TATTOO on the HEART

The Path…

// May 12th, 2010 // EVERYDAY LIFE, featured_video

About a year ago, I finally retired my Myspace account and grew up and created at Facebook one.

It found it a little boring at first that Facebook was so simple and uncluttered, but rediscovered a lot of people that I assumed forgot about me by now.  Obviously, some of those people just wanted to add me as a friend so that they could compare wrinkles, but some of them have truly been worthwhile reconnections.

One of those has been a friend from high school named Josh Kennedy.  I was reminded of his wit from high school as I read some of his status updates and notes.  We chatted from time to time and realized that we’ve both migrated to the West Coast.

This past weekend, Josh made a road trip from Portland to San Diego, and we caught up for lunch at a Poma’s Deli – a place that I’ve passed in my many frequent trips to the beach but never stopped at because off street parking is such a pain.

I arrived at Poma’s a few minutes before Josh.  It’s a small place, and I stepped in to do a quick visual pass to make sure Josh wasn’t already there.  He wasn’t.  I was sending a quick text to Josh when a guy behind the counter asked me “Can I help you?”  in a very unhelpful manner with a taste of Jersey shore confrontation.

“Just waiting on someone” I replied.

A minute or so later, I saw a man in sunglasses across the street studying his phone as he walked down the sidewalk.  I pushed the door open and stepped outside and reunited with Josh.

“20 years? Are you serious?”  Josh said, replying to post I’d made on Facebook that morning.

And our hug felt like a greater sense of brotherhood, which was even more interesting, because in high school it’s not like we hung out all the time.  Sure, we talked every day because it was a small school, and his locker was 3 spaces down from mine, but we wouldn’t have called ourselves best friends or anything.  I just remember enjoying his wit & humor and I remember fondly the greatest trick first base play in the world was made by him.

For me, it was a fascinating conversation.  When you retrace the footsteps of nearly 20 years, most people have a pretty predictable path.  Josh not so much.

How many graduates of conservative John Brown University end up in L.A. working for Fox Films sandwiched between stints of working with at-risk kids in group homes?

Ultimately, Josh would find yet another gifting in music as a self-taught guitar player and keyboarding impersonator for a band.  The music scene admittedly is not that great in San Diego, so a couple of years ago, Josh headed north with his band to settle in Portland.

We talked a lot of life.  We honestly didn’t talk about high school.  Most people get together with high school friends to talk about the past.  For us, the journey that lead us to Poma’s was much more important.

I shared a lot of Josh’s experience (not the cool movie or music part but…). Following a significant chunk of my life in a little town called Caruthersville, Missouri, I attended 3 different high schools.  I remember moving to Louisiana and attending a small school in Covington where I met a lot of great people.  It was so cool being the new guy and being a great player on a horrible basketball team.  Everyone was so appreciative of what I did on the court.  It was like what I did was a silver lining as we racked up numbers in the L column.  I’ll never forget hitting a half court shot and everyone going nuts, despite the fact that we lost by 10.

After that great year, I ended up finishing school in Memphis.  Looking back, on a personal level, I lost a lot. The ensuing years of that followed that transition perpetuated more transition.  It still was cool being the new guy.  I loved that.  But it wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I looked back and realized that I grown up to be a person who had lived a life without community.  I think my personal and professional goals always became a weak substitute for relationship.

We talked a lot about community – it’s transformative process through the ups and downs and personal disagreements.

We talked about being observers of the every day in life and how both of us as people have been called as people to make people aware of that conversation going on every day.  People all see the same thing, but they don’t notice it.  We’re not so smart.  We’re just making you aware of what you’ve seen.

I was so filled from our conversation (and the pastrami sandwich).  To hear what Josh has to say, you know he’s full of wisdom, and, quite frankly, one look at his whispy beard and you know he’s smarter than you.

The cool thing about the journey is that I think both of us have grown a little wiser than our years.

Wish Josh lived around here though.  I can imagine a lot of late night stimulating conversations when he’d smoke from a pipe and pull something intriguing out of its puff of smoke.

There was a real transcendence in our hug bye. It was bigger than he or I. It’s just something that only God can do. When you walk away different and infused with the power of God…well, I don’t want to knock relationships that people might have with their friends. I can only say that this is what God meant for community. And I just think that I’ve settled for too long.

VIDEO: Kinda ironic how our yearbook was called, “The Path.” Josh noticed it.  I didn’t.