On Potential and God's Plan.

Reader be warned: this one might (...will) get long (...and slightly scattered). I'll make and explain some observations, beginning the process of trying to make sense of some of them. This is pretty preliminary.

To me, potential is a funny thing. As a hopelessly obsessed fan of NBA basketball and a still relatively young Christian who grew up in the church in which I grew up, I've been able to observe a thing or two about potential.

Let's start with basketball.

Anyone who watches the NBA for long enough will see countless front office executives make terrible, terrible mistakes in the name of potential. They'll do it when they draft players, they'll do it when they sign players as free agents, and they'll do it when they make trades for players.

The examples are too numerous to begin to list. Just for the sake of giving you an idea of what I'm talking about, I'll talk very briefly about one Jerome James.



Jerome James spent a very short time doing nothing for the Sacramento Kings before spending a few years doing nothing for the Seattle Supersonics. At the end of his time doing nothing for the Seattle Supersonics (may they rest in peace - the team has since moved to Oklahoma City and been tragically renamed the Thunder), Jerome James put up very modest, minimally respectable statistics for eleven playoff games. This was parlayed into a $30+ million guaranteed contract.

Jerome James has played in 90 games in the four seasons since - out of a possible 328. Some of those games were missed because of injury. A large number of them were missed because Jerome James just plain isn't any good by NBA standards. Yet $30 million was dished out to this guy in the name of potential - after he had already been playing in the NBA for five years.

But the real guy I want to talk about in regards to potential is Tim Thomas.


Among many NBA fans, Tim Thomas is seen as one of the bigger wastes of potential in recent NBA history. When he was a little younger, Tim Thomas was seen as an intriguing combination of size and skill. He's about 6'10" and generally more mobile than other players his size, with a pretty good shot from long range.

At one point, Tim Thomas showed some promise in a playoff series after playing in the NBA for five years (sound familiar?) and was rewarded with a huge contract worth about $66 million. He never really got much better. A few years into his big contract, Tim Thomas was still a big player who was generally more mobile than other players his size, with a pretty good shot from long range.

There's a difference in the way people talk about Jerome James and the way people talk about Tim Thomas. Jerome James was just a stupid mistake - he was never good, played about average for a few games, and then continued not to be good. But Tim Thomas? People will tell you that Tim Thomas was a waste of potential - that he could have been something more than he was, but he blew it.

To be fair, I should tell you that Tim Thomas was generally regarded as an uninspired player - a fact that might suggest that he actually could have become considerably better if not for lack of intrinsic motivation. But realistically? Before his big contract, Tim Thomas was a fairly mobile forward with good touch from long range. Five years after he signed his big contract, he was still a fairly mobile forward with good touch from long range.

In regards to Tim Thomas and potential, my point is this: at some point, though people saw the same thing in front of them, people stopped saying that Tim Thomas had potential to be something better than what he was. He went through years as what was pretty much the exact same player - but at some point Tim Thomas's potential was exhausted.

So with Tim Thomas, potential was there when people decided it was there, and it became wasted when people decided it was wasted. Potential was whatever was in the best interest of the people perceiving it. It was justification for a contract offer. It was the thing that was wasted, allowing critics to be right and to show they knew everything about how a guy's career was panning out.

Now, that whole church thing...

I grew up in (and still am quite connected to) a church where people talk a lot about "the plans God has" for someone's life. This concept of God having a preference in the way someone's life works out interacts with people's perception of potential in strange ways.

When I was a little younger (maybe around the end of high school or the beginning of my college career), lots of adults around church were really excited about my potential. I'm not exactly sure what convinced them of it or what they wanted it to look like, but they were excited about it. They were convinced that I was going to accomplish great and meaningful things in my life (I suppose that whether or not I have or will is partially a question of definition).

Eventually, I stopped attending college (and not because of any kind of graduation). That'll have a certain effect on people's opinions about potential.

When I was still attending college, potential was about things I would eventually do - for a time I studied to become an English teacher. Now that I am not currently attending college, potential is about things I am currently doing - about my involvement in ministry and the places it is leading me.

I think part of it has to do with the fact that I'm 26 now. 26 is a lot different than 19 or 20.

I've also noticed that "potential" and "God's plan" become very different things (at least from what I've seen at my church) when dealing with older people. In my time at my church, I've seen some middle-aged people experience "potential" and "God's plan" in different ways. I've seen some middle-aged people confused about the direction of their life or unhappy about their position in life. This resulted in a lot of people around them talking about "God's plan" or about these people's "potential" as what could also just be seen as the most apparent and practical course of action. The step that would result in the most comfort and security (or the step that would satisfy the greatest number of people's expectations) suddenly becomes "God's plan."

People's opinion of my "potential" (or of "God's plan" in some cases) changed as my life changed, allowing them to avoid being disappointed in me or to avoid seeing a life in which they've invested go in a direction they didn't like. Again, people's definition may have changed in order to be more convenient or self-serving.

I'm not really sure how that (or much of the stuff before it) reads. It's just what happens to be going on in my head at the moment.

When I was a senior in high school, I was in my church's youth choir, directed by a woman named Diana Merriman. She is wonderful. After just a few months of knowing her, she started saying the same thing to me whenever we had some time to talk about our lives:

"Jon Palmer, what are you going to be when you grow up? I'm going to ask you that every time I see you."

This is only loosely related to what I've been writing about, but she didn't ask me what I'm going to do. She asked me what I'm going to be. I like that question much better. Asking me what I'm going to do when I grow up is asking what career decision I'll make to ease people's worries about security. Asking me what I'm going to be? That's an entirely different question.

Plenty of people are concerned about what I'm going to do. I don't blame them. On paper, it looks pretty bad. I'm a 26 year-old without a bachelor's degree who works at a job that makes him just enough money to pay his rent and to eat. What's worse, I'm happier in my current position than I've ever been in any other position. My happiness is much more directly related to the details of my life I didn't just list, the details relating to the person I am becoming.

I am more concerned with what I am going to be. Diana's is the question I think about.

Para Escapar.

Every now and then, there's a truck parked on University Avenue just east of where it intersects with Hamline. It's parked somewhere within a few miles of that area every day; Hamline and University is one of its regular spots. It's got two or three Mexicans in it, preparing good, authentic Mexican street food and selling it on the street. I stop by it every time I can. It has both the names "Border Tacos" and "Frontera Tacos" painted on it. Frontera is the Spanish word for border. I refer to it by whichever name corresponds with the native language of the person to whom I'm describing the truck.

If I stop at Border Tacos at just the right time, it is magical. The right time is in the middle of a hot, sunny summer day. I'll step up to the window in the truck and feel the hot sun overhead. The sun's heat will combine with the heat emanating from the truck to give me an impression of heat that doesn't exist naturally as far north as I live. At that point, I'll start conversing in Spanish with whomever's working in the truck. I'll ask how business is going, and whoever's working in the truck will be curious as to how I learned Spanish (and as to how I developed a Mexican accent when I speak it). I feel heat comparable to that of a typical day in any of the places I've been in Latin America, I'm speaking Spanish, and I'm close enough to the truck that I can't see the city around me.

For a brief, brief moment, I feel as though I am in another country; none of my immediate physical experiences give me reason to believe otherwise. I am hit by strong memories of my times in Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia.

In that moment, I remember walking around in Juarez, finding a newspaper everyday so I could check up on what was happening in the NBA Finals, though I didn't know enough Spanish at that point to make complete sense of it. I walked around looking for a man named Lalo, telling him that Dwyane Wade won the game with two free throws in the closing seconds. I had pizza with him a year later and we talked about his separation from his wife; I felt a deep empathy for the first man outside the United States to whom I'd ever had any real connection. I remember visiting Quirino, the warm and humble man who made a living making piñatas in the stuffiest, hottest indoor work environment I'd ever seen.

I remember the orphanage in Atenas, Costa Rica, where I played with a little girl named Louchy. I would take her hands and spin around until she was flying, squealing with laughter. I remember the first moment I realized how much it would hurt her when I left, how often that must happen to those orphans and the bitterness I felt about it, not understanding that the love I could give in a short time outweighed that pain.

I remember Yolaida and Loida, the two women who cooked most of what I ate in Colombia, sitting down to rest for a few minutes after each meal. I'd pass them after cleaning my dishes, thanking them for the meal and talking up how great it was. I remember them sitting me down so they could pray for me before I left to take a boat to Cartagena so I could get on a plane back to the US. Theirs was the most regular and predictable interaction I had in the course of my five weeks in Colombia.

These and a thousand other memories compress into a flash of deep sentiment I feel while I wait the two or so minutes it takes to prepare my order. The way I feel in those two minutes lingers on into the rest of the day, and I'm happy and distant until I go to sleep that night.

I stopped at Border Tacos today. It wasn't like the experience I just described.

I walked up to the truck today and noticed that the menu signage was all new and different. In the past, the menu was displayed in the window of the truck and was quite clearly created by someone with a less-than-fluent understanding of English. This added to the character of the truck in a way that was very pleasing to me. This new menu signage was all very fluent and sensible English. That's no fun.

The real disappointment came when I was looking at the new menu and a woman stuck her head out the window and asked me, "are you ready to order?" She was way, way better at speaking English than I wanted her to be. So I interacted with her in English instead of Spanish. It wasn't hot, either. All of these physical factors that I associated with this experience were different, so it just didn't have the same mystique about it.

I stepped back a few feet from the booth while I waited for my food instead of sticking my head in and initiating conversation. I don't suppose it's fair to deprive someone of interest in her life because she speaks English well, but my line of thinking at that point was much less nuanced than any of that. I didn't get what I wanted so I just stood around.

And then three men walked up behind me. They were Mexicans. They stepped forward to place orders and then leaned against a nearby tree while we all waited. From them I got the conversation I was looking for, the little taste of my international experiences that make a day so, so much better for me. They were painters, doing a job near Grand Avenue. We talked very briefly about the food, about Latin America and my experiences, and about how I learned to speak Spanish. I didn't ask their names. They were on what I imagine to be a short break in the middle of a hard day's work, and I didn't see it necessary to take any more of their time than what was available while I waited for my food. This interaction completely made up for the disappointment I had experienced moments earlier.

In the short time we talked, I explained that I ordered food from the truck any time I could para escapar, in order to escape. One of them told me that he does it, too. Just another example of food existing to bring people together.

The food is very good, by the way. Today I ate some tacos al pastor, along with some tacos de lengua (tongue):















If you live in the Saint Paul area, you should stop by this truck when you see it. It's good, authentic Mexican. It's definitely worth the trip, even if you don't have somewhere else to escape to along the way.

Speaking of the Doctor...

My last post dealt with a man named Roger Ettel (commonly called "Doc" by my father and me) and my recent running into him after not having seen him for what must have been a few years. I wrote briefly about doing some landscaping work with him.

One of the days we were working on those steps, Doc and Betty took me out to McDonald's for lunch. I remember exactly what I ate: double quarter pounder value meal, Sprite to drink.

More importantly, I remember this detail: we shared an apple pie.

I remember it very well, and not because of any particular affinity for the food (though at the time I was a big fan of it), but because we shared it. I remember it because it was one of the first times I ever thought about something I now strongly believe: food was created not simply for nourishment or for enjoyment, but so that people might have a way to share an experience together.

I'm convinced that you could get any two people, no matter how different, to eat together if the right food was on the table. Jesus and Hitler is the pair that usually springs to mind. That's one of the more unusual sentences I've ever put together.

Doc Ettel and I didn't know anything about one another's lives before we ate together. I still don't hardly know anything about his. But I have a great deal of affection and respect for him, and it started with sharing a fakey, nothing-special apple pie from McDonald's.

A strong belief in the value of this sort of experience has led me to dozens of nights of invading people's kitchens, cooking up some food, and sharing an evening together. The food usually turns out well and (since I have developed a passable talent for cooking) the other people eating are usually impressed and grateful. I'm not sure, though, whether they know that it doesn't have much of anything to do with the food.

I cook the food to enjoy its taste and its preparation, and it's my favorite creative outlet, but before that it's an excuse to spend time together and to create common ground between us.

I dated a young lady for three and a half years (the relationship ended about two years ago). Of all the experiences I had with her, the best was the tradition we developed of cooking Sunday dinner and eating it with her family. If you want an example of very different people being brought together over food, that's the one. For a number of reasons, it's a marvel that our relationship lasted as long as it did. I imagine that our Sunday dinners were to blame. Come to think of it, they were just about the only thing that actually brought us closer together after a certain point.

I just ran into her mother today. We spoke very briefly, and the interaction was very disappointing. I was genuinely excited to see her, remembering all those Sunday nights we shared together, when I came to respect and admire her. I'm not sure what she was remembering, but it probably had something to do with the abrupt, unpleasant manner in which my relationship with her daughter ended and with her general impressions of the head-in-the-clouds, directionless young man her daughter dated for so long.

I wish she would have remembered the Sunday nights. Sunday night was the only time I felt good about her impression of me; it was the only time I felt we had any connection to one another at all.

I blame the food.

An Impromptu Visit with the Doctor.

Yesterday was my birthday.

Birthdays are typically uncomfortable experiences for me. I spend the whole day in a sort of distant state of contemplation, pondering my life and its direction. All of this thinking happens while everyone around me is wanting to be really happy toward me and to involve me in their happiness. I then feel guilt, as I'm not able to properly receive everyone's warm wishes with an appropriate amount of energy and gratitude. In any birthday interaction with my family, this guilt is combined with the guilt I often feel for not spending adequate time with my family, so interactions with them are especially uncomfortable for me every September 1st.

For the last several years now, my birthday discomfort has been further compounded by the Minnesota State Fair. My father is the co-owner of the RC Cola booth, home of the cheapest pop at the fair. Every day of the fair until 4 o'clock, one can find my father doing one of a short list of things:

-Obsessively spraying and wiping the stainless steel counters where clients are served and small amounts of pop are routinely spilled.
-Changing syrup boxes so that the workers inside the booth can continue to sell pop.
-Eating breakfast at a stand just a few feet from the booth, taking one of the few opportunities he gets to relax during the twelve days in which the fair is open.
-Saying one of the following things to customers: "How goes your day?" "Oh, you have a helper today" - which is said to parents with very small children, and "Have a great one."
-Fraternizing with the people working at the booth or with the guy who brings the ice to the booth, trying to make someone else's day better at a time where he works harder and has more demanded of him than most anyone he'll run into.

I'm writing all of those things about my father so that you might be able to imagine the energy and warmth with which he greets me when he sees me at the booth on my birthday. I feel terrible. I just can't muster the ability give to him what he so easily gives to me on that day.

So on my birthday, mentally disconnected from most things that are happening to me throughout the day, I usually run into my father, creating what becomes the most uncomfortable moment of the day.

This year, it had one hell of a silver lining.

I was in the middle of this moment, with my friends Dan and Sarah standing next to me (as they had accompanied me to the fair that day), talking with my father. We were a few feet north of the RC Cola booth standing in a circle, my father facing the booth and me facing the other way. Whatever we were talking about, it was interrupted by my father telling me: "there's Doc Ettel, Jon. Go shake his hand."

I wouldn't have needed any convincing to be motivated to shake Doc Ettel's hand; my dad just wanted to make someone's day better by having him run into someone he hasn't seen in a while. I turned around and saw Doc Ettel purchasing a glass of RC Cola, in large part (I imagine) out of loyalty to my father.

Doc Ettel's real first name is Roger. My dad calls him Doc because he does something medical for a living. I think he's a chiropractor, but I'm not really sure. Doc Ettel has a face I would love to have when I'm sixty-something. By that I mean that he has wrinkles in his cheeks and around his eyes that you can tell came from a lifetime of smiling at people with an admirable sincerity. His face is generally somber, but when he smiles you can see a life's worth of warmth in it.

When I was growing up, my grandmother lived a street away from my family. Doc Ettel lived (and still lives, with his wife Betty) in the house next to what was my grandmother's house. Their yards were separated by a steep and grassy hill. When I was 14 or 15, Doc Ettel paid me a hundred dollars to help him and Betty with a little landscaping work, putting some nice brick steps in the hill with rocks on either side. It looked good and was very satisfying work. While we worked, Betty would bring out a can of pop every now and then for us to enjoy. There was A&W root beer and Sprite, and Roger always allowed me to choose which I preferred. Since those few days, we've always greeted one another warmly when we've run into one another, taking a short moment to catch up. I had seen Doc Ettel maybe 15 or 20 times then, in a span of a dozen years or so.

I walked away from my father and my friends, over to the booth where Doc Ettel had just received his glass of RC Cola. "How ya doin', Rodge?" I shook his hand, trying not to think about my father telling me to moments earlier. Doc was pleasantly surprised to see me, and I got to see that smile I hope to grow into someday. We got to talking for a moment, and he asked me what I had been up to. I told him about my recent trip to Colombia and about a few other things. He was so happy to hear about the course my life had taken. He then told me that I (along with my family) had been on his daily prayer list ever since we worked together for sixteen hours that one summer.

Even if I hadn't been in the sort of mental state that typifies my birthdays, I would still have been completely dumbfounded. Some people are unbelievably good to people. My father spends the most stressful and demanding portion of his year doing every tiny thing he can to improve one of a million people's day. Doc Ettel has been praying for me every day for a dozen years.

I was then reminded of something I've been thinking about recently: in my mind, not much of anything is better or more gratifying or more fun than being good to people. If I can take the next thirty years and become as good at it as my father or Doc Ettel, I'll be pretty satisfied.