When a Strip Club Comes to Your Town. . .

When a strip club comes to your town, you realize a few things. . .

One thing you come to realize is that you may be poised, like a diver, arms pointed, feet ready, for a dip into hypocrisy. Because when it comes, particularly when it comes two blocks away from your own residence, you bemoan its existence. Loudly. You cringe at the thought of what it will do to your property value, to the reputation of your community, and to the atmosphere of your small town Main Street. You wonder how you will explain to your young daughters the taunting, hulking banner with provocative dancing women obnoxiously and unavoidably displayed on your walk to the post office and diagonally from one of their favorite restaurants. You hope the City Council can find a way to banish the establishment to at least the outskirts of town, to where the drunken imbeciles won't puke on your sidewalks or drive into your parked cars. Not in my backyard, you say. We have got to get this "business" moved. There's got to be a way.

And then you realize there isn't a way. Not right now. Not legally. Not without a book of matches and an accelerant. You become more educated. You realize more fully the plight of the the dancers. You realize they are victims in so many ways. You find out about the possible prostitution, about past rumors of organized crime and drug deals and forced labor. You look around, and you realize that what many see as victimless entertainment leaves a string of victims: the long-time shop owner next door who can no longer be open in the evening, the apartment-dweller above with the young children, the "dancers," and every other young girl who walks past and is told that she is worth more with her clothes off than her clothes on. These victims become your message.

It is at this point that you realize you're in the deep end of the hypocrisy pool. At least you do if you're me. Because the goal is to move the business. But the message is of the collateral damage. And removing the business will merely make the victims someone I can't see, in a neighborhood in which I don't live, where I am not directly affected. And then I see that my problem isn't with evil, isn't with victims, it's with my discomfort and inconvenience. 

Dear world: I repent of this hypocrisy. At least I will try to. I repent because in the past strip clubs were just a punchline for me, in the same way my town is a punchline to others. I casually ignored all the ways sex is sold in culture. I will joke no more. 

I cannot prevent every strip club in the nation from business as usual. I cannot protest or speak out against each one individually. But I can take the matter more seriously. I can speak about it as more than harmless, victimless tomfoolery. I can work all the more fervently each day to teach my daughters where their worth comes from. I can take the lead of the citizens of another community, the community that endured the most recent strip club from this owner on their own Main Street, the citizens who cared enough about the damage and the evil and the ethics to come to our town and help long after theirs was safe. Ambivalent acceptance and a mere shrug of the shoulders is no longer an option.

We are only a few weeks into this experience in my backyard. So far I've been so busy pointing out what's wrong there that I've been unable to see what's wrong with me. Hypocrite. This is what I've learned thus far. I am certain there will be more. 

Reaching for True

Sometimes in writing you begin with the one true thing you want to say, and you spend all your time trying to find the best way to say it. This is called clarity. You have discovered something profound and worthwhile, and you see it so clearly that you can boil it down to a tightly worded sentence or phrase, and that is all you allow yourself to see as you're writing. You check everything within the writing with that sentence as it's guide. Does this help me say my one true thought? Will this illuminate it? Provide a universal example of it? Wax metaphorically, cleverly, shining ever-brighter and more colorful pulsing lights on the various aspects of that truth? Or does it distract? The true thing guides the writing, and you write because you've found this true thing, and you have no choice but to get it down, hoping to either share it or find someone else who's seen it and believes it, all to convince yourself that you either have something to offer in this world or that you are at the very least not alone in it. The truth thing compels you to write, and you have no other choice.

Sermon writing is like that for me. I do not want to get in the way of the singular true idea that must control the message. So I spend hours, days, even weeks, looking for that truth. But when I find it, it controls all 30 minutes of my speaking. I do not say it unless I believe it will get my audience closer to the idea. It is the standard-bearer. I instruct my students to boil down some of their essays into 20 words or less. Or entire novels. There is comfort in knowing exactly what you want to say.

Some conversations with friends are this way. Sometimes you discover a true thing, but it just isn't for a wide audience. It isn't for any audience, really, other than this friend who knows you and your previous thinking and will understand the true thing when you are able to talk about it. So you know ahead of time, when you sit down for a cup of coffee with them, or for dinner, or for a tasty beverage around the fire, or a bike ride, or a run, or a letter, exactly what you want to say. You have your truth, and you want to get it out. You want to try it out. It is no test of friendship to determine if they agree; no, you already know from previous experience with them that you are not alone in this world. It is because you've already agreed on so much that you must get this out to them. So you practice ways to bring it up before you see them. Or you realize it, and you count down the days until they're back in town, or back in the country, available for uninterrupted conversation after the kids have gone to bed. And your piece of truth guides you, guides all you have to say, and you know that more than likely it will still stand, and stand strong, daunting or comforting, the next morning.

It is comforting for a true idea to guide you. It can also be rare.

So many other times, a little like this one, you're just not sure what's true. You haven't found it yet. You just know what's real. And you've got to tease out the true and discover it. Or not discover it, as the case may be. But you notice, you observe, and you see a little glimmer. You've been watching for it, not knowing what it would look like or from where it would come, and you've seen it. You don't know what it means, but you know it is real, and you know that it matters. So you write.

You write. You explore. You examine. You don't know where you are headed, but you know it is better than standing still. The engine is running and the foot is on the gas, even if the compass is broken. And you come to the finish line, paragraphs or pages later, and perhaps you've found the destination. You found the land you didn't know existed even though you'd seen the postcards. You know what you didn't know, know why it matters, and know what is has to do with last week and next week. And you couldn't have gotten there without the writing. And you wouldn't have written without the watching.

I have been spending too much time waiting for the true sentence in order to get me started. The true sentence is my security blanket, my self-assurance that I have something to offer, that I have a little wisdom, that what I'm getting down is worth reading and worth writing. It allows me to do what I know how to do and go where I know I want to go. There is no danger in finding that which I don't want to find. And there is no danger in an audience finding that either.

I'm reading a lesser-known John Steinbeck novel called Sweet Thursday right now. I can feel the joy and freedom in the prose that Steinbeck must have felt writing to please himself in the advanced years of his career. At the beginning of every chapter is a pithy phrase that points to the truth of that chapter. They are witty and instructive. The are fun and true. If you've ever seen the sitcom Frasier (Emily and I are greedily devouring a season that just became free on our Amazon Prime Membership), it also uses this style to introduce it's scenes. These titles, these declarations of content, originally made me jealous. Then I realized: for many of them, Steinbeck had no idea what it would be until he got there.

I do not know exactly what journey I've been on in these 600 or so words. But my engine is running. These words reach for the true.

A Coach's Response to Post-Season Basketball

This weekend marked the end to a basketball season I wasn't sure I would ever have again.

The year ended with a tear-filled locker room, the sting of coming close but not quite close enough draped palpably like a wet blanket over all of us in our final moments together. But of course it did. Looking back, I remember now that this is how it ends every year. I've now coached basketball for 14 years, and each year has ended this way. For all but one team in each class of the state, this is how it must be.

Before the game I offered these words to the team: "No matter what happens tonight, you will remember this. You won't remember every game you've played, but this is a district game. Whatever happens, win or lose, you will remember this game and what you did in it." Looking back over those fourteen years, I say that out of experience. I do remember the district games. For each team.

I remember the ball screen at the top of the key giving us fits in the 4th quarter of one district game that would have likely propelled us into a state tournament. I remember the night a senior took a quick two with little time left when we needed three. Then there was the missed defensive assignment coupled with the missed shots in overtime from another senior in another year. There was the night that was the last ever post-season game for the school, the last one I'd coach in for this district that was merging with another, and I remember none of the school leaders who had been responsible for that decision bothering to be in attendance. And in all of them, sobbing seniors saying goodbye, both boys and girls, the reality of an end they could never truly feel come crashing down.

I've been furtively cursing the outcome under my breath at random times during the past day or two, spouting off stats, or pivotal officiating decisions, or the name of the opposing player who had been averaging 4 points a game and somehow scored 19. Relaxed one minute, engaged in a routine task; the next, I know (or perhaps my wife knows) a tone of exasperated incredulity takes hold.

It is a difficult pill investing that much time, energy, emotion, and not feeling the reward. Each entry into the post-season you fool yourself. It will end badly. Despite knowing that, you don't allow yourself to believe it through all the preparation. You painstakingly stare at stats and film, diagramming every scenario, refusing to get outworked. In the end, though, it will just not be enough.

Post-season basketball only works out well for one team. The rest are left to rot in a sea of regret and what-ifs. But lest I paint too grim a picture, lest I sound like a wounded victim questioning the sanity of it all, I move to this realization: much of life is that way as well. It will not always work out. In fact, often times it won't. If you dare to commit and risk big, you will be let down at some point. That's why it's a risk. That's why many simply don't.

And that's why in basketball, and whatever life pursuits in which you engage, if the end result is the ultimate, and the journey is only the immediate, you are on a futile path.

Of course the end result matters. We wouldn't be there, committed, working, if it didn't. But it can't be it. It can't even be most of it. It's got to be worth it knowing that it very well could end up unsuccessfully. I've gotten a lot of mileage in the classroom out of one of my favorite catch phrases: "Success feels good." I'm now thinking it needs a little modification: "The pursuit of success feels good." If it doesn't, if the chase isn't worth it regardless of the result, then it's probably the wrong success to be chasing.

The day after the game, after a couple of inches of snow covered my driveway, my friend, fellow coach, and occasional snow-blower fairy came over. There was nothing left to say we hadn't said. But we kept talking. It's hard to let go of it. It's hard to quit fighting, quit trying to find a way to eradicate the outcome. And it's hard because the journey was good. The pursuit calls. Eight months away from the next season, we're hungry for the work again.

It will end just as poorly. There will be disappointment. There will be tears. If I am lucky enough to be a part of it, another season, another journey, I will choke back my own emotion as I hug good-bye to tear-stained teenagers who I won't have the opportunity to journey with any more. The buzzer will sound, at some point, and somebody else will be high-fiving; I will watch but try not to, stewing in envy.

And I will remember it. Just like each one before it. But more importantly, I will remember those kids and those coaches and the days we spent together, pursuing a worthy goal, sharing a commitment, and smiling along the way. The end is ugly and hard, but only because the journey itself was colored with joy.

Writing Naked

My senior students have been working on college scholarship essay writing sporadically over the first semester. I decided to start the second semester with a real-world contest of sorts: "Dykstra's Great Scholarship Challenge." Each student worked for a week on their best 400-word scholarship prompt from earlier in the year then turned it in without their name on it. I randomly assigned each essay a number, and those essays were then placed in an NCAA tournament style bracket to essentially face other essays in one-on-one, win-or-go-home competition. I have two sections of seniors, so to maintain anonymity I had the opposite section be the judges for each matchup. The field of 32 has now been whittled down to a Final Four, and those four have been sent on to ten faculty members to decide on an ultimate winner. At stake for this scholarship: pride, my undying love and respect, northeast corner of the 2nd story fame, and perhaps a Snickers bar.

The conversations from students have been tremendous. First, listening to them discuss with each other the qualities of each essay and its worthiness (or lack thereof) to move on in the competition has been of great value. Hearing what impresses them and their classmates as an audience, what rings hollow, and what draws their sharpest criticism should speak to them for the next high-stakes essay they sit down to write.

Additionally, listening to the way students talk about their own papers speaks volumes. Some are much more engaged because they perceive more to be on the line than with other essays for class. Not everyone will be a winner. There is no "good enough." There is only best. It has raised their game. Or it has raised their anxiety because they know it didn't raise their game until too late.

More prominently, though, is the anxiety of realizing that nothing matters other than what's on that sheet of paper. They are being judged solely on their ability to communicate and what they portray about themselves using a measly 400 words. Their name isn't on the paper. They are, in many ways, writing naked. And writing naked, like I suppose many activities performed without clothing, can be quite intimidating. Place yourself in their shoes for a moment.

The frightening thing about writing naked is knowing that this is it. This communication. These words. There is no protection, no cover from your reputation, your previous actions, your money, or even your best intentions. None of it matters. These words do. There will be no making up for them later. There is no averaging it out if your best doesn't get down on that sheet of paper. Your mother or grandpa or best friend cannot convince the committee later of what they have convinced you of so many times - that you're a good person, a talented person, a person worthy of recognition. If those people were reading this - your friends and family - they would immediately assume the best and see the best and understand what you might be saying. But they aren't there. Nor is their recommendation. All that's there is a blank slate, a brief interaction, and an audience who will walk away with a clear and firm and confident judgment of who and what you are.

You will want to use previous words. You will want to go to your file and find something that was perfect before, something where each sentence inspired, where every metaphor illuminated, where you know you were at your best and you were well-rested and enjoying life and feeling really really good while the characters flashed effortlessly before you on the screen. But it will not. Not this time. It just won't fit. For this is a new time, a new prompt, a new audience, and in many ways, a newer and slightly wiser you.

My students want their resume to be attached. They've lived for that resume. They've worked hard for it. They've put in hours - hours of activities, hours of studying, hours of volunteering. And perhaps that should count for something. But here's the difference: in the writing, the pressure is on now. Today. The actions matter, and everyone knows it. It's harder. No one has organized this essay for them. They have to do more than just show up. They have to do more than do what they've always done: participate and even work hard when it's been requested of them or when it's regarding something that draws great passion from them. Instead they have an imperfect prompt, an audience they can't control, and a medium that intimidates them. In the writing they can display who they are and what they can do under pressure, under circumstances they didn't choose, in a situation they couldn't necessarily prepare for.

So they've got to use their words to be memorable. To grab attention. Now. They've got to say something that matters and approach with great purpose and attention every syllable they attach to this, the representation of their character. They will not get this opportunity, with this audience, again. And in this desire to be noteworthy, they know they must compete against a whole host of other essay clamoring in each clause for the same attention.

Perhaps we all would do better to write naked more often. To write naked at the grocery store when checking out. To write naked at the restaurant for those serving. Or with the co-worker we just met. Or the co-worker we've known for a long time and can't stand. Or with our spouse. Writing with this care, with this focus, with this pressure on each and every word. Every day, an essay due; every day, a blank slate with no past resume and no recommendations to lean on; every day's word count doing all the speaking for our character, for our values, for our worldview.

Whether we feel that pressure or not, an audience will read our essay every day. They will get our words, and nothing else. And what we represent, whether that be ourselves, our family, or our God, will be spoken for right along with it.

The Power of Six

The longer I write and teach writing, the more I see that living well and writing well are one in the same.

This week in my AP Lit class we've been working with the Six-Word Memoir form. Taken from the Smith Magazine website, a history of the form is as follows:

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." In November 2006, SMITH Magazine reignited the recountre by asking our readers for their own Six-Word Memoirs. . . Since then, Six-Word Memoir project has become a global phenomenon and a bestselling book series.

I've introduce the genre in class as we attempt to refine our writing and be more effective at the sentence level and in our overall focus. Students created their own six-word memoirs this week that describe their day, week, semester, first love, life philosophy, etc. So far, the process has been fun for me; I get to see a lot of student personality in a short bit of writing, and they get to be creative, personal, and entertaining. They get to be real. It's amazing what kind of energy the opportunity to be real can inject into a high school classroom.

I told them this week that there are three main goals that using this writing form serves:

1. Maximize your writing space. Waste no words. Say more with less.
2. Pay attention to what your audience is seeing and thinking.
3.  Know exactly what you want to say. No verbal throat-clearing. No meandering. Just precision.

As I reflect on these activities and the goals therein, I realize that most interactions we have with others each day are six-word stories, one after another, with the same demands on the author.

For we should be able to say more with less. If we make each action count, seeing the consequence and value in every word in every conversation, we no longer run the risk of miscommunication or missed opportunities. If we maximize our metaphorical writing space, in this case the minutes we spend, and try to purposefully use each minute available, relationships will be strengthened, both with those whom we already know and those with whom we should. If you only had six words to say each day to your children, what would they be? Or your spouse? Or your best friend? If you only had six minutes to spend with them today, what would your actions say? The ability to select words and actions that matter, that speak beyond the time they take, is the ability to multiply influence and grace.

And we must pay attention to our audience. To what they're seeing and thinking about our words and actions. As I said to my students this week, intentions don't really matter. What matters is the reality for the reader. Their perception is king if they are, in fact, your audience. It matters not what you meant to say. They don't care what's in your head if what's on your face and in your tone doesn't match. I had my students take an essay they had written and boil it down to six-words. I then had them exchange essays with another student and ask them to write six words on what they thought the point of the essay was and then compare. This allowed students to not only consider an audience, but to hear from them as well. 

In your interactions tomorrow, there will be an audience. There will be audience members you speak to, and audience members you don't. Some in the audience will get more words and actions from you than others. But they're all reading. And that should increase the pressure we feel and the urgency to act and speak on purpose. Audience matters. To pretend, as many are in the fashion of doing, that "I don't care what anyone else thinks," is a first-rate cop-out. It's a fallacy. We all publish, every day. Someone will read it. 

Two statements from me generally get my students' attention and focus: "Other people will read this" and "Your grade depends on this." They view everything else as practice or inconsequential. I rarely get their best under any other circumstance. We do not have the luxury in our daily dealings of waiting for an announcement that we will have an audience to answer to or a sovereign grade-dispenser. It's simply a reality. Consider that audience. Embrace the heightened responsibility for your words and actions.

Finally, we should have that level of laser-focus in who we are and what we want our story to be. Certainly we are far more complicated than a six-word statement, and our lives tell a much more complex tale. But should they? Or should what we believe in and value be so firm in our minds and so central to our being that it affects every action and relationship and conversation? And should others be able to see that story and that philosophy in everything that we do? If our actions tell various and varied six-word memoirs, perhaps we have more thinking to do about the skeletal structure upon which all the muscles and ligaments of our lives hang.

The six-word memoir has it's limitations. But is has power in it as well. And to be better at communicating in other writing forms, viewing them through the lexical limit of six is an effective strategy. Placing the same constraints and pressures in all forms of communication, therefore, should have a similar effect.

The Blogger Returns to Run

In January I gave a sermon on Hebrews 12, which contributed (in part) to my blog writing absence of late. The passage the sermon was over compares a life lived in faith with running a race. As part of the metaphor, the author of Hebrews encourages the audience to "throw off everything that hinders," just as a runner sheds all extra weight or burdens when competing. Referring to all in our lives that isn't necessarily sin but that keeps us from running hard and running well, the text is a call to examine our lives, or our "race," and see what's slowing us down in our pursuit of the finish line.

One of my favorite statements from the sermon is this: "If you want to know what good in your life is getting in the way of your best, start running hard." When that sentence popped up during the creation of the sermon, I knew I had something that I wanted to hone in on personally.

It's easy to carry around a lot of extra and convince myself that it's good and brings me joy when I forget that I'm running any kind of race. I even allow myself to think about my life as many different races, that all have different race days, and all deserve some training from me. But when I commit, or recommit (as is so often the case) to running hard and running my race, I notice I can barely get out of the gate with all that I'm carrying.

If you want to know what's slowing you down in whatever it is you are pursuing, start pursuing it with a singularity of purpose. Decide that you're going to make it happen, no matter the cost. Hold all else loosely, and see what you must give up. If giving up what you have to give up to get it isn't worth it, you'll know the race you're running is the wrong race. Count the cost, and see if you're okay with the price. It's a question that deserves to be asked, whether your race is career success, strong family life, marathon running, or a devoted life of faith. And you'll never be able to truly answer the question unless you run hard.

And if you find out it's not worth it, that you don't want to throw off that which is slowing you down in this pursuit, if you're not willing to run hard, should you really be running in that direction at all?

Unfortunately, the race we are often most tempted to run is the race of comfort. The weight or hindrances that slow us down are ambition, love, sacrifice, and even joy. Those things slow down our immediate comfort. They delay our resting, slow us down in our pursuit of a comatose sameness, so much so that we are willing to shed them in our run. Dreams and risk endanger comfort. Love worth having spits in the face of contentment and relaxation. Lasting joy is often paired with immediate difficulty. So we shed them, casting them aside like superfluous clothing on a sweat-drenched summer run.

I'm not sure anyone knowingly does this. No one says, "Today I'm giving up love so I can just be me," or "my life goals are really slowing down my race to the couch." But how often are the little battles for love and faith and dreams shirked aside in the present for another hour in front of the TV?

We have become a culture of "feelings." I know this because I'm on the front lines of cultural shifts in the high school classroom. The changing public opinion polls and wavering priorities of society are reflected directly in the mouths of those of 16--18 years old voices reacting (however unwilling) to literature. And what I am blown away by now, as I've seen it progress in frequency over the past couple of years, is the number of sentences coming out of their mouths that begin with "I feel. . ." Whether talking about breakfast, politics, Shakespearean poetry, or the NFL playoffs, I hear "I feel" begin their responses at an uncanny rate. Feeling is reality to them. They've been told to worship at that temple.

Running a worthy race, and running that race well, is about far more than a feeling, though. You will almost always feel like comfort. That is your soul's default race. On most days you will not feel like training, whatever that training may be. I don't often feel like praying. I don't feel like writing. And I don't feel like sacrificial love. I know the value of a training routine, regardless of what I feel like. I wrote more prayer in 2015 than I did in the previous four years combined because I knew I needed to establish a routine. I didn't always feel like it. In fact, I rarely did. But I always felt like I wanted to be a guy who ran hard and ran well in the race of faith. And I never felt good about the race of comfort.

So I go back into training. I poke and prod for the extra that hinders, for the good in the way of the great, and for the discipline to cast aside the not so good that decays all running pursuits.

Feelings beware.

Your Feelings About Wednesday, and Other Pivotal Questions

How do you feel about Wednesday?

"Remember, how you answer has got to say something about you. It's got to say the best about you. You get one chance to answer the question, and your response will communicate a great deal about you. And it will be the only communication you get, the only chance to sell yourself and who you are. So choose carefully."

So went my instructions to my AP students this week. We began our work on college scholarship and application essays and the challenges and strategies connected to the process. The Wednesday question comes directly from a previous writing prompt of one Midwestern university, and it's the first one I gave them the opportunity to write. In 300 words or less.

Before they even saw the prompt, I challenged them to make a chart that listed the answer to two questions: who are you, and why are you good? When I asked them to do that, I told them that what I was asking was hard, so hard that many adults right now might struggle to specifically say who they are and are wildly uncomfortable finding anything good about themselves. No matter. This is the starting point, I told them. If you can't answer these two questions, you really have nothing to say in your response. There is nothing to communicate.

I gave them other advice as well. I told them to be unique. I told them to be real. And I told them no one really wants to hear their resume all over again, because that's just a list of experiences, not who they really are, and the reader probably knows all of that already. The list of accomplishments or activities won't convince their audience; it might get my students in a position to be heard, but it is the real them, the character and passion and values that must speak, because they are what matters. And those 300 words are all they get, ever, with this audience.

Upon finally seeing the prompt, the general student response was initially a combination of nervous laughter, confused smiles, and the occasional guttural yet understated "What the . . ?!" I laughed too. It is funny. It is absurd. And it's a skill that extends much further than this week's prompt or this year's essays.

I'm starting to understand that this is how life works. Every day is an essay question. Better yet, every interaction is a possible essay question. Whether it be a friend, a stranger, a coworker, or the bagger at the grocery store, it is likely you will be faced with an opportunity to influence, to speak, to convince. And it will be in the form of a question that you probably won't see coming.

In your answers to today's questions, were you unique? Were you accurate? Did your audience learn about you, and is it the you that you want to be and want people to see?

Like my students, your activities and accomplishments will probably not impress anybody. They're not going to care how busy you've made yourself or your kids, how many awards or positions you've conquered, or even who you influenced yesterday. They are there, today, and they are asking a question, any question, and your answer today in that tiny space will communicate much about you.

So many questions, or possible essay prompts, every day: How's it going today? Did you watch the game last night? What are you doing this weekend? Did you see that? Why aren't you going?

The question doesn't matter. Your answer does. Are you ready, with an understanding of who you are and what you stand for, to communicate most effectively with your audience of one? There are no throw away questions. No redos. Today's answer may be the only one you get, the one answer that will stick in the mind of your audience about who you are and what you believe in. How careful, how purposeful, how prepared are you?

My students will be ready. They will know who they are, what's important to them, and why it matters. They will know how to communicate it in a limited time and space. And it won't matter the question or who's asking it.

May we all be so ready to answer for the hope we have.