A letter from April 3rd, 2014

Dear FutureCJ, I view a website called "postsecret" every Monday - it gets updated every Saturday at midnight. It's a self-proclaimed "community art project", where people can mail in a postcard to a P.O. box to communicate whatever confession(s) and/or art they have, usually anonymously. You see, son, people always feel the need to confess. When they don't, it usually eats them up inside. As is readily apparent with the submissions seen on this sight, sometimes keeping secrets eats away at peoples' insides, very much like cancer. Confession has a purging effect and is healthy, but we being in the PCA don't believe like the Roman Catholics that we need to make an auricular confession to a priest, because we have the Great Mediator Jesus Christ to hear our confession. But I digress ... the guy who runs the site is big into suicide prevention programs. I don't know what came first, but I do know that there are some very hurt, very strange people in this world, who mask themselves as "normal" for whatever gains they find important, who send in items as a way of (finally) expressing their honest feelings and attitudes. Some are awful, others are sad, and some are just plain funny. The postcard that prompted me to write you this future email is 1 of the latter. It says : "After 2 years of receiving wrong phone calls for this business, I began to act like them to callers. I've taken reservations, scheduled ob interviews and taken to go orders." I find that this is a great approach to an unavoidable issue which some people would find frustrating, annoying, aggravating or even maddening. My hope for you (which I always hope you'll share with and influence others in an act of loving your brethren) is that you'll be able to identify and overcome these situations with a similar "look for the silver lining" perspective. This person's way of "turning lemons into lemonade" is akin to my attitude towards life, which might be seen as a humorous and patient approach. I believe it to be the best approach to life, because we really shouldn't take life too seriously. After all, nobody gets out alive 8-) Instead of getting mad or frustrated at receiving numerous undesired calls (who knows how many? -5 a day? -50 a week?) since assumedly, this person got a new phone number (to them) which had previously been assigned to a now-defunct pizza business, they decide to have fun with it. Before getting a cell phone with caller ID, and before donotcall.gov restricted telemarketers from calling me, I used to get a lot of unsolicited calls, which I'd have to answer. When they asked for my first name (which I don’t go by), instantly I knew they were telemarketers and I'd have fin with them, if I wasn't otherwise busy. Some things I'd say and do to them: - " He just died! What do you want? " (as they backpedalled to escape from the awkwardness of calling for a dead person, you could almost hear them drawing a line through the row that contained my data - Use the creaky, near-deaf old man voice and show I can't understand anything, mishearing everything they say, repeating it as something near, or sometimes NOWHERE near, what they said, and leading the person nowhere except to hang up. - say "Hold on, I'll get him." and hang up. - Speak entirely in French, answering, "Bonjour! Comment ca va?" even if what I said was gibberish because I haven't been able to hold a French conversation in years, but saying it with certainty until the person hangs up. - Tell them the person moved and give them a new number, which, after looking through my contacts, could be the number of the police, a pizza shop, a church or an insane asylum, among other possibilities. So, as you can see (are you smiling yet?) the basic concept was turning something that might lead you towards a sour, undesired waste of time into a fun, creative outlet that YOU are directing. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that after readng this you can't wait until you get your next unsolicited phone call 8-) Be joy-filled. Love in Christ eternal, ~Dad