My brother and I started a tradition last year with two friends where we go to an Edmonton Oilers versus Buffalo Sabres game. It’s a funny/sad experience because you’re in the Sabres’ arena and there’s more orange and blue in the stands than the home team colours, and when any cheering is started by the Sabres’ mascot, it ends up being taken over by the Oilers fans. Coincidentally, even though the Sabres are one of the worst teams in the league, both years we’ve gone they ended up winning. Last year they ended up winning twice in the same game – true story. How does that happen? The first win was in overtime. The Sabres scored, which sent the Oilers to their dressing room. As the Sabres celebrated, news crews started interviews on the ice, and fans were rushing out of the stadium to try to beat traffic, out of nowhere the referee skated to the center of the ice and announced the play was offside and the goal was disallowed. No one even knew the goal was in question. Those left in the stadium went crazy. Within a few minutes, the Oilers were back on the ice and the game continued. The Sabres then won again in the shootout. This time, there was no question who won. It was the craziest ending to a game. As someone who doesn’t go out without his family more than a handful of times in a year, the way the game ended added to an already incredible day. The only real problem with the day was discovering the hard way that the border backs up when certain teams like Edmonton play in Buffalo because there are so many Canadians going. Instead of the ten minutes I’m used to, the border ended up taking us about an hour and a half to cross, which made us late to the game.
This year was going to be different. My brother and I left five hours early for what should be just over an hour drive at a different time. According to the sign before the bridge, the line up was supposed to be about half an hour. As we got in line that was backed up to the start of the bridge, for some reason I picked up my passport and looked at it which led to a weird moment: “Huhn, I’m not a four year old girl. Why does my passport have my daughter’s face on it?” I suddenly froze and only my eyes moved around like an owl hoping to magically see a second passport that would have my face on it, but I knew I only brought the one – the wrong one.
Have you ever had one of those “I can’t believe I did this” moments? I wish I could say that was my first time… but it definitely wasn’t. When I was running a San Francisco mission trip as a youth pastor in my early thirties, for the end of the trip I pre-booked a trip to Alcatraz. When we arrived Sunday evening at the pier where you board the ferry to get to the island, I excitedly went up to the booth and handed the worker my printed out tickets for our group of twelve. The worker looked at the tickets and then at me a little confused. That’s not a good sign: “These were for yesterday.” That was a panic moment: “Ohhhhh nooooo!… Am I going to have to re-buy everyone’s ticket with my own money? I’m screwed!” Fortunately, the worker added, “That’s fine. It’s a Sunday night. We can honor these.” That panic moment was met with a great sigh of relief, and that relief turned to laughter shortly after when someone saw a picture of Al Capone and asked in all seriousness: “Is Al Capone still in prison?” Maybe his ghost. This person clearly needed the tour in order to learn some history.
The other time I had one of those intense panic moments was the year I got married and I organized a trip for eight of us to go to New York City and I ordered everyone’s ticket to see a musical. The next day I received an email for the theatre asking what we thought of the show. That was a bad moment. I knew I picked the right date for the show, but in the ordering process I remembered there had been a glitch that must have reset the date before I paid for it. When I called the theatre in a panic, they were very kind and said they would honor the tickets for the other date. The problem was they couldn’t give us our tickets until the night of the show when they could see what was leftover. All eight of us ended up with great seats, so it worked out, but the panic was awful. You’d think with moments like these I’d be scared of ordering things online… and I am.
My first and arguably worst panic moment, however, wasn’t an online issue. In my first year at university at the end of the year exams in April, I went to my 12:30pm Philosophy exam. While in line I didn’t recognize anyone from class. That was odd. I double checked my time I had written down and I had it right. I also had the right location. When I looked at the school’s schedule, however, my exam had been at 10am that morning. Now, like most people I can’t go back in time, so this was a problem. Talk about a panic moment with sweating and trouble breathing. I ran to the registrar’s office and fortunately found some helpful people who told me it was fine – I don’t think I was the first person to screw up an exam time. They sent me back to the gym and told me I’d have an exam ready for me. Thanking them profusely, I ran back to the gym and wrote the exam.
As I’ve demonstrated, my brain has special moments. It’s impressive how it’s able to screw something very simple up and there’s no stopping it. For instance, on this recent day when I realized I had my four year old daughter’s passport it could leave me wondering, “How’d I do that?” My only guess is for three months my daughter had been struggling with sickness. She’d seen both the family doctor and nurse practitioner, had blood work done which came back clear, and no one knew why there was an issue. In the two weeks leading up to the passport moment, my daughter’s sickness escalated to her crying out loud three to four times in the night because her stomach was in so much pain and then the last three days she hadn’t eaten and barely left her bed. After the first week of nightly crying I took her to the Urgent Care unit, yet no one seemed to really care. They booked us to see someone else in a few weeks. After three days of not eating my wife took her to Mac Sick Kids and they said she currently had pneumonia, but there was likely a perfect storm of a few other factors going on that added to her intensified stomach pain. That morning was the day I later went to the game, which meant my daughter was heavily on my mind and likely why I grabbed her passport. Either that or I’m losing it and I thought I was a four year old girl.
When I realized my mistake on the bridge to the USA, my brother was talking on the phone to our two friends in the other car that was somewhere further up on the bridge ahead of us. I told him to run and go to their car, but he wouldn’t leave. I felt terrible, but I had no choice. I pulled a u-turn on the bridge and got in line to come back into Canada. Fortunately, the line was short and when I showed the border patrol my daughter’s passport he agreed I did not look like a four year old girl and let us go through. I paid the twelve dollar bridge toll I didn’t use and then started home. As we were leaving the bridge area we noticed the line to the USA had gotten much longer, which was discouraging, and then I realized my brother had the tickets, so our friends would get to the game, but then they wouldn’t be able to get in without us. This was just getting worse and worse. Fortunately, my wife was able to find my actual passport and she agreed to drive it up to a certain spot that would save us about half an hour of driving. That was a huge help, but we were still going to be in trouble trying to cross at the bridge. Fortunately, my brother was able to look up the other two bridge options (thank goodness for smart phones). Neither of us had tried that way before, but the wait times for the other bridges were a fraction of the time. We took a chance and it worked out. We ended up getting to the game an hour early and our friends only ended up waiting 45 minutes for us because the bridge they had taken had been that slow.
Panic feels terrible… obviously, but it has its benefits. For one, the fear of it can make us more diligent at doing what we can to avoid having them. Second, the panic can light a fire under us to get moving in order to fix the situation; it’s meant to prevent us from burying our heads and hiding. Third, panic moments often give us very memorable stories (hence I had three other panic moments stories come to mind while writing this). Fourth, they show us the character of someone. The most important good that came out of this event was seeing the example of my brother being so steady. When I realized my mistake I used a choice word and was very loud. My brother? “Okay, well let’s go get your passport.” He had just finished saying how much he hated being late the year before, but he took this moment well. I think it helped him see me so angry and vent my frustration out in a burst. It was like I spoke for the both of us, but either way he handled his own emotion really well. At the same time, his greatest accomplishment was not being overly comforting to me. He wasn’t “It’s okay… don’t worry about… it’ll work out…” He let me get my anger out and then he focused on the plan for how to go to the game. It wasn’t about emotion. It was about how we would get the job done. He was excellent. He was the perfect example of nice to a point in this situation because he was neither accusatory or cold nor was he overly nice. He was the perfect middle.
I would also say that I handled the situation quite well. I was definitely better than I would’ve been a few years ago. I let myself have an anger burst, but then it was down to business. I didn’t beat myself up (at least not as much as I used to). I also didn’t get too aggressive in my driving and put us in danger. At the same time I didn’t brush it off like it didn’t matter. I think it helped my brother see I was angry and he was glad I didn’t turn on him in my anger. I was serious, but not a turd. Of course, I was only able to be good because my brother was so good. That’s the great thing about kindness. When someone is kind to us, it’s easier to be kind to them, and when we’re kind to them, it’s easier for them to be kind to us.
As we looked at last time, we want to consider what’s true and what’s good. The truth is I screwed up, but sometimes screws ups lead to blessings. On top of the good already stated, this situation helped my brother and I learn a new route that worked out great for the drive home because after the game the border was slammed. By going the way we came it ended up saving us about an hour wait time.
This week may you consider a time someone demonstrated great kindness to you when you made a mistake.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
My brother and I started a tradition last year with two friends where we go to an Edmonton Oilers versus Buffalo Sabres game. It’s a funny/sad experience because you’re in the Sabres’ arena and there’s more orange and blue in the stands than the home team colours, and when any cheering is started by the Sabres’ mascot, it ends up being taken over by the Oilers fans. Coincidentally, even though the Sabres are one of the worst teams in the league, both years we’ve gone they ended up winning. Last year they ended up winning twice in the same game – true story. How does that happen? The first win was in overtime. The Sabres scored, which sent the Oilers to their dressing room. As the Sabres celebrated, news crews started interviews on the ice, and fans were rushing out of the stadium to try to beat traffic, out of nowhere the referee skated to the center of the ice and announced the play was offside and the goal was disallowed. No one even knew the goal was in question. Those left in the stadium went crazy. Within a few minutes, the Oilers were back on the ice and the game continued. The Sabres then won again in the shootout. This time, there was no question who won. It was the craziest ending to a game. As someone who doesn’t go out without his family more than a handful of times in a year, the way the game ended added to an already incredible day. The only real problem with the day was discovering the hard way that the border backs up when certain teams like Edmonton play in Buffalo because there are so many Canadians going. Instead of the ten minutes I’m used to, the border ended up taking us about an hour and a half to cross, which made us late to the game.
This year was going to be different. My brother and I left five hours early for what should be just over an hour drive at a different time. According to the sign before the bridge, the line up was supposed to be about half an hour. As we got in line that was backed up to the start of the bridge, for some reason I picked up my passport and looked at it which led to a weird moment: “Huhn, I’m not a four year old girl. Why does my passport have my daughter’s face on it?” I suddenly froze and only my eyes moved around like an owl hoping to magically see a second passport that would have my face on it, but I knew I only brought the one – the wrong one.
Have you ever had one of those “I can’t believe I did this” moments? I wish I could say that was my first time… but it definitely wasn’t. When I was running a San Francisco mission trip as a youth pastor in my early thirties, for the end of the trip I pre-booked a trip to Alcatraz. When we arrived Sunday evening at the pier where you board the ferry to get to the island, I excitedly went up to the booth and handed the worker my printed out tickets for our group of twelve. The worker looked at the tickets and then at me a little confused. That’s not a good sign: “These were for yesterday.” That was a panic moment: “Ohhhhh nooooo!… Am I going to have to re-buy everyone’s ticket with my own money? I’m screwed!” Fortunately, the worker added, “That’s fine. It’s a Sunday night. We can honor these.” That panic moment was met with a great sigh of relief, and that relief turned to laughter shortly after when someone saw a picture of Al Capone and asked in all seriousness: “Is Al Capone still in prison?” Maybe his ghost. This person clearly needed the tour in order to learn some history.
The other time I had one of those intense panic moments was the year I got married and I organized a trip for eight of us to go to New York City and I ordered everyone’s ticket to see a musical. The next day I received an email for the theatre asking what we thought of the show. That was a bad moment. I knew I picked the right date for the show, but in the ordering process I remembered there had been a glitch that must have reset the date before I paid for it. When I called the theatre in a panic, they were very kind and said they would honor the tickets for the other date. The problem was they couldn’t give us our tickets until the night of the show when they could see what was leftover. All eight of us ended up with great seats, so it worked out, but the panic was awful. You’d think with moments like these I’d be scared of ordering things online… and I am.
My first and arguably worst panic moment, however, wasn’t an online issue. In my first year at university at the end of the year exams in April, I went to my 12:30pm Philosophy exam. While in line I didn’t recognize anyone from class. That was odd. I double checked my time I had written down and I had it right. I also had the right location. When I looked at the school’s schedule, however, my exam had been at 10am that morning. Now, like most people I can’t go back in time, so this was a problem. Talk about a panic moment with sweating and trouble breathing. I ran to the registrar’s office and fortunately found some helpful people who told me it was fine – I don’t think I was the first person to screw up an exam time. They sent me back to the gym and told me I’d have an exam ready for me. Thanking them profusely, I ran back to the gym and wrote the exam.
As I’ve demonstrated, my brain has special moments. It’s impressive how it’s able to screw something very simple up and there’s no stopping it. For instance, on this recent day when I realized I had my four year old daughter’s passport it could leave me wondering, “How’d I do that?” My only guess is for three months my daughter had been struggling with sickness. She’d seen both the family doctor and nurse practitioner, had blood work done which came back clear, and no one knew why there was an issue. In the two weeks leading up to the passport moment, my daughter’s sickness escalated to her crying out loud three to four times in the night because her stomach was in so much pain and then the last three days she hadn’t eaten and barely left her bed. After the first week of nightly crying I took her to the Urgent Care unit, yet no one seemed to really care. They booked us to see someone else in a few weeks. After three days of not eating my wife took her to Mac Sick Kids and they said she currently had pneumonia, but there was likely a perfect storm of a few other factors going on that added to her intensified stomach pain. That morning was the day I later went to the game, which meant my daughter was heavily on my mind and likely why I grabbed her passport. Either that or I’m losing it and I thought I was a four year old girl.
When I realized my mistake on the bridge to the USA, my brother was talking on the phone to our two friends in the other car that was somewhere further up on the bridge ahead of us. I told him to run and go to their car, but he wouldn’t leave. I felt terrible, but I had no choice. I pulled a u-turn on the bridge and got in line to come back into Canada. Fortunately, the line was short and when I showed the border patrol my daughter’s passport he agreed I did not look like a four year old girl and let us go through. I paid the twelve dollar bridge toll I didn’t use and then started home. As we were leaving the bridge area we noticed the line to the USA had gotten much longer, which was discouraging, and then I realized my brother had the tickets, so our friends would get to the game, but then they wouldn’t be able to get in without us. This was just getting worse and worse. Fortunately, my wife was able to find my actual passport and she agreed to drive it up to a certain spot that would save us about half an hour of driving. That was a huge help, but we were still going to be in trouble trying to cross at the bridge. Fortunately, my brother was able to look up the other two bridge options (thank goodness for smart phones). Neither of us had tried that way before, but the wait times for the other bridges were a fraction of the time. We took a chance and it worked out. We ended up getting to the game an hour early and our friends only ended up waiting 45 minutes for us because the bridge they had taken had been that slow.
Panic feels terrible… obviously, but it has its benefits. For one, the fear of it can make us more diligent at doing what we can to avoid having them. Second, the panic can light a fire under us to get moving in order to fix the situation; it’s meant to prevent us from burying our heads and hiding. Third, panic moments often give us very memorable stories (hence I had three other panic moments stories come to mind while writing this). Fourth, they show us the character of someone. The most important good that came out of this event was seeing the example of my brother being so steady. When I realized my mistake I used a choice word and was very loud. My brother? “Okay, well let’s go get your passport.” He had just finished saying how much he hated being late the year before, but he took this moment well. I think it helped him see me so angry and vent my frustration out in a burst. It was like I spoke for the both of us, but either way he handled his own emotion really well. At the same time, his greatest accomplishment was not being overly comforting to me. He wasn’t “It’s okay… don’t worry about… it’ll work out…” He let me get my anger out and then he focused on the plan for how to go to the game. It wasn’t about emotion. It was about how we would get the job done. He was excellent. He was the perfect example of nice to a point in this situation because he was neither accusatory or cold nor was he overly nice. He was the perfect middle.
I would also say that I handled the situation quite well. I was definitely better than I would’ve been a few years ago. I let myself have an anger burst, but then it was down to business. I didn’t beat myself up (at least not as much as I used to). I also didn’t get too aggressive in my driving and put us in danger. At the same time I didn’t brush it off like it didn’t matter. I think it helped my brother see I was angry and he was glad I didn’t turn on him in my anger. I was serious, but not a turd. Of course, I was only able to be good because my brother was so good. That’s the great thing about kindness. When someone is kind to us, it’s easier to be kind to them, and when we’re kind to them, it’s easier for them to be kind to us.
As we looked at last time, we want to consider what’s true and what’s good. The truth is I screwed up, but sometimes screws ups lead to blessings. On top of the good already stated, this situation helped my brother and I learn a new route that worked out great for the drive home because after the game the border was slammed. By going the way we came it ended up saving us about an hour wait time.
This week may you consider a time someone demonstrated great kindness to you when you made a mistake.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
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