Walkin' The Dog......

It's 102 degrees today in Springfield, MO. But early this morning when Cameron (6 years old) and I walked Chunk (8 1/2 year old black lab), it wasn't so bad. Until we met another walker with a dog. Big brown dog. Big white teeth. Then, things heated up. Apparently, big brown had awakened on the wrong side of the water bowl.

Dog threatenings ensued on each side---barks and snarls and lunges. Both of us adult humans held onto the canines and got an upper body work out. It was kind of like watching prizefighters at the weigh-in. Stony faces, glistening muscles, entourages arrayed behind them. Then one says something taken as a "dis" and it's barks, snarls and lunges---with trainers and bodyguards trying to separate them.

That scene is one of conflict. The trainers-and-leashes drill is conflict management. Superficial resolution is accomplished by distance. Walking away.

Conflict is just a part of the human (and obviously, canine) condition. It comes out of territory, space, personality, affront, relationship, and a hundred other things. It happens with others...and it happens within us. I think a phrase of choice today is "I am just so conflicted!"

We have conflicts around everything from broken pledges to restaurant preference, from choosing wall colors to child discipline methods, from how the toothpaste gets squeezed to nuclear proliferation.

I agree with the author, David Augsberger, who wrote a book on the subject many years ago, called "Caring Enough To Confront." He simply says conflict happens.....and it's neutral.
How we respond is what makes the difference. He proceeds to outline 5 ways of dealing with it:

1. I'll get you. That was the dog-deal this morning. I'm right, you're wrong....I'm gonna get you. Over the years I have refined this method to an art form. Unfortunately, it never works.

2. I'll give in. You're always right, I'm always wrong...so I'll just curl up over here in the corner and eat some worms. The person who always accedes or "gives in" in the relationship, in the long-term doesn't help it.

3. I'll get out. Walking away, over time, doesn't help. Though to prevent too much intensity sometimes it helps in the short-term. A few years ago at a conference in Cartagena, Colombia a man told me about an old couple, who were being honored for being married 75 years. The M.C. asked the old man, a southern farmer, how the marriage had lasted that long. He replied, "Me and Maw had this here 'greement that it things ever go too hot and mean, ah'd jest go out and set on the porch til we both cooled down. Then, ah'd go on in and work it on out. Ah guess, this marriage has lasted this long 'cause of all that great outdoor livin'!"

4. I'll go part way. The fine art of compromise is the stuff of good relationships, but often takes time to figure out how to get there.

5. Affirm the person... confront the issue. The best way...the most structural/foundational manner to move forward. Jesus did it in John 8 with the adulteress woman whom the religious types were ready to stone, when he sent them on their way then said to her, "Who condemns you?" She replied, "No one." He said, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more." Or perhaps to paraphrase, "You are a great lady and that's not what great ladies do!"

So, I'll expect conflict, but try to keep from creating it.

I guess, if I don't get it right....we're back to a dog's life.

Stick It In Your Ear........

All of my growing up years, I was told to keep sharp objects away from my face. The eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were very sensitive areas…just don’t mess around there.

I did however have one caveat: in a day when language was less blunt than it is today, I would, when angered by one of my young friends, holler “Aw, just stick it in your ear!” I didn’t really think it would be good for a kid to stick stuff in his ear, but it felt good to say it.

I love the story I heard a while ago of the two brothers. Their parents were ex-patriots in the Middle East. The older boy would often execute his historic right---tormenting his younger brother. At dinner one evening he faked cramming a piece of olive up his nose. The younger brother followed suit and very effectively lodged the olive segment high in his nostril. An emergency room doctor extracted it. Not long later, it was the ol’ stick-the-carrot-in-the-ear trick….with the same result. As the same doctor fished for the carrot chunk in the little guy’s ear, he turned to the dad and said, “Sir, you have got to teach this boy where his mouth is!”

Ears are big (well, some are big, but all are significant). The two unique appendages that bracket one’s head capture a world of intonation, information, melody, rancor, sweet nothings…and so on. Hearing is a primary way of understanding. Jesus of Nazareth often concluded his insightful (sometimes in-your-face) comments with “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” The suggestion is, I think, that there’s a difference between listening and hearing.

It’s the Army master sergeant bawling, “Awright, troops, hear this!” or a mom saying, “Jimmy, did you hear me?” Sometimes we can’t hear and sometimes we won’t. One is a challenge and the other is a choice. I’ve had much more experience with the latter…until a few weeks ago.

Visiting friends in Illinois and playing wiffle baseball with our 6 year old grandson, Cameron Foth, I suddenly lost hearing in my right ear. The emergency room doctor described it as “sudden onset hearing loss.” Of course, I knew that. What I didn’t know was “why”…and neither did (do) they. It just happens to folks out of the blue every now and again. It’s an inner ear thing, and sometimes the hearing returns. Often, it doesn’t. Mostly it is treated for a time with oral steroids to see if it helps.

Having been told that quite likely the nerve in the inner ear was damaged, and hearing wouldn’t come back, I sought a second opinion with encouragement from Ruth and another good friend. The Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore, MD is #1 in the United States, as is their Ear, Nose, Throat Clinic. The chairman of the dept. said, “Ah, but we do have an option.”

Whereupon, he described what is called an ”intratympanic injection.” That’s an injection of steroids directly through the eardrum into the middle ear to be absorbed into the inner ear. The part of that long word which caught my attention was “—panic.” However, the chances of regaining hearing, he said, were 30 to 50%. Now, I’m not great at math, but that sounded way better than 0%. So…we are going for it. Three shots in three weeks. One down two to go.

Life is a hoot. You never know what’s going to happen next. I know this much: “stick it in your ear” has a whole new meaning to me these days.