Lucky Charms

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Dear Jack: Why I Dressed Like This On St. Patrick’s Day

4 years, 4 months.

Dear Jack: Why I Dressed Like This On St. Patrick’s Day

Dear Jack,

I think it’s safe to say that St. Patrick’s Day was just as much fun for me as it was for you. You enjoyed your party at school and seeing your teacher dressed up.

As for me, I had a lot to prove…

Dear Jack: Why I Dressed Like This On St. Patrick’s Day

Last year the office manager where I work asked me to wear my vintage green corduroys on St. Patrick’s Day. Half-jokingly, I responded, “Only if you promise to put me on the cover of the monthly company magazine.”

And so it came to pass…

So for the past year, I have been known as the “official leprechaun” of our company, despite my Mexican and Italian heritage.

Dear Jack: Why I Dressed Like This On St. Patrick’s Day

However, a coworker in the corporate office in Kentucky (I am in the Nashville division) publically challenged me to a duel; the winner to be determined by social media.

In other words, he was challenging my title.

So to make things interesting, I made this video:

I challenged him to wear “leprechaun tights”. I suggested that if he were willing to man up by wearing tights, surely the people on social media would declare him the winner over me.

As for my wardrobe, my favorite description I heard from a coworker was that I looked like either “the dictator of Candy Land or a gangster in the land of Oz.”

Dear Jack: Why I Dressed Like This On St. Patrick’s Day

However, my efforts fell flat when compared to my challenger, who to my surprise, indeed wore tights.

Not the kind of tights I expected him to wear, but he definitely wore them. And a wig.

Plucky O'Guinness

So in the end, he won the official title.

But in my mind, I won the psychological aspect of it: I got a grown man to dress up in ladies’ tights and a wig.

Your Daddy is a clever guy… but I think you already knew that.

Love,

Daddy

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Reading the Backs of Cereal Boxes for Entertainment

The childhood habit lives on in me today.

An important part of being a kid at the grocery store with your mom was getting to decide which goofy cereal to commit to that week.  My mom always let my sister and I each pick out our own box of cereal to enjoy for the next seven days, given that the first ingredient was not sugar.  Back then, in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, the Major Three (Kellogg’s, General Mills, and Post) were all about competing with each other by seeing who could give the coolest toy in the bottom of the box.

But aside from the rainbow colored oat bits, unnecessary marshmallows, and the free sticky octopus toy that would cling to the wall when you threw it, there was still that entertaining back of the cereal box to look at.  Mazes, crossword puzzles, “can you find?…” pictures.  Enough entertainment to stay preoccupied to the point that you almost forget your brother or sister is sitting there just a few feet away trying to find Barney Rubble hiding behind a Stegosaurus on the back of the Fruity Pebbles box.

Because without the barriers of those boxes in front of us at the kitchen table, that meant that we might accidently look at each other, or purposely look at each other, to “bother” the other person.  As a kid, there were a plethora of ways to be annoyed by your sibling, and for some reason, being looked at was one of them.  I thought it was just my sister and I that had to read the backs of cereal boxes so we “wouldn’t have to look at each other”, but after recently walking down the cereal isle at Publix with my wife, revisiting our favorite childhood cereals, I learned it was the same way at her house.  So I can only assume this is an American phenomenon- an expected part of Saturday morning breakfasts.

Now as an adult, I still read the backs of my cereal boxes.  Learned habit, I’m sure.  I have to admit though, the back of the box of Shredded Wheat isn’t quite as fun as Lucky Charms always was.  And of course, no free prize at the bottom of the box either.

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Finding Favor is Better than Being Lucky

Luck vs. destiny.

Here in Nashville, a phrase that pretty much instantly started annoying me the first time I heard it was “networking”.  “It’s all about networking”, say the people who claim to know how struggling musicians become stars.  And they’re right.  It’s all about who you know.  Of course talent and experience have something to do with it too.

But it’s one thing to know the right people, and another to find favor with them.  To stand out and to be special in their eyes.  By doing a quick Google search of the phrase “found favor Bible”, it becomes pretty apparent that finding favor with the right person, or with God, dramatically altered a person’s life throughout Jewish and Christian history:

Joseph found favor with Potiphar.  Esther found favor with King Ahasuerus.  Daniel found favor with the Babylonian king.  Noah, David, and Mary found favor with God.  In all of these people’s lives, their careers as well as their social and spiritual roles would never the same (in a good way) after finding favor.

Therefore, a staple request in my daily prayers is to find favor with the right people.  (As well as for wisdom!)  While I do believe it’s important to pray specifically for my future life plans, I also am adamant on trusting God in all the unseen blessings, detours, and surprises that come packaged with them.  Because those unseen elements in life often carry the most weight, more so than the ones we plan or have any control over.

Finding favor with people doesn’t necessarily mean being charming, suave, or slick.  I think back to a much underrated movie I admit I really like, despite the fact it’s technically a “chick flick” and it seems no one else has ever seen it: Little Black Book, starring Brittany Murphy and Holly Hunter.  A certain quote from this movie really sticks out in my mind and conveniently ties in to the current subject matter: “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”

What others may see as luck, I choose to see as divinely ordained favor, where God appoints a person in our lives to grant a good opportunity.  That’s my version of luck. But of course, in all the Biblical cases where someone found favor with God or the right people, the favored person had already done their part to be qualified.  Noah was already a righteous man.  Mary was already a righteous woman.  Then God used them for great things.

They may not have had the proper experience yet, but they had the right relationship with God and had paid their dues in the mundane stuff of life.  Then, it happened.  The Big Event began and they finally became active in the role they had prepared for their entire whole lives to fulfill.