ”Just one at a time!” ”You’re amazing!”

    And I meant all those things. Seriously. I’m typing this misty-eyed with tears rolling down my cheeks in admiration and thanksgiving for the selflessness of mothers everywhere! Talk about heroes! 

    As a man, I’ll never really know what it is like from that side of it, but I do know what it’s like to have the woman you’ve shared this entire experience with from the time you found out you were expecting through all the changes in her body, and her mood, and trying to make sure she had everything she needed to be healthy and safe, and listening to your baby’s heart beat and watching it try to wrestle its way out of her womb. 

    You remember all those things. You bring that with you to the birth with such a sense of responsibility and of hope. And she’s saying she’s going to die, and she cannot go on, and it’s not working, and she has to stop. 

    And you’re her best thing in the world to try to help her over that last hurdle to see the baby be born, and for both the people you love more than you love your own life be safe and okay.

    So, you tell her, ”You’ve got this!” ”I’m right here!” ”I’m SO PROUD of you!” ”Okay, just breathe.” ”We’re almost there!”

    And folks, that’s where we are with this god-damned Coronavirus! We’re almost there. We have a little more work to do is all. We’ve been through so much! Some of us have given everything. Not one of us has given nothing. We can do this! Now is not the time to give up, or give in. And now is not the time to pretend that the birth is complete. It’s not quite over yet, but we’ve got this! Soon, very soon we can all push together into a new kind of post-Covid world and it will feel like a miracle.

  • The Enemy is Me

    One of my favorite quotes is from Walt Kelly, creator of the Pogo comic strip. On the first observance of Earth Day in 1970, he did a comic that ended with this quote:

    We have met the Enemy and He is Us

    I love this for its simple, elegant, truth.

    I am proposing a modification for your consideration:

    I have met the Enemy and He is Me

    I am certainly my own worst enemy. I don’t need a government or a political party to blame for the shortcomings and failures in my life. I don’t need to look any farther than my own face in the mirror. 

    My hunch is that you and I are the same in that regard. If there is something in your life that you aren’t happy with, it’s almost a certainty the government didn’t do it to you. 

    It’s a remote possibility that someone besides yourself is to blame. But my experience has been that even when I’ve been let down and hurt by someone else, I put myself in that position by over-investing in that account. I expected a return they just couldn’t give…even if they had wanted to.

    I don’t expect anyone in this world to make me happy. That’s a God-sized job. And the biggest impediment in His way is me. If I am unhappy, there is no doubt that somewhere along the chain of cause and effect, I have done the lion’s share of contributing to that feeling. 

    Of course, I am beyond grateful for those people and circumstances that enrich my life and contribute to my satisfaction, contentment, and joy, but I don’t expect them to reach the place in my mind that only I can go. I get to decide what kind of person to be. 

    Good people, the best people, make me want to be my best version. But they have no power to make me become the best version. That’s on me.

  • Where is your faith?

    One of my favorite NT passages is in Luke chapter 8. Jesus is with his disciples and decides to go to ”the other side” of the Sea of Galilee. They get into a boat and off they sail. Jesus falls asleep in the boat on the way across, leaving the navigation in the hands of accomplished fishermen, many of whom have grown up around this lake and made their livelihoods from it. 

    But, a storm of high wind comes down on the lake, sunken as it is in the topography of the region, and the boat begins to fill with water, threatening to swamp the boat miles from shore.

    These seasoned fishermen, who have undoubtedly been in boats during storms on this body of water before, decide that now is a good time to wake up the carpenter from his nap to tell him, Master, we perish.. And the carpenter from Nazareth rebuked the wind and the waves so that the lake became calm again. Then, in my favorite part of the story, he turns to the disciples and says, ”Where is your faith…”?

    Luke’s narrative says, ”then they were afraid…”.

    Excuse me?

    Then…they were afraid?

    They must have been at least troubled, if not outright terrified, to have awakened Jesus to tell him the boat was filling with water and they were going to drown. And now that the wind and water are calm again these seasoned fishermen are afraid?

    You’d think that the act of waking him up would have shown their faith. It seems that Jesus would have had no need to ask where their faith was. They called on him, after all. But apparently, they had done so just so he wouldn’t sleep through the tragedy. Clearly, they were astonished by what he had done to save them. They sure hadn’t expected this. Now they are more afraid of the solution than they had been of the problem.

    Not exactly fear inducing, eh? Or is it?

    I try to see my place in this story. This small vessel is so tossed by wind-whipped waves out on the open lake that it is taking in water, yet Jesus is asleep? That would have been one heckuva rolling, bucking little boat, but he was undisturbed. Would that have inspired me…or angered me? Would I have remembered that at the start of the journey he had said, ”Let us go to the other side” and since we weren’t yet at the other side the journey wasn’t over? Would I have thought he didn’t care? (In another gospel, they did think that). When he finally does wake up to calm the situation just by speaking, would that have changed my life forever? Would I have finally realized who this person is, and in light of that, how foolish my fear is?

    Like all of us, these men had placed their faith somewhere. Maybe in themselves and their seamanship. Maybe in their ability to predict the weather. Maybe in general circumstances. Maybe they knew they were good swimmers. I can’t know. I’m sure Jesus’ question was rhetorical. He knew that all of us put faith in something, but in a pinch, it may not be the right thing.

    I suspect that Jesus knew these men were rugged, working class, tough, and pretty fearless. I suspect he knew they were self-reliant, independent, and resilient. They would have needed a pretty close brush with mortality, even though this was likely a very familiar occurrence to many of these men. But not at this magnitude. Not with wind at this ferocity.

    Jesus knows how to bring each of us to zero. He knows how to bring you to the end of yourself. He knows that as long as you’re trusting in you, you cannot be simultaneously trusting in Him.

    Not far from where this little boat eventually made safe landfall, Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the Kingdom of God. Only those who recognize their bankrupt spiritual state are fit for the Kingdom. He has a way of breaking all of us who say we want to follow Him. Even if it means we’re in the storm of our lives, and it looks like He’s sleeping through it and completely oblivious.

  • Covid And Normalcy

    Habitual Shouldn’t Mean Normal
    A year in and some of the old normal won’t be resurrected.

    Beth and I turned on the ACC basketball tournament last night and remembered that it was a year ago that the tournament was shut down due to the the first outbreak of positive Covid cases. Within a few days, the NCAA tournament was cancelled. And it wasn’t long before all sports took a hiatus.

    I remember seeing the first masks in the neighborhood grocery store. They brought to mind photos I’d seen of heavily populated Chinese cities where the citizens mask up due to smog and air pollution. But seeing people wearing blue masks here in my little town in America felt surreal.

    We made a decision early on that we would do our best to act as if we were already carriers. I talked to my two adult kids and the teenager living with me that we needed to curtail all contact with non-family, non-household people unless we were working and wearing masks.

    That was hard on my teen-aged son who was very used to having friends over and hanging out with them. But it was more real when he was sent home for his last year of high school to finish his senior year on a Chromebook from his bedroom.

    I think younger people in general have had a harder time with a more restrictive lifestyle. As I’ve previously written, younger people are more exploratory than exploitative in life. They haven’t had enough time to craft a life that they are sure they’ll like and that will bring them the riches of contentment.

    The sports thing actually became a welcome change of pace. I soon found I didn’t miss it at all. We filled that time with other things that were much more shared and therefore more enjoyable. Virtual, nightly attendance to some game or other had felt normal. But just because something is habitual and autonomic doesn’t mean it should be normal.

    Maybe too much of life is lived that way, without putting a lot thought into it. But the new reality of Covid created the context to actually think about the mundane and ordinary. So many things that once were normal no longer feel normal. Even watching movies is odd. The characters have no masks on and we shrug and say, ”Pre-Covid”.

    So, for me at least there are some positive take-aways from being forced to re-think how life is done. It’s not a bad idea to have that conversation with yourself and those you do life with every so often. If nothing else, Covid has helped reinforce the belief that my favorite things in the world, and the things and people that make life worth living, are pretty close by after all.

  • Happy Place

    “Daddy, how much longer ’til we get there???”

    Henry David Thoreau famously said, 

    “That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.”

    Thoreau had economics in mind, but I think his aphorism is equally applicable to emotional riches.

    Consider the common phrase, ”Happy Place”.

    As in, I’m going to my happy place, or I’m at my happy place.

    I looked it up. This phrase first appeared in the 1990’s in the Ottawa Citizen. But it really didn’t become part of the vernacular until the mid-2000’s.

    Now, this phrase permeates the jargon of even those who fancy themselves to be ”mindful”, or see themselves as ”aware”, or as practicing ”zen”.

    I have a question for you. If you claim to have a happy place, or there’s only one place where you can feel happy, what does that make all other places?

    I understand and agree with the idea of having a ”mental” or ”psychic” happy place as a state of mind in which one practices reflective gratitude and meditative calm. A mental sanctuary that can calm the nerves, and that feels restorative is a healthy mental space to carve out.

    Even the Urban Dictionary definition of ”Happy Place” is ”a place in your mind that is all happy.”

    But if someone needs a physical place to go in order to feel these things, they’re missing the point, right?

    In that case, I’m calling bullshit.

    Now, granted, there are places you can visit that come with beauty and other amenities that aren’t the norm. But most of those places ain’t cheap. So, I’ll refer you back to Henry above.

  • Is Feeling Good A Choice?

    Rise and Shine…or something like that.

    Do you wake up in the morning and decide to feel bad? Ever?

    And, to be specific, I’m talking about emotions here, not physical ailments. Though, no one wakes up wanting to feel sick, either. It’s certainly true that our emotional selves live at the mercy of our physical selves. There’s no denying the physical constitution dictates a measure of mental and emotional well-being.

    But emotionally speaking, in general terms, and in the absence of pathology, bad feelings show up because you’ve invited them. You don’t have to explicitly ask them in for coffee, they just barge in as the plus-one of your thoughts. 

    No, most of us don’t choose to feel bad. At least not in a way we’re consciously aware of.

    But, without a doubt, there are things you can do to guarantee you’ll feel bad, right? Try to go through your day noticing every single thing that is wrong with the world. Think about everything in your life that isn’t how you want it to be. If that doesn’t do the trick, think of the things that are okay and see what you can do today to spoil them rather than nurture them.

    What about feeling good? Can you decide to feel good? I think you can. You probably can’t guarantee good feelings the same way you can guarantee bad ones, but you can certainly choose what to focus on. You can direct your attention. 

    Here’s a way to give yourself a chance to feel good about things today.

    First, think of how you can guarantee feeling bad. 

    Now, do the opposite.

  • Because I Said So

    Because I said so.

    Didn’t you hate hearing that when you were a kid? Someone bigger than you, older than you, in a position to command obedience from you, tells you either to do something, or not do it, because I said so.

    As a kid, if someone wanted me to do something, especially something against my will, I wanted to know, ”Why?”

    I hate hearing those words come out of my mouth as a parent. I feel compelled to offer reasons to my children for the things I expect them to do. Sometimes, after making such an offering, I get the retort, ”You’re being unreasonable.”

    This means I’ve offered reasons that don’t suit the child’s preference. I tell them I may have flawed premises, but if I offer a reason, then, by definition, I am being reasonable.

    I am not unwilling to have disagreements with either children, or adults, over our views of the facts, but I don’t like being called unreasonable. Disagreements over facts is to be not only expected, but embraced, in my view. I may not be in possession of information that is either accurate or sufficient to make an informed decision. Someone else, even my child, may bring facts to bear that can factor in to the correct answer. But once the facts are agreed upon, then reasons for beliefs, opinions, and actions can be formulated and articulated.

    Which begs the question; where do we get our facts? Because someone said so? 

    Having spent too much of my life in the company of pathological liars, I come by my skepticism naturally. 

    I’ve learned the hard way, some things just aren’t true, no matter who says so.

  • Thirty

    I’m calling this one thirty because this is my thirtieth straight day of creating a blog post.

    I committed to create 30 posts in 30 days as a challenge to myself. It was an idea I picked up from another source, and was only supposed to be micro-blogging. The thirty essays were only to be 250 words. Most of mine are many times longer. That doesn’t mean they’re many times better for the overabundance of verbiage, but I’ve learned that I finally have some things to write that I’m going to write, damn it. If my writing is read, wonderful. If not…I’m writing. My heartfelt thanks to any of you who have read each one. Wow! Really!

    Thirty of something is not a lot. 

    If you’re looking backward.

    I remember my thirtieth birthday. I couldn’t believe it. But sure enough, that was the number on the cake in front of me. Looking backward seemed like I’d blinked once, sped through my teens, blinked a second time, blew through my early 20’s, got married, became a dad (three times over), and was leaning over to blow out birthday candles.

    I’m on the uphill climb to summit the second set of thirty years since that day. I’ve accumulated 4 more kids in this second batch, and then, halfway into them, my marriage failed. The fallout from that tried to contaminate everything with blame and shame and the ”whys” of bitterness. But, I reconnected with my high school dream girl and the love of my life a dozen years ago. And thanks to God and her, my heart, though bruised, is healed and whole, and better than it ever was. And unbelievably, I’ve got a few more years to go to hit sixty. I’m looking forward to all that they will unveil.

    I can tell you, looking forward from here, trying to bite off thirty more seems pretty daunting. But God willing, I’m pretty sure I can make it. 

    When it comes to writing on purpose, I’ve shamefully waited and wasted a lot of years…a slave to my fears. 

    Not good enough.

    Who do you think you are?

    You have no credentials!

    You’re too old now, you let all the creative years slip away.

    Those and many other thoughts chained me up in a prison I built to keep from trying. I still have those thoughts. They haven’t gone anywhere, but they aren’t going to have the final word.

    Thirty years from now, I won’t look back and regret this effort. I’d be hella heartsick if I never made the attempt.

    I intend that the accomplishment of this 30 in 30 blog posts be only the first of a never-ending string.

    I’ve proved something to myself. It’s a psychological victory. Those are really the only kind that matter.

    Tomorrow, I’ll start on my next 30 day streak. 

    What are some things you want to do in the next 30 days? Can you go ahead and commit?

    Start today. Thirty feels like a lot looking forward, but sitting here this morning, looking back, it’s not so hard. It would have been much harder to deal with more self-regret. I don’t know where this is gonna go, but I’m gonna go for it, for sure!