I’m back! So let’s just be honest, so far this blogging
experience has been a total fail. I made one post, which wasn’t even about
anything other than declaring the fact that I was going to start blogging, and
then I haven’t been heard from since. I was ready to just hang it up and
pretend that one blog post had never happened, but this is this internet, and
that stuff is out there forever. I’ve already crossed the line into the
“blogosphere” and I can’t go back. I tried to squirm my way out, but I found
myself pulling a Jack Shephard at the end of Season 3 of Lost and yelling at
Kate “We have to go back!!!" Now….just pretend Kate was Jen Campbell, there was
1,000 times less drama and it was more like her calmly encouraging me to try
another post. Let’s be honest, she probably didn’t even care if I did or
didn’t, but I’m going to keep playing this “I’m not a blogger, I hate blogging,
people keep forcing me to do it” card and hoping that no one notices that I
actually just really enjoy writing. So, either way, thanks to the wonderful
Jennifer Campbell and the rest of the exclusive Cheetahs for giving me the
nudge to jump back on the keyboard.
I did a little thinking about why I skipped out on my
blogging duties for the past two months and why I have been so reluctant to put
any thoughts or stories out on the World Wide Web. It really doesn’t make sense;
you would think I would be all about it. I mean, I will sit at a kitchen table over
a cup of decaf coffee (preferably Dunkin Donuts) and tell you stories and talk
about life all night, until you beg for me to be quiet so you can go to sleep.
I write these long e-mails filling my friends in on my life and my thoughts and
my theories to the point where they have to be sending them to their junk mail
folder. I even love to write and have the evidence shoved in a notebook
somewhere to prove it! With all that said, something about blogging had rubbed
me the wrong way a little bit. I guess I just always felt a little too
“self-promotional” if I had my own blog. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE other
people’s blogs, e-mails, updates, calls and notes. I love hearing about all of
you. I eat it up, so keep it coming. Don’t stop.
But for me, I just hit this spot where I realized how
selfish I was and how concerned I was with my own thoughts and needs. I needed
to talk about myself less, not more, so starting a blog was the last thing I
wanted to do. But I thought, well it couldn’t hurt to guest blog a little for
Chelcie. I’ll keep it short. I’ll keep it simple. I’ll keep it light. By the
way, in just two posts I have already managed to fail miserably at all of those
things. But I thought, Hey…i’ll just throw out a few funny stories and go from
there. Well here’s what happened, I sat down to write each week and I couldn’t
think of one funny story to share. Not one. Call it part of getting old and
washed up, (I turn 24 very soon ya know!) but I’m running out of stories and
I’m running out fast. I’m telling em way faster than I’m making em these days.
(Quick side note: I am currently accepting applications for a story-making
intern….the only qualification is that you get us into spots where lots of
stories will happen to us. In return….well I’m still working on that.) So for
real, I sat down and tried to be funny, and all that came out was really
serious thoughts. Once again, the “24” syndrome hits….I think about serious
things way, way too often. For a guy who used to slide by with a boat and a
standup bit about sand, this is a problem! But I think I have the solution. My
friends have always been way cooler than me. I like to say, and it’s true, that
God just blessed me by putting me around the craziest and most incredible cast
of characters. I mean seriously, there should be movies made about some of
these folks. The stories have always been about them anyways. All the good in
me has come from them, well from God of course, but through them. So here’s the
plan…I’m gonna get a little serious on you from time to time…but I’ll make
myself feel better about it by talking about my friends more than myself to
start. So…now that the way-too long explanation of where I have been is done,
let’s roll.
I’ve got a friend. (Hence the blog title, feel free to throw
on “She Got a Friend” by Gucci Mane for the remainder of this post.) His name
is Kevin Underwood. Many of you know him. I had about 2 pages worth of stories
where I was going to brag on him, but I’m going to have to save those for
another time because I’ve already caused half the readers to stop reading with
the intro the size of a textbook. What I will do is share something he taught
me about God, which he always seems to be doing.
I have a little theory, not a unique one, that the Gospel is
so powerful it just bleeds into every aspect of life. It bleeds into art and music
and literature and science and culture. No good story, no matter if they are
based in Christianity or not, can be good without the roots of the gospel stuck
in them. Most don’t realize it, but it’s always there. The gospel certainly
bleeds into our relationships. Any good relationship possesses gospel
attributes at it’s core. If we believe that we are created in God’s image, we
have to believe that his fingerprints will be all over the way we interact with
each other, right? Vice versa, we have to believe that our relationship and
interaction with him would posses all the best and purest traits of our human
relationships right? His love somehow captures the affection and relentless
love of parenthood, the rawness and jealousy and passion of romantic love, and
of course the innocence, comfort, honesty and pure joy of a great friendship.
There is something so exciting to me about seeing God show
up in friendships, because I have been so blessed with such great ones. For
those who don’t know, C.S. Lewis is my absolute favorite author. He has this
incredible way of describing something I feel or know in a way that is better
than I ever could have said on my own. He almost draws something out of me that
I only knew subconsciously before. As I read him, I will often look up and say
“Oh my gosh, that’s exactly how I feel, but I never could have told you before
now!” Never has this been more true than when he describes friendship in an
incredible essay in the book, The Four
Loves. He basically talks about how all truly great friends have what he
calls “A Secret Thread.” They essentially have something; a similar passion,
idea, hardship, longing, secret or mistake, that binds them together. It could
really be best described as a kindred spirit. You both see the same truth, you
both have the same vision, and a friendship is born. Instantly, you separate
from the masses and stand together in immense solitude as friends.
Me and Kevin have this “Secret Thread.” I can’t even
pinpoint what the thread is, it’s somewhat mysterious, but I absolutely feel it
and I know it’s strong. Every time we talk, every time we are together, I feel
like we are on the same journey. I feel like our eyes are focused and towards
the same star in the distance. We “see the same truth.” I can just feel it. I
wish I could explain it better, but you will just have to settle for reading The Four Loves.
What I can explain a little better, is what Kevin taught me
about God, and then I will wrap it up, I promise! One day, I set out to thinking
about how Kevin and I became the best of friends. Our relationship matches up
perfectly with everything Lewis mentions about great friendships, but how did
we get there? It honestly kind of just appeared out of thin air. Looking back,
it feels ordained.
Lewis says the beginning of friendship goes something like
this “What? You too? I thought I was the
only one!” I like to call it
the “Step-Brother” moment. You are just kind of rolling along and then Bam! It
hits you. You realize this guy likes building bunkbeds and doing karate in the
garage just as much as you and you yell “DID WE JUST BECOME BEST FRIENDS!?!?!?”
I remember clearly the night I really thought to myself, “Wow, Kevin Underwood
is one of my best friends…how did that happen?” And I realized, there was no
trick, we just put in some serious mileage. We spent tons and tons and tons of
quantity time together and every once and while, the quality time just bubbled
up. The more quantity we had, the more the quality showed up. That’s how our friendship
started, and that’s why Kevin is such a good friend….he was always there.
Kevin’s true friendship came into my life during the
toughest season I’ve gone through. All of my best friends had moved off to
other states and cities, I was trying to make the transition from being in
college to working 80 hours a week, my heart had just been broken and I was
lonely. And you know what? I didn’t need someone to tell me it was going to be
ok. I didn’t need someone to make a plan to fix it all. I didn’t need someone
to feel sorry for me. I just needed someone to be with me. I needed someone to
just eat lunch with me and talk about sports with me and draw up crazy hopeless
schemes to meet some wonderful girl or start a million dollar business. And
that’s exactly what Kevin did. He just kind of showed up and didn’t leave. We
must have eaten 10/14 lunches and dinners a week for three straight months. He
was just there. And of course, he was there when I felt like talking about
something serious and vice versa.
I think that’s how friendship works. You can’t force the
intentionality. It has to grow. The famous words you hear in our circle of
friends is “Let’s just be really intentional with each other this year.” Don’t
lie, every house you’ve lived in has said it. Every small group you have been
in has said it. And it’s good, I am all for being intentional, but I just don’t
think it works like that….at least it doesn’t for me. You can’t just sit down
with someone during a 15-20 minute block every day and say “Ok, tell me
something deep. Tell me something meaningful.” It just doesn’t happen. You have
to put in serious mileage with someone and then just let the quality stuff come
when it’s ready to come. You all have great friends, you know its true…it will
come if you are just around and you are patient and you are ready to listen.
Nine times out of Ten you end up hearing about Basketball but the tenth time
will come and you will hear “Hey this has been killing me lately, and I don’t
know what to do.” And then before you know it, the 9 out of 10 drops to like 5
out of 10. And that’s friendship.
And you know what else, that’s a relationship with God. I
want so badly to just sit down for X amount of time every morning and say “Ok
God, I’m here…talk to me!” I want to just show up to church every Sunday and
feel his presence move in the greatest way possible every single week. But you
know what…it doesn’t happen, and I get frustrated and I start to complain,
“God, where are you? I’m making the time!” That’s exactly what I was saying a
month or two ago, “God where are you?”…and then I thought about me and Kevin’s
humble beginning to our friendship, and I laughed. I would never sit down with
Kevin and complain… “Hey man, you haven’t told me anything deep in like 2
weeks, what’s the deal?” The truth is, we rarely go two weeks without talking
about anything deep because the quantity of time we spend together is so large.
So that’s what I learned, and that’s the takeaway of this
way-too long blog post. Put in mileage with God. Keep Him on your mind more
often. Find more time to be in the word. Find more times to worship. Find more
time to immerse in the Gospel. You have to taste it, feel it, see it. You can’t
just think it. Every time won’t be as quality as the last but He will show up.
The beauty is, he will show up even when you don’t put enough mileage in….but I
bet there will be more fruit if you do.
And you know what, do the same thing with your friends. Find
more time together. Eat together, do homework together, drive to school together.
Alone time is good too, but I want maximize the windows where a quality
conversation might bubble up and a friend says “Hey I haven’t really brought
this up before, but…” or “I know I keep talking about this, but…” and you can
listen and then respond and then say Bam! “I think we just became best
friends!” over and over again.
Hey, thanks to my friends for being as great as you are.
Thanks be to God, for anything that is good is from Him. And thanks to the one
or two people that may have miraculously read this entire thing. If you did, you crazy! Maybe we should become best friends? Kevin and I got a spot for
you….
-Tyler Morris
T-Mo
P.S. I promise I will post next week and I promise it will
be short. Scouts Honor.
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