The Madman Upstairs

The Departure

2012-01-27T12:09:00.001-08:00

The last three weeks they had gotten no sales. In the countryside, tractors tilled the earth; to the west of town, a chemical plant poured fumes into the air and pumped waste deep underground. At night its lights glowed like an alien insect of glinting metal and light. Years before it had fouled the water, until everyone in town had to pump in their water from miles away.

David Westron sat on his bed in the hotel room, his home away from home, staring out the window to the emptied parking lot just outside. The morning was still cool, but within a few hours waves of heat would rise off the asphalt, and the air would shimmer and bake the grass at the edges of the lot. Hunter Thomas sat in a chair nearby, writing something in his journal. The silence stretched between them. Both were spent, both had little to say after three weeks of knocking on doors, finding no one home, or worse, condescending smiles and nods that ended in sage predictions of "times being tough." Those left in the town who had not fallen to the plague were convinced that they were immune, that they would beat it, even though six in ten in the town had already succumbed. Or worse, a farmer or businessman would nod in sad resignation, knowing it was just a matter of time until the disease came knocking on their door, too.

The bed creaked beneath David. The springs were uneven and pushed into his back and sides during the night, and the blankets were rough and had a strong chemical smell. He had grown used to it over the last couple years on the road, sleeping in hard beds in strange towns across central Illinois.

At first it had been new and exciting, a sense of adventure as he and Hunter moved from town to town, arriving on a Monday morning, hanging four shirts and three pairs of pants each on hangers, tucking away pajamas and books and toothbrushes and shaving kits into dresser drawers and bathroom corners, and then driving out into the country, or into whatever town they were staying in, knocking on doors, selling their wares. By Thursday they would reverse the process, pulling out the clothes from dressers, the shaving kits, the dirty pants where mud and paw prints and rain had splattered them, and where sweat and rain and coffee had stained the shirts, stuffing them into suitcases that they would place back in the trunks of their cars, to go back to their other life, sometimes having met success, other times coming home empty handed.

It was now nearly two years since the beginning. The July heat had shimmered off the golden fields baking in the sun, the rain and thunder had rolled across the plains more times than they could count, drenching them as they slogged across a muddy field to another farmhouse, or waited for the rain to pass on a quiet country road. The snow had come, and the ice and the freezing cold, and the dark nights, and the wandering aimlessly beside icy rivers to gas stations where they could warm themselves with a cup of coffee.

But then they had their dreams to keep them warm. Someday this would all be worth it. The houses with the large fields and long driveways would be theirs. They would escape the dark nights and cold days of winter by taking trips to Cancun, the Caribbean, or to their vacation homes in Europe. One more sale, and then another, it was just the beginning of building their dreams and opening a life they had never known and leaving behind the bondage and fear they had known.

There were the beautiful moments as well: the clean smell of the world after a spring rain, the beauty of a giant buck standing in the middle of the woods, challenging anyone it saw before it stamped and blew and sprang nimbly off the road into the deep forest, the surprising moments of hospitality and kindness and friendship in the homes of strangers.

Hunter closed his journal, and turned toward David, casting a brief smile before it fell away into grim melancholy. "Well, anything to talk about?"

"No," David said, "guess not."

Hunter leaned forward and rose from his chair, grabbing a clipboard, business kit, and notes. "Well, that's it then," he said. "Good hunting."

Fear . . . and Courage

2009-01-07T10:35:00.001-08:00

Fear is healthy. It's wired into us, and sends adrenaline pumping through our bodies, which then helps us to either "fight or flight", or even posture (act strong) or submit (show helplessness). It warns us of dangerous situations, of risk, that we might get hurt or lose something. It shows up in different places: a fight, a job interview, asking someone out on a date, learning new things, pursuing goals and dreams.

Strength isn't the absence of fear. Strength is recognizing the fear, looking at it, but then not giving into it. If I fight this person I could feel pain, I could break bones, get a concussion, get my teeth knocked out. If I ask this girl out and she says no, I might feel stupid, my feelings could be hurt, I might feel rejected. If I go in on this business deal I might lose my retirement, lose the money I invested, might let down the family members who are depending on me. If I try out for the team or for my dream and don't make it, then what? Am I still me? How do I redefine my identity?

When we take risks, all of these things are possibilities. But often there are other possibilities as well. If I fight, I might win, or, I might get hurt but that's a small price to pay to avoid watching someone else I love get hurt. If I ask this girl out, she might turn me down, or she might say yes, and we may have a great relationship ahead. If I risk on this business deal, I might go bankrupt, or I might make millions, or at least learn something that will improve our life situation. If I pursue this dream, I might actually make it.

We fear failure. Sometimes we fear success. If I win this fight, does that make me a fighter? A bully? Can I be strong without it overtaking me? Will I know how and when to use this strength? If I date this girl and we really like each other, we might get married, have a family. Am I ready for that commitment? How will it change me? If I make millions, will I still be the same me? There are so many rich people out there who are jerks; I don't want to be one of THEM. If I fulfill my dream, will there be any other dreams out there to achieve?

We either let our fears cripple us, hold us back, or recognize what they tell us about ourselves, where we come from, how we've come to see ourselves and the world around us. When I was younger, I had teachers who said "It's never okay to fight. Fighting never solves anything." Yet on the playground it was a different story. Some things are worth fighting for, it's knowing the difference. We should fight poverty, oppression, abuse, slavery. When we don't fight these things, it is not an act of strength, but of weakness. Our fears have overtaken us, and we assume someone else will take responsibility, meaning we're too afraid to step up ourselves.

At home, my parents would get in arguments and Mom would say, "Never treat a woman like that." Sometimes the fear is, "Fighting in a relationship is always bad." And so we shy away from confrontation. Yet sometimes in the relationship, confrontation is the thing that is healthiest and most needed. When done well, it says "I care enough about you and this relationship to speak truth, even if it is hard, or even painful." It says, "I'm passionate about you, about us, and I'm willing to do the work to fix things rather than hope they'll get better or go away." There are healthy and unhealthy ways to confront, and I'm not advocating abuse, but sometimes we fear confrontation so much that we don't step up to fight for the relationship.

I grew up in the church. In addition to the flannel board Jesus with perfect hair, manicured nails, and clean clothes, my Sunday school teachers would often say, "Good Christians are nice. Turn the other cheek." The men and women would shake hands, talk about weather, how glad they were to be there, and stumble and stammer over the words to say. Everything was fine. People were blessed. There were no problems here, thank you. You don't talk about those things in church. Yet I've looked into the eyes of the men, young men and old men, and they've lost something real. They've become emasculated, they lack passion, lack honesty. I've looked at the women beside them, bitter, waiting, looking for some sign of life and shouldering responsibilities that they resent.

And then someone would come in, they couldn't take it anymore, and tears would burst open the gates of their façade that everything was put together, that everything was all right. In fact, everything wasn't. In a moment of "weakness" they would admit that their lives were broken, falling apart, that they needed God, they needed community, they needed something more than they were getting.

There would be different reactions. Some people would come alongside and simply love on the person who was hurting. They would listen without judging, yet challenge them if they needed it. Others would cluck like hens, patting the hurting person on the back, but saying that "They shouldn't feel that way," or "everything happens for a reason," or even "God has a plan." While some of those things may have been true, seeing someone else's pain and honesty was too much. They had to keep it at a distance by spouting cheap platitudes. Then there was a third group who would come alongside, offering comfort to the person who was hurting, but then later say to each other, "I knew Joe had issues. See, he's not so strong after all. It's a good thing I'm not like that."

There would also be the response of the person who had "broken down." Sometimes they would come back, a week later, somewhat embarrassed over their "emotional outburst," the mask once again firmly in place. I'm good, thanks. How are you? Yes, I think it's going to be another warm day. How about that?

For others, it was the beginning of a deeper truth, that there's a paradox in "strength through weakness." Sometimes the scariest, riskiest, and strongest thing one can do is admit they don't have it all together, that they're broken, that they need God, need community, need to be saved and the efforts they've poured in by trying to do it themselves just don't cut it. They recognized they had fears, and yet they faced them, trusting not their own strength, but in a much deeper strength, the irony of the cross.

Fear is inevitable; it warns us of danger. It confronts us in our ethics, our relationships, our life dreams, and our honesty with God. Jesus agonized in the garden, knowing the ordeal that was ahead, begging that it be taken away if there was any other possibility. Did he feel afraid? Yes. Maybe he could have walked away, the option was available, he could have hidden, yet he submitted in strength to the cross. He wasn't caught, wasn't discovered, wasn't found out, crippled by fear, or sent kicking and screaming. He went knowing the cost, the pain, the risk, and went in strength.

Tournament

2009-01-07T10:34:00.001-08:00

Sunday, 4:15. December 7^th.

I stepped into the ring. A Hispanic man about my height stood a foot away. He was younger, faster, fifty pounds lighter, but I had seen him minutes before; he looked frightened. I didn't look into his eyes now, but at a point lower, the blue field marking his chest protector. I had visualized this moment during the prior two days, had fought down the building fear and sometimes panic, but now that the moment was here, I only felt the beating of my heart, the filling and emptying of my lungs. My head and body were encased in hard foam padding, my arms and legs covered as well. I wondered if this was how the knights felt inside all their armor. I was standing barefoot in front of a crowd of spectators who were now nothing more than noise in the back of my mind, except for the voice of my coach.

"Stay loose," he said, knowing my tendency to stiffen up when I sparred. A woman (the referee) held her hand between me and the man I was standing across from, creating a natural barrier between us. "Shijak!" she yelled, lifting her hand in the air and taking a quick step back; it had begun. The man I was fighting was fast. He kicked me twice in the chest with a combination roundhouse kick within the first few seconds. I felt the blow and hadn't been hit that hard in a long time. I tried to respond immediately with a kick of my own, but he had danced away, staying out of reach. I punched, made contact, kicked at the air, and sometimes landed a kick. Most of the time I was just a little behind, a little too slow.

The first minute ended and we went to our chairs. My coach handed me some water and told me to sit down. "You're doing well for your first tournament," he said. "He's up on you in points, but you're doing well. Now here's what I want you to do. When he comes at you with a kick I want you to raise your knee and block him. Take out his leg, take away his tool. Then, follow it with a punch and kick of your own." I nodded, trying hard to catch my breath. "You want me to block, punch, then kick?"

"Yes."

I nodded again, put my mouth guard back between my teeth and ran out to the floor. Round two would soon begin.

This time when my opponent threw a kick, I lifted my knee. Bone collided on bone, and I saw my opponent step back and wince. I charged, trying a kick of my own, but he danced out of reach. He kicked again, and again collided, and then again, and this time I saw him clearly limping. "Close the gap!" someone shouted, and "lead with a block" my coach yelled. I started a flurry, running forward, trying to kick his stomach, his chest, but the time was up. I had hesitated too long.

I lost the match on points, but knew I had won something. I hadn't given up; I had faced my fear. Later my coach said, "You got inside his head. You stayed with it, you did what I told you to do. If this had been a street fight, you would have won. If the match had gone one minute longer, you would have had him."

I'd heard the talkers. "Yeah, if I was in that situation, I would . . ." They talk about the things they would do, the way they would humiliate their opponent, dominate, and come out without a scratch. I'd never felt that way. According to David Grossman in On Killing, In the Civil War to WWII, 85% of the soldiers with weapons either didn't fire their weapons at all or misfired them, often shooting harmlessly over the heads of their opponents, assuring that they would not kill another human being. There's something deeply ingrained in us that resists harming another human being, even if our own lives are at stake. We feel less hesitation when it comes to harming or killing an animal, but for most of us we draw the line when it comes to another human being. This resistance is a good thing, most of the time.

I didn't know what I would do. I'd been in fights before, and they weren't the glamorous things that others made them out to be, at least not for me. My last fight was in high school, between me and a guy I rode the bus with, over some girl that we both liked. Anyway, we fought, and it was like two terrified animals fighting to stay alive. We threw a few punches and kicks, but it was over shortly after it started, both of us agreeing to a truce. The next day the other guy said he'd won, so I challenged him to a rematch, this time with others watching. We punched, and kicked, stepped back to let cars go by, and then punched and kicked some more, and danced around the street. The people who had come to watch both thought we'd exchanged some shots, and couldn't tell who had won. I went home and put a washcloth on my bleeding lip while my mom was giving piano lessons downstairs, sneaking by so she wouldn't see the blood, and the next day the other guy told me he was sore where I had kicked him. That was my last fight.

The day before the match I felt fear begin to rise up inside me. What would really happen? Would I be able to keep my head, would I panic, would I back off, or would I fight back? I visualized what it would look like to be in the ring. I'd trained, lost weight, become better conditioned, and felt ready to fight, win or lose. I wanted to test myself, to see if I had strength. What if I was in a real fight, on a street, or saw someone being beaten or raped? Would I continue walking, not wanting to get hurt or killed, or would I risk getting involved, jumping in and pushing past my own need for self-preservation for someone else? If someone broke into my home and attacked my wife, my kids, what would I do? Would I have courage? Would I have strength? Would I be able to overcome my fear and do what I needed to do? These were the big questions for me.

I learned something that day. I learned about strength.

I might do another tournament soon, but more than that, I'm not as afraid. I'm not afraid at work, I'm not afraid in relationships, I'm not afraid of making hard choices or possibly getting hurt. There's a heart beating inside my chest. I feel more alive.

Recovering, Uncovering

2008-11-11T13:53:00.001-08:00

Living with half a heart, part of a soul,

While another carries around a piece of you.

Meanwhile walking in shadows, the world moves . . . on. Leaves fall, seasons change. The winter winds breeze their icy

breath, whispering death.

And you have to keep moving, walking dead, waiting for the intake of breath and the coming spring, or hibernate in a cocoon of spent hope.

Beauty in pain. Growth in sadness. Many are afraid of it, shy away from it, run from it.

Take a pill, hide it, mask it, shoot it up, make it go away, they say.

Or feel it, swim in it, turn the memories over like a precious stone, grow from it, appreciate it, and become wise.

Punching hands, kicking feet, hammering down blows, just to feel . . . something.

Sweat, blood, muscles ache, jaws hurt, and sweep the wound clean.

Tears rain down, screams scrape heaven with their cries.

And then silence.

No answers, but peaceful nights. Sleep. Hope. Learning to value, to see. Abandonment of pride, and past pain.

Fighting to hold it close, letting it go, dreaming of days gone by and not yet come. Will this wrestling match ever end?

Laughing again. Silent peace. Trust. Healing.

Finding our Voice (and our heart)

2008-10-13T07:54:00.001-07:00

This summer I wrote a story based on a dream I'd had, about a dragon coming to a village seeking sanctuary, initially as a small dragonling and then quickly growing, getting out of hand, and taking on the nature of a dragon (naturally). I was dating a woman at the time, and told her the idea. "You haven't found your voice," she said. "You're trying to be someone else. Your blogs are real, I can here you there, but not here."

I lost my voice. Somewhere along the way I stopped being alive. My closest friends have said I haven't been alive or real for a long time. "You have to start living again."

Here's where I lost it:

My job teaching in Michigan. I lived in one city, had an office an hour away, and taught in four different cities. I met students for six weeks, four hours a night, then drove home in the dark. No sooner had we met than we were saying goodbye. Again, and again . . . and again. After a while I disconnected, graded piles of papers in coffeehouses, drank more than I ever have in my life, and worked out hard just to feel something.

My friends' divorce. He was my brother. I was living at their house when they divorced. I watched as a "family" I knew fell apart before my eyes. I pulled back, isolated, didn't share what I was feeling and buried myself in trying to do well at my new job teaching. I lived out of the office, sometimes literally, sleeping overnight in the lazyboy.

My family. We were on the Oregon coast in a gift shop. I was in high school, my brothers were 5-7 years old. My aunt saw that my stepmom had bought my brothers gifts, and yet something for me was conspicuously absent. "Aren't you going to get Clifford something," my aunt asked.

"No," my stepmom replied. "He doesn't need it." My aunt was furious. She came to me and told me the conversation. I replied, "It's okay." I had gotten used to it. I no longer expected it.

Relationships. I can sweep a woman off her feet, I just don't have anywhere to take her. I pay attention, listen, meet her needs, and get lost in the process. I lose or forget who I am.

How I get it back:

Boise. I lived with my aunt and uncle for six months. My aunt (same aunt) confronted me. "It does matter what you think."

Martial arts. I'm physical, and passionate. Martial arts is something I do because I like to. I like to push my body to the limits (I've thrown up in class). I do it because I want to. I may teach at a college, but in class I'm just another student.

Riding a motorcycle. I'm learning to ride, and loving it. I don't care if some say it can be dangerous. The freedom is worth it.

Being honest. Some things do make me angry. I'm more honest now, but getting better. When my girlfriend became too controlling I told her. We almost broke up that night. Maybe we should have then.

Going skydiving. I've talked about it. It's time.

I want to go to Ireland. I want to visit, and maybe live there. I love going to Irish pubs and listening to music, or Irish fests. I love to dance when the music is compelling. I love music that gets inside your blood, makes you feel, makes you want to weep and sing at the same time.

I want to stand up against injustice. When the woman I was dating was dismissed from her job, I caved. Could I have said something? Should I? I might have lost my job, but I wouldn't have lost myself. Sometimes I've stood up, and gotten pounded down. It's a risk, but so is not being alive.

My girlfriend once asked if I was okay with wearing costumes to movies. "Isn't it weird? You wear a cloak. Don't you think that's weird."

"Yep," I said, smiling.

"Don't you worry about what people will think?"

"No. You worry too much about what people will think."

"I have to, and you should too."

"Why?"

"Well, because what other people think is important!"

"Is it?"

An Attempt at (Bad) Poetry

2008-10-02T10:36:00.001-07:00

I told you that the world was before you, that you were free.

You looked at me with hope, with fear, and doubted if I wanted you.

I looked at you with joy, and saw you stretching your clipped wings.

It was just us two, and the world was crashing down around us, but for a while we were happy.

You asked me if I was lonely, and I said I was alone.

We loved, we fought, we clung to each other and pushed each other away until our world sometimes felt like a cage.

The door was always open. Seeing you fly through it into the open world has hurt more than you'll know.

The world is before you, and you're free.

Death of a Stoic

2008-03-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we don't say what we feel to the people we care about until it's too late. And then they're gone, and we stuff it.

Bury it deep, we say, send it to the elephant bone graveyard, we say, alongside the donkey jawbones, and Yurik's skull (alas, I knew him well), hoping the maggots swallow down our fears. Pass the bottle and let's take a swim in the sea of forgetfulness. There are too many goodbyes, too many sorrows, too many disappointments, sometimes early, sometimes late, and so we say, "That's how it is; that's life. Better just accept it." We avoid funerals, avoid tearfilled goodbyes, avoid moving the last sofa onto the moving van.

And then sometimes someone notices the chink in the armor, behind the hard exterior, the face of stone, the laughter and jokes, and strange disappearances before the end of the night. There's the child weeping in the corner, afraid that someone will see their tears.

Is There Anybody Out There? Is There Anybody Listening?

2008-02-26T19:27:00.001-08:00

If anyone still checks this, I've been on a writing hiatus (you already noticed). I may resume. I've been writing, but it's gone underground for a while. All the best . . .

Great song by the way (points to title).

Cheers,
The Madman Upstairs (think the Madwoman in the Attic, The Madman in Nietsche, Mad thoughts in the brain, or apartment dwellers who live on the top floors of buildings and you'd be on target, at least some of the time).

Scene: (the kitchen)

2007-10-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

He wanted to hit her. They were both standing in the kitchen, Marilyn stood two feet back from him, her eyes growing wide as they looked just past his shoulder. John turned his head, following her line of sight to his own right fist, cocked back by his ear.

It had happened so fast. He had never thought he could bring himself to this moment. He had thought about hitting his stepmom, had wanted to, but when the moment actually came it had happened as if he were standing outside his body, and something else had automatically pulled the strings. In physics, there was potential energy, energy not yet released but pregnant with ability, and kinetic energy, energy in motion. He was more than these laws, more than a machine, and in this moment he had a choice: potential or actual energy?

Marilyn stepped back, then ran across the room, standing behind John’s father, and continued to glare at John with those large, saucer eyes. John lowered his fist; his breathing came rapidly.

“Do you have a problem?” John’s dad said.
“You ate Andrew’s hotdog!” Marilyn squeaked, from over Harold’s shoulder.“What? What are you talking about?” John said, shaking his head and taking a step forward.
Marilyn moved out from behind the wall of John’s dad. “You took Andrew’s hotdog,” she continued. “You knew we were saving it for him and you deliberately ate it.”
“I didn’t,” John said. “If I’d have known it was his I wouldn’t have eaten it. I was hungry. I didn’t know it belonged to anyone.”
“You did it out of spite,” his father said.
“This is ridiculous,” John said, walking away.
“Do you have a problem?” his dad said again.
John turned again to face them both. “No. No, I don’t.” He turned away, looking over his shoulder so Marilyn wouldn’t take a running leap again at the back of his legs, and left the house.

Before Andrew had been born, John and his parents had gotten in an argument over a trip they would be taking the next day. John had forgotten they were going on a trip and asked where they were heading. "You already know," his dad had said, but no, John told him he didn't.
"You're being smart," Marilyn said. "You do too know."
"I Do NOT," John said, exasperated that he should know something that he didn't.
"Don't get fresh," his dad joined in, and John was asked again where they were going. When he claimed he didn't have any idea, they told him to think, but nothing came to mind, so they marched him upstairs, lathered his tongue with soap, and forced him to swallow it. They next day they drove to Joplin, Missouri, and John promised he would know the answers to more questions.

John walked around to the back of the house, opened the door, fumbled for the light switch, and pulled the leash off the nail where it usually hung next to the door. Closing the door behind him, he walked across the yard, past the kitchen, out near the garden to a small kennel with four posts surrounded by chicken wire.

Pebbles began wagging her tail wildly before John had even reached the gate of her pen.
"What are you so happy about?" he mumbled, leaning down to lift the latch and catch Pebble's collar as she made a mad scramble for the opening. She licked his hand, and he couldn't help but smile softly. "You're a stupid dog," he said, rubbing her head behind the ears. He slipped the leash onto her collar and they were away, walking down the street to the end where it would meet the country road, and from there wherever it took them.

They were walking, Pebbles on a mission to sniff every hydrant and tree along the way, John settling into the swishing silence and warmth of walking. It always made him feel better, every step taking him farther from the house, the road opening up as they passed houses on the right and left, and then open fields. He imagined what it would be like to keep following the road, heading west, with fields of corn and soybeans on his left and his right, following where the sun led, and the clouds. He could go anywhere. He could leave this town and the life he knew, his family and the kids at school and start over. Someday, he promised, it would be different. He would find his mother, he would be somebody different.

Quick Note

2007-09-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have two IDS lectures coming up this week, and played ultimate frisbee this afternoon at the park. On Friday I went to Chicago on a field trip to the Oriental Institute, and got to swing by Powell's. It sounds boring, but I always love a trip to Chicago and the chance to see things from Egypt, the Assyrians, Hittites, Sumerians, and more.

I'm reading a series by Susan Cooper. She's an incredible writer.

I'm struck by how lonely of a place Lincoln can be. When I was here as a student, it was a constant struggle. Now, as a professor, it seems to be a constant companion as well, but I see other people around me struggling with it too. It's in the air, maybe in the cornfields and soybean fields. I haven't seen it many other places where I've been, but it's all pervasive sometimes.

Loneliness we can learn to live with. It's what we often do to medicate loneliness that can be death. Could there be such a thing as a spirit of loneliness, a force that hovers over certain places, derailing community and peace and feelings of belonging? Regardless, a lot of students have talked about the struggle, and wrestling with suicide, pornography, alcohol and drug abuse, an almost unhealthy fascination with sex and relationships, and it makes me realize it's not just an individual feeling. What is it about this place that breeds loneliness? Is it the size of the town (it IS small)? Is it being away at college? Is it a distraction that takes place on a larger than life, spiritual level? Or is it the sense that here people are supposed to have it all together, there shouldn't be any mistakes or flaws, and so we feel isolated in our brokenness, in our struggles, in our desire to be more than who we are today, or in our apathy and hopelessness that things will ever be other than they are right now.

The Calling

2007-09-06T09:32:00.001-07:00

From the four winds they came. Many of them had been outcasts in their own clans and families. There was a thief, a number of orphans, vagabonds, pirates, slaves, fishermen, and a few murderers. But they had come, this motley crew, to the gathering. No one could quite explain it, they'd felt compelled, a voice like a whisper on the wind, and then a sudden longing to head to the center of the Four Lands. Some had traveled days, weeks, even months, but they all arrived on Midsummer's Day. Like a flock of ravens, they had come together as a band of warriors.

Elwin Ravenblack was among them. She had stolen away from onboard the ship, killed the guard with a knife she'd tucked in her boot for weeks, slit his throat from behind as he'd entered her cell to rape her. She stuffed his body in an empty feedbag, lowered it down in the water by a rope, then cut it free. May the waters take it where they would, she would soon be free. She slipped undetected from shadow to shadow onboard the ship, catlike, then lowered herself overboard, hand under hand down the anchor until she slipped quietly into the water, and swam across the bay to mainland. Her arms and legs ached from their lack of use, and her lungs burned from the exertion and salt water, but she continued on. It was a death quest, but a death she preferred to the living, waking death she had experienced the last six years.

She made it. Gasping and sobbing freely for the first time in years, Elwin Ravenblack kneeled on the shore as the tide washed over her shaking arms and legs. She would have to keep moving soon, but for now she gave herself over to the rising swell of emotions that had been captivated for years. Anger, joy, relief, and sadness and loss flooded through her body, gripping and shaking her until she felt like she would explode. She wept for her family, her childhood, the abuse the shipmates had taken out on her body, and she wept for her freedom. She could begin again, and in this place where sand and sea, air and water met, she could be whole.

The following weeks she had made her way further inland, an unspoken sense leading her to the next town, and then beyond. She'd stowed away in barns, raided pantries, and kept to the shadows, daring herself to travel only at night. The pursuit had lasted for two weeks, as she knew it would, and then had been called off. The men would return to the ships to fish, trade, or pirate other vessels. She no longer cared.

On Midsummer's morning she came to the valley, surrounded by mountains and tall pine trees, and in the center of the valley, a lake. She had traveled through the night, compelled to move faster, to not let her body rest, and as the sun rose and cast beams across the water, she found a shelter underneath the pines, and slept.

Strange

2007-09-05T13:03:00.002-07:00

This morning I left the chapel to go teach my 8am class (yes, my office is in a chapel), and as I was heading to the door I saw something on top of it; I thought it was a wreath. As I got closer I saw a dead bird hanging, its feet against the glass, its neck hanging down, broken, its eyes a dull blue and lifeless. I wondered if someone had put it there, but then figured the bird had probably flown into the glass door, broken its neck, and died. No portents, I hope, only a murder most fowl.

The Word and the Wind

2007-09-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

There were words in the wind.

For those who could hear them, they spoke compellingly, softly, insistently; sometimes clear, sometimes just beyond reach, they were always there. They rustled through the leaves in autumn, blew across prairie grasses, howled over desert sands. They rattled and sighed as they left the bodies and bones of the old ones, or sparked life into the wails of newborn babies. The words were active, creative, breathing life still into the world, guided by the thought and will of the Word speaker.

The darkness was also present. It cast its clawing, fearful shadow across the lands. In it was the utter silence of the crypt, the hollow, empty places buried far below the ground in caverns where the air is stale and cold, and mountains of granite press down from above. It was the lonely, suffocating silence in the middle of the night when all one's fears come to life.

Words. Breath. Life. Silence and darkness. Death.

Few had the power to hear the words on the wind; even fewer had the power to breathe it in, focus it, comprehend it, and breathe it out again as the language of power, of growth, of life. But the words were calling Will. They had a purpose for him, and others from different places and times, but he didn't know it yet.

Will Oakman (A Ravenblack story)

2007-09-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

Will Oakman had always dreamed of adventure.

As an orphan, he imagined what his parents must be like, maybe a king and queen of a distant country, or perhaps his father had been a proud warrior. It made the hours mucking the stable go faster, as his sweat mixed in with the straw and dung below him. After the barn there would be feeding the chickens, pigeons and sheep, the washing inside, of laundry and dishes, and sweeping the front porch. The days seemed endless, and the nights too short. A family had taken him in when he was four, so he had not spent much time in the orphanage, but there at least he had been surrounded by others like him, boys and girls whose parentage lay shrouded in as much mystery as his own.

Late at night, as his muscles ached heavily and he found his head buzzing between this world and the world of sleep, he saw images, heard voices, and wondered again where he'd come from. The bigger question: Why had he been left behind? If his parents had been nobility, had he been kidnapped, stolen away from his crib in the dead of night and held for ransom, or had his parents died of grief when they'd found he was gone? Or if his father had been a warrior, perhaps he had been cut down in battle, intending to come back one day for his son, but never getting the chance.

Then there was his education. The family he stayed with saw it as their duty that he be educated, though often with the harsh rigor that felt little better than cleaning the barn. On these days his body didn't ache, but his mind felt sodden with memorization drills and grammar. On warm days the schoolmasters would let the students have a break to stretch their legs, to play outside, to practice sports. While the break from his studies was a welcome relief, Will soon found that the other kids saw him differently, kept him apart, and so his breaks were spent wandering the fields behind the schoolhouse until the bell clamored that it was time for more drills to begin. He dreamed of one day being free.

And then strange things began happening. He had grown used to the solitude of his thoughts and long stretches wandering across fields and through woods. The company of these lonely haunts were preferable to the sounds of jeering schoolmates or the crying, squabbling children at the farmhouse. The quiet in the lanes and woods was welcome. He began to move with as much stealth as a blowing leaf, and found he could mask his footsteps to a soft pad, quiet enough to not even disturb the old and brittle branches that lay strewn across the paths. In the distance he saw a deer, a young buck no older than a couple summers, its antlers not yet to their full maturity. It stopped, lifted its head, and stared at Will. Will stood still, then sat down, folding his legs close to him, and waited.

High overhead birds flew in a V-formation, then broke in two, one group branching from south to east. The second group changed course, fell in line, and soon they were in V-formation again. The wind blew gently through branches around him, whispering, words bubbling to the surface of Will's consciousness, then bursting before he could catch them. And still he waited. Will began to hear his breathing, and slowed it to match the sound of the wind in the branches. Behind him, out of sight, Will could hear the deer's hooves, moving hesitantly, pausing, edging closer. Will closed his eyes. He sensed a presence, peace, as if a giant were standing close to him, about to speak, yet there was no one there. He stayed still a moment longer, before opening his eyes again, and heard the quiet, its subtlety and nuances as tangibly as if it were speech. And this was only the beginning.

Tolkien, Lewis, and more

2007-09-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

When I was in second grade I began reading the Chronicles of Narnia. The way it happened, I had helped my stepmom clean the house and when I came home from school the next Monday, Mom had bought me a book as "payment." It was a pretty nifty strategy on her part, associating books with rewards, otherwise it might have been chocolate, and I'd be diabetic, or money and I'd be a penny pinching stockbroker on Wall Street. Instead, I'm poorer and a little thinner, but have an office lined with books . . . and fell in love with Lewis's work and fantasy literature in general.

Through second grade I worked my way through the Chronicles of Narnia, getting bogged down in the Dawn Treader (Voyage of the Dawn Plodder?), but then finding that Silver Chair was my favorite book of the series (though some critics say this one has the most disjointed plot and moves the slowest.) While I was going through the Chronicles, a professor came to our house to visit and found out I'd been reading the Chronicles of Narnia. "Really?" he said. "Well, you should read the Hobbit." Soon after I'd finished the Last Battle, and Narnia and the wardrobe were behind me (though not without a sadness and a longing for more), a copy of The Hobbit showed up in my room one Monday after my parents had gone shopping.

I remember staying up late to read The Hobbit after it was long past time to go to bed. My folks was leave the door to my room cracked, with a light on in the hallway, and light would spill across my pillow. The steps to the bedrooms in our house creaked, so I usually had ample warning when my dad was coming to see if I had fallen asleep yet. One night I had gotten so engrossed reading about Bilbo taking on the spiders in Mirkwood forest that I looked up to see my dad looking at me through the crack in the door, clearing his throat. I tried to shove the book under my pillow like I had done other times, but it was too late--I was caught.

Dad came in and sat by the bed, and tried to cough so he could suppress a laugh. "We encouraged you to read," Dad said, "and we're glad that you do, but you also need to get some sleep. Reading in the dark like this will hurt your eyes." Dad was angry, but not too angry, and I think he was also a little pleased that I was breaking the rules by reading and not doing drugs like other third graders.

Seeing how much I was getting into fantasy literature, my stepmom took another tack. "We like that you're reading," she said, "but you need to read more than just fantasy." The next week she bought me a book on Paracelsus (I think), and then later one on Erasmus, and encouraged me to read histories, biographies, whatever I could get my hands on. My dad had also encouraged me in first grade to start reading the Bible. I also got hooked reading about ancient cultures, especially the Egyptians and "lost cultures."

At the public school we had a librarian named Mrs. West who would read to us once a week when we'd come to the library to check out books. Usually it was just a time when the boys would kick each other in the groin to see if we'd flinch. Mrs. West had short, white hair, was tall and fairly thin, but had sharp eyes and an even sharper wit, and could read stories better than most people I knew. She was attractive in a lean, sharp way, like a tree or a bird.

She seemed to take a liking to me. I told her I'd read Lewis and Tolkien, and asked conspiratorially if she had any other books like that, and she said, "I have just the thing." She introduced me to Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (a fantasy set in a Welsh-like world) and Madeleine L'Engle's Time trilogy (now a quintet), and I also read about black-and-white horror movies and became fascinated with monsters. When I asked to borrow a copy of Shakespeare's plays when I was in seventh grade, I think she beamed and teared up at the same time. I looked into it because I'd met another professor, John, who thought I should beging reading Shakespeare. (honestly I started the Merchant of Venice, and couldn't understand the play script, so put it down after a few pages. It wouldn't be until my sophomore year that I'd be reintroduced to Shakespeare when we'd go to Purdue to see Romeo and Juliet, and I'd be talking with the girl I had a crush on all through high school, Tracy.)

John had recommended other fantasy books to me, and I'd read Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, then went to the town library to read David Eddings' Mallorean and Belgariad, and began reading Celtic, Greek and Norse mythology, Arthurian legends, Robin Hood, and Nathaniel Hawthorne (The House of the Seven Gables, though since I hadn't read The Scarlet Letter yet, I was lost.) I also discovered Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and Frank Herbert's Dune.

My hunger for books and stories was insatiable. We lived in a town of 800, and my parents let very few friends from school come over to the house, or vice versa. One time my friend Jay was going to come stay at my house when my stepmom said, "He can't. I'm doing laundry today." She'd put me off the whole week on the decision, then backed out at the last minute. We also traveled a lot during the summer, and on the long roadtrips I would read a book, since I didn't have any brothers yet to share the backseat with. Fantasy literature was a way to escape the town, escape my parents, and escape my lack of close friendships with other kids my age. I longed for an adventure, a quest, to go rescue some beautiful girl so she could see how brave, and not how shy, I was.

The original Chronicles and Lord of the Rings still sit on my shelves, now in my office next to hundreds, if not 1000+ other books. They're worn, discolored, and well used (I've read them over 7-8 times each, of those copies alone) but I still have them with me. I've read a lot in general, have written papers and will soon teach a class on these books, but still come back to them, reminders of an early love and a desire to experience the world, and they sit on my shelf, carrying hints of rainy fall nights, or winters with a blanket and a book and something hot to drink, or lazy summer days either outside or in my room, dreaming of being a hero, of adventure, of danger, and of a quest big enough to drop everything else just to pursue it.

Frank

2007-08-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

I never blogged about Frank; or Boston.

In April our campus closed down for a week and students, faculty and staff scattered in different directions. It wasn't Spring Break, but a working week, a week we call E-3 around here. Sort of an "in the field" or practical experience. Some went to England, Romania, Montana, Colorado, and others stayed right in our own backyard of Lincoln. My group went to New England.

Since it was my first year teaching, I was going to co-lead our group and it was going to be small. I was actually following the lead of another guy, who had to back out the week before we left because of a family emergency. It was the right thing for him to do, and none of us begrudged him staying, we only grieved for him and his family and missed the expertise he would have been bringing on the trip. So a couple days before we were to leave, I was moved from co-leader with little responsibility to leader of the group (four other students) heading to work with a campus ministry in Boston. I'd never done this before, but felt a lot of peace about it. I've traveled a lot, often by myself, and feel like a "leaf on the wind" in these moments. It's a surreal experience, you have to expect the unexpected because you don't know what will happen or who you'll meet, and yet these seem to be some incredible times of growth for me.

We flew into New Hampshire, had one of the roughest landings I've experienced, battling wind shear the whole way (I could feel the plane being rocked side to side. It felt like we were driving fast down an old, hilly country road with no shocks), but landed safely.

I need to back up for a minute. In Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, there had been a shooting a week before. It had happened in broad daylight and was the news all over Boston and beyond. It had been bad enough that the guardian angels had been sent in the day before we came to add extra protection in the area. When we arrived in Boston that night, our liaison from the college said, "Whatever you do, don't go to Dorchester." The next day we met with our project leader who said, "Tomorrow we're going to Dorchester."

What happened in Dorchester will be maybe another story, but not the one I want to tell today, other than to say there was another shooting the day before we went to Dorchester a couple blocks from where we ended up working. But what I really want to talk about is Frank.

We went to Park Street Church in Boston on a Sunday night. We had already been in Boston a few days, and were exhausted from a variety of events. I even had to struggle with whether we would go or not, but we did.

A little background about Park Street Church. Founded in 1809, Park Street Church is close to the Boston Commons, is a conservative congregational church, and has been involved in social issues since its inception (including a speech against slavery by William Lloyd Garrison in 1829. A balcony facing the corner of the street allows for public speaking). It's a hot spot for 20 somethings and college students in Boston, and we had gone that night to see what they were all about and see how Park Street connected with the larger college and campus life of Boston. After the service I spoke with a guy from the Middle east who was going to grad school (at Harvard?). We left after most of the rest of the people had cleared out, and made our way out into the Boston night, on our way to Mike's, a popular pastry shop on the north side.

At the bottom of the stairs was a man wearing layers of clothes, wraps around his arms, a thick beard and deeply leathered face with his hand out. Others were filing past, the rest of our group had walked ahead down the street, and I turned to go as well, but then stopped. I couldn't do it. I often get uncomfortable when seeing a stereotypical "homeless" person on the street. I wonder what he wants, whether he'll ask me for money, if he really needs something or is trying to scam me. Most of the time I feel angry.

This night, I was torn. I felt the irony of a man standing outside a church, a place that is well known for reaching out to the needs of the community, and walking by and doing nothing. I stopped. "Can I help you?" I asked, expecting him to ask for money.

"They won't let me in," he said.

"Who won't?"

"They won't." He pointed to ushers who were now closing the doors of the church. "I just wanted a Bible and they won't let me in," he said. I was stunned. I also didn't have a Bible with me. It was the last thing I expected him to say.

By this time, the students I was with had stopped, and were walking back toward me. The man and I continued to talk. David stepped up, "I have a Bible. You can have this one." He handed the man a small, leather bound pocket Bible. The man took it.

"Will you bless it?" he said.

"We can pray for you," I said, and we closed in. "What's your name?"

"Frank." And then Frank began to pray one of the most profound prayers I've ever heard in my life. He prayed for himself, for warmth, for protection, for forgiveness, and he prayed for us, for Boston, for the people walking by us, and then he began singing the song "We Shall Overcome" as tears came to his eyes and he rocked back and forth. When he was done we were left speechless, not sure what to do or say. I asked him again if he needed anything else, and he said no, so we said our goodbyes and quietly shuffled off into the night, absorbed in our thoughts, wondering what had just happened.

Beginning of school, Greeks and more

2007-08-18T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today started with a 30 mile bike ride around 6am. I met Jonathan and Roger, led the way to Elkhart, and then we took Route 66 headed for Lincoln. Roger got a flat tire, but Jonathan (I think he's always prepared) had the gear needed to fix the flat. Roger had called his wife to pick him up, so we waited about 25 minutes, then Jonathan and I kept riding and Roger passed us about ten minutes later in a truck with his wife. I guess she found him. :)

Freshmen moved into the dorms today, and I realize it's finally official--school has begun (at least it will next Tuesday). There's a morbid game on campus to see what kind of serial killer professors would be if they were in fact serial killers, and I was told that I would probably write things in my journal. Not true, but Bethany likes telling this story (Colonol Mustard, in the Conservatory, with a revolver. For me, it's a journal because I teach writing and English. Not a game I hope to continue.)

So the last year I've been reading and lecturing on the Greeks for one of my classes, and have gone to knowing very little about the Greeks to developing a growing interest and fascination with anything I can find out about them, especially when it comes to the mythology, Greek religion, and their literature, art, and architecture. I'm especially interested to know more about the Minoans (lived in modern day Crete) and the Mycenaeans. Since this is mostly what I lecture on, the interest follows necessity. I even got to go to Greece this summer and visit Corinth, Mycenae, Epidaurus, Delphi, and Athens (and we passed Thebes, but there was no sphinx, and no incestual relationships that I know of.)

Before I go further talking about the Greeks, I want to give some work background. I hate spending too much time alone, so when I'm reading in my office and have sat too long without seeing another person, I head down the hall to visit Brian. Brian's the history prof, and we lecture in two classes together, and he's been my mentor the last year. I tell him something I just found out about the Greeks, or ask him a question about whether their could have been giants, or why snakes are depicted so much in Greek art, or if there could be a connection between the Nephilim referred to in Genesis and the Greek gods. Brian generally likes more alone time than I do, but he puts up with my questions and general rambling patiently (most of the time), then approaches the question from a historical perspective, which means a more skeptical one.*

*(In Corinth we looked at sculptures of the Amazons (tribes of female warriors) together and he said they couldn't have possibly existed. I actually got angry and walked away for a while, feeling like he was always shooting down the possibilities and questions. Later I addressed him and he said, "the Amazons were known for cutting off a breast so they could shoot arrows better. In the ancient world, without sterilization and our knowledge of medicine, they would have gotten an infection and died." My mind jumped to wondering about the possibility of cauterization with a hot poker or fire, but my hurt ego was soothed by the fact that he had explained his theory, rather than just saying I was wrong.)

So here's the big difference between Brian's perspective and mine. Brian is a well trained historian, so he looks for facts, checks accounts, looks at holes. I grew up reading fantasy literature and became an English major. When I look at a situation, I ask "what if?" I like to think of possibilities and a story, which sometimes takes me far away from reality. Brian often helps ground me, and me, maybe I expand his possibilities in small ways, or just force him to develop greater capacities of patience with people who ask dumb questions.

For example, what if the Red Sea crossing actually happened, or, say, there actually WERE giants at one time? How would that change the way we look at our history, and by extension, our own lives? A number of people look at the Red Sea and say, I've never seen it happen, it couldn't have happened. But there are grooves on the west and east sides of the Red Sea where a million people could have passed and left their imprint in the desert, there are stone boundary markers around a mountain in modern day Saudi Arabia that fit more accurately the Sinai site than the one people go visit today, and there are images of bulls on those boundary stones.

It's still hard to imagine how the Greeks living in the 8th century BC or even 5th century BC would have seen their world or envisioned it, especially coming from a 21st century perspective. In the 8th century, the Greeks were coming out of a 400 year Dark Age, where writing had ceased and there had been a gap in what they knew about their history. They saw the walls of Mycenae (the stone above the Lion's Gate alone weighs 120 tons and sits over ten feet from the ground) and believed that only giants could have built these "Cyclopean walls." How exactly they did get this massive stone (lintel) up to rest on equally massive posts is still unknown (there is no evidence of gears, pulleys, or tackle) but one possibility is they used a long earth ramp built up level to the top of the posts, used animals and human labor to drag it (much like the building projects in Egypt), and then dug away the dirt ramp.

The question is, how do we reconstruct the past, especially when all we have are the stories, fragments and shards that cover only small slices of life? Could there have been giants constructing the walls? Maybe, though the gold death masks reveal faces that are just as human as you and I, if not a little stylized.

I'd like to write more about concepts of heroes (Greek and present), and may wrestle with other lecture questions online. It actually may save Brian from my frequent visits, so he will probably be grateful if I keep the conversation here.

Waves or particles?

2007-08-15T10:16:00.001-07:00

My last post froze up on me when I was trying to upload some pictures, and I lost everything. Needless to say, I haven't blogged much. Grrr, technology.

Ever see What the Bleep Do We Know? It's more documentary than film about quantum physics and the way the world is so much different than we picture it to be. Our paradigms (ways we see the world. Assumptions we make) are ways of constructing what we know about reality so we can live and operate in a world and have it make sense to us. The world is flat. The world is round. Obviously, some of these paradigms change as we realize the old model we used isn't big enough. It doesn't mean it's wrong, it just means that it doesn't hold or explain everything that we come to experience in real life, so we have to change it.

Some of my paradigms are changing, and when they're in process, it's hard to figure things out. It's fluid. Only when things start to settle and we have some distance to look back do we begin to see where things have shaken out and what the landscape now looks like.

So here are some updates for those who read (and I hope to become better at responding):
1. Grief
I went through three months of pretty intense grief. I was bitter; I was angry, and this time it was mostly at God. It was good I didn't write publicly. Most of it wasn't stuff I'd like to share, and so I didn't. I needed to work through it alone, mostly, though there were key people and conversations at key times that really helped me out (some of you know who you are). I read Job. I read Psalms. I read C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed and found fellow commiserators as well as a common journey: the journey is often made alone, there are some common feelings, but then there's movement toward either acceptance or renewed hope, joy, or something along the lines of renewed faith and a greater realization.

2. Taekwondo
I started back to taekwondo in June after a 14 year absence, and packing on 30 pounds. Most people think the things we do are either nuts or dangerous, or at the very least extreme. We train in 92-94 degree heat for an hour and a half. I've passed out three times, thrown up once (hurled shamelessly at the back of the class), and yesterday we had a training where we had to block a knife attack (a real knife). One of the girls missed and cut her wrist (and was immediately sent to the back to wash and bandage it). I have much less sympathy for excuses. I ended up losing 10+ pounds, have gotten leaner and more muscular, and move differently. I like being in my own skin. Students often complain about making it to 8am classes, or turning in late papers. There's something to be said for discipline and doing the things that are hard. If you can breathe enough to say you can't, you can keep going. It's a matter of changing mindset. No excuses.

3. House
I'm looking at buying my first house. Not ready to write about it yet. More to come later, maybe.

4. Relationships
A big experimental testing ground right now. Everything I thought should work, doesn't. Most things that shouldn't seem to work, do. Rather than complaining about it, now I'm observing it in the real world, learning about it, using it.

5. Faith
I still believe, but like C.S. Lewis says in A Grief Observed, "My house of cards came crashing down and I saw what was left. Will I rebuild another house of cards, or will it be something different?" Not a verbatim quote, so don't quote me, but that's the gist. All I can say is I started reading the Bible again, though that didn't come easily, started praying again, even harder, and took communion after a month long absence. I don't imagine this means much to those who don't believe, but for someone who grew up with faith, has had seasons of doubt, but has come back, this feels significant. Every thinking Christian seems to admit that they doubt. Does it make faith less reliable, or just allow a place for some honest wrestling? For me, I think it's the latter.

Waves or particles? Depends on what you're looking for as to what you'll end up seeing.

John

2007-07-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning to do a project helping John hang drywall. I would be driving and John didn't have a license, so I'd need to pick him up. I picked up some sandwiches and Gatorade at the IGA a couple blocks from my house, then drove across town and made it to John's at a couple minutes after 7.

John has a small house. A camper is parked in the back and there was a bike laying in the front lawn. The door was open but the screen door was closed, so I got out of the car, walked up the sidewalk, and knocked. I heard voices inside. John came to the door and told me to come in for a few minutes.

"Are you ready to go?" I asked. "Do you need to load up some tools?"
"Are we taking the van?"
"No. My car." John's eyes were glazed and I could tell he'd already been drinking or had started the night before.
"What tools do I need?"
"I don't know. Mark said you'd know what tools you'd need."
"Okay, give me five minutes. We'll pick up a 12-pack on the way."
I looked at him, registering his body movements, the unsteady shuffle and sway and thought about our drywall project ahead, standing on ladders, handing up 30+ pound sheets of drywall, and just shook my head.
"Don't tell me what to do," he said, then paused. "Well, I'm taking at least one anyway."

I then noticed John's friend who was sitting on a couch to my left. "John's an alcoholic," he said. "So am I. You okay with that?"
"Okay," I said. I turned back to John. "I'll go out to my car and give you some time to get things together,"
"My name's Rick," the other guy said, and shook my hand. "Can you feel that?" he asked.
"No," I said, not sure what he meant.
"Energy. A strong grip." I didn't feel either, but pulled my hand out of his.

I called Mark. "John's drunk. What do you think?"
"I'll be over in just a minute." In the meantime John had grabbed a pitcher of tea and toolbelt, and gotten in the passenger side of the car. "Let's do this," he said. Rick followed closely behind.
"Let's wait here for a minute till Mark comes I said."
"I'm not going to go to work today, Rick."
"What do you mean?" he said. "Sure you will."
"No. No, he's called the cops because of my heroin."

Mark arrived soon after, John was taken off the job, and went into the house and began playing his electric guitar, badly. He had once been one of the best drywallers in the business, and had been sober for a six month stretch recently, and some of the old skills had come back. I felt guilty and angry. I didn't want John working drunk, but hated to see him lose the job. I felt angry that John blamed me.

I haven't seen much of John's world, and have only experienced it around me, not directly lived in it. I lived above a couple bars in Lincoln when I was in college, heard the songs sung on the street at 2am after closing time. I lived next door to a prostitute in Springfield, and saw her men come and go or was awakened in the middle of the night when the windows were open. I was awakened one night to knocks on my door and two kids were standing outside, asking me to call the cops because their dad was upstairs with a cord around his neck on the balcony, and they were afraid he'd jump.

No conclusions, just thinking out loud for now.

Committees (grrr!)

2007-07-24T05:40:00.000-07:00

School starts in a month, but I've already been having dreams about heading back. Last night I dreamed that I was stuck in a committee to decide our writing textbook for the next year, which isn't too much of a stretch. The dream was full of elements of real committee meetings. The main question up for debate was whether we should use the current text or whether it was too offensive because of the language. In real life, this question comes up all the time. I'm not one to usually get on the censorship bandwagon, in fact I was making the argument that we gain by hearing the perspectives of those we don't agree with (or who don't agree with us) as much, or more, than hearing from the perspectives we already buy into.

"Cliff, what's the definition of madness?" the retired prof asked whom I was now replacing.

"Um, doing the same things yet expecting different results." I thought this was the right answer, but she turned to someone else, who rattled off a definition that was verbatim something she had said and she nodded. I thought, Socratic questions are good teaching tools, but they also feel like a setup.

"Lunchtime!" someone said, while plates of sandwiches and desserts were wheeled in. The meeting fell into a state of chaos for a few minutes as everyone grabbed sandwiches, some eyeing them with piggy eyes, and I thought we'd have some reprieve from the endless debate over textbooks. Instead, it was going to be a "working lunch" where we would eat AND talk at the same time. Whoever thought that a working lunch was a good idea needs to be shot. Just when you think, "Good, a break. I don't have to listen to Donnegal drone on, at least for the next thirty minutes," think again.

During the lunch, other colleagues were pulling out papers and surveys, questionnaires and research statistics over why we should adopt one book over another. I slid down further in my seat, feeling unprepared other than the feeling that the meeting was pointless in the first place.
As someone read a paper I was actually interested in, people around the room began sliding their seats back, squeaking them across the floor to signal they were done eating, but the chorus that sounded like a cross between whining, out of tune violins and nose whistles drowned out what the presenter was trying to say, and he was sitting at my table. I held up my hands, "Wait, wait a minute," I said. "Can you stop and then reread that again? I had a hard time hearing you." Others in the room stared at me, aghast that I could be so rude and ask him to stop. No one was really listening to his paper anyway, were they? Thankfully, the dream ended.

At this point, I feel underprepared. I dislike committee meetings and retreats, especially when the retreats don't usually ever leave campus, and any "free time" or mealtime is filled with more talking, or pointless "teambuilding" exercises. I don't feel like I have a cause, while others seem ready to fight and die for their textbook or idea. Sometimes I wonder if I'm in the wrong area, and feel the death of a thousand cuts.

Trouble writing

2007-07-23T02:47:00.000-07:00

I've had a hard time writing this summer, or wanting to spend time in the office. At the same time, I've been struggling with my faith and also an overall sense of purpose. The two, for me anyway, have always seemed to go hand in hand. When I'm in tune spiritually, I also tend to write a lot, there's an overflow of ideas and a sense of purpose and that what goes on in my life and in the world matters. In the last year there have been a number of transitions and a few relationship blows that have impacted me more than I knew. For some, they would right more in these situations. For me, it was just the opposite.

First, blogging. When I began blogging it was in the midst of a community of guys who mostly knew each other, but as we began writing we came to realize how little we had actually known each other, and it was eye opening, cleansing, and refreshing to see the things the others were thinking about, dreaming about, or struggling with. Sometimes narcissism crept in (and I'm not sure it's ever totally absent from public writing), but mostly it was a good thing. Others came to the site and we began to realize there's a whole blogging world out there, and we were reading others and being read, and the community was beyond us.

But there's something about writing your thoughts down and having friends and anonymous strangers commenting and dialogging with what you've written. My friend Enemy has talked through this as well: on the one hand there's the affirmation and the strokes of someone noticing what you've written (we want this), and at the same time there's pressure, the voice that says "Now you have to have someone's approval. What if they don't like where you're going with the story? What if they don't like what you've written? What if they STOP reading?" It's no longer personal, but public, and unlike books, the reviews come right away.

In the midst of it, I've wondered if I have anything to say. I've felt paralyzed, sick of the narcissism in my own writing and in the blogging world in general, though I've also experienced the healing and community of hearing from others and sharing with them (a positive aspect of blogging). You come to realize that in a world of 6 billion people (and thousands of bloggers) one voice is small in the crowd.

So I've wanted to begin to tell a story that's not just my story, but our story. The thing about Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling, Brooks, Herbert and others is that they create an entire world and invite readers into that world. In the midst they find the author's world, but find so much more. They find bits and pieces of themselves, how people are, how they should be, comments on politics and social structures and the epic questions of good and evil and ethics and the struggles of growing up, making good choices, or facing our fears. And they do this in ways that no lecture or sermon could: they show rather than tell. They comment on the world around us by having us look at a reflection, a mirror, doppelganger, or through the back door.

I've gone from living in a small town to big cities, to a small town once again, yet there are stories here if one knows how to look for them. There's a friend of mine who has a growing brain tumor. He had surgery a couple weeks ago, but the growth has come back, fast. I saw him yesterday, realizing it may be one of the last times I see him. He was a friend of my parents, and has since become a good friend to me, and it hurt talking with him, seeing his weakness, seeing that we both knew the time may be short.

There are the 14-year old guys I take taekwondo with. I went to one of the guy's birthday parties on Saturday, took him some pellets for his air soft gun, and was glad I went. There's going to church and seeing a girl I care about, yet not being able to talk with her since we broke up. There's going to the park to watch people and deer and birds in the woods, or, on a creepy note, to have been stalked/checked out by a guy (doubly creepy since I'm not gay and his interest made me feel uncomfortable). There's the guy who mows lawns and rides through town on his bike, the men and women who hang out at the Arcade (restaurant) on Saturday mornings to drink coffee and catch up on gossip, there's spreading mulch in a garden with friends, there's the demolition derby and Nascar racing on Saturday nights that the people in town go crazy over. There's the nursing home in town that has become a multi-state operation, the prison just outside of town, two private colleges, hundreds of bars and churches. There are good cops and corrupt cops in town, good politicians and corrupt ones.

I don't know what this next year will be like, but I'd like to start writing again.

Physical summer

2007-07-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

When I was three and living with my aunt and uncle, my cousin and I got to stay up to watch the Incredible Hulk. My aunt and uncle banned Star Trek and Scooby Doo, but the Incredible Hulk was okay. I'd watch the transformation from Bill Bixby's David Banner to Lou Ferrigno's Hulk, cheesy green wig and body paint included, and I was hooked. I wanted to be like Lou Ferrigno when I grew up, not Bill Bixby. The power in David Banner was this bigger, darker, more mysterious side of him: "Mr. Mcgee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." A mysterious threat. Anyone would take one look at Bill and say, "What's there to be afraid of?" but then the eyes would turn green and pain and anger would trigger the transformation.

During the school year I spend a lot of time in the office, with books, teaching classes, going to meetings, and after a while there's this dry, dustiness that blows through my insides. I begin to feel old. One of the things that made me nervous about an academic profession was all the professors who looked cynical, tired, and incredibly bored, living more in their heads than anywhere else.

So when I feel like this I dream about working in the North Pacific on a fishing vessel, or out on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, or building a cabin in the remote areas of Canada, complete with ropes and obstacle training course. There are two sides, like Indiana Jones, the intellectual, academic side (that sometimes is fascinated, sometimes bored), and the physical side that wants to go on an adventure, be it traveling or testing my physical limits (have bullwhip, will travel).

The summer started with a two week trip to Greece and Italy, then, when I came back, taekwondo, construction work, and hitting the gym, bike or tennis court.

When taekwondo first started I'd find myself hunched over the trash can, wondering if I'd throw up. This last Monday I actually did. I signed on with a house construction company to get some experience, fill some time, and hopefully have the skills to fix projects in my own house someday. I learned how to clean insulation out of attics, hang siding, caulk seams in the basement, and the other day held a saw over my head for hours as I cut holes in boards for heating vents to pass through. My hands are torn up and blistered, my triceps cramped to the point that I had to hold an arm cradled to my chest until the cramps passed, and by the end of the day I'm plastered in sawdust and shredded newspaper.

I started taking supplements (not steroids) and have been going to the gym. My body feels like it's transforming, like I'm waking up inside the body of someone else. My birth mom was a bodybuilder for a while, and I inherited her genes, so I've given up the dreams of ever looking like an elf and realize I'll probably look more like a dwarf (though the beard has been shaved off).

It's been hardcore, complete with egg whites (cartons of liquid egg rather than all those yolks to throw away), turkey, fish, chicken, sweet potatoes, potatoes, greens, gallons of water, fruit and nuts, meals six times a day. Chuck Palahniuk, in his book Stranger Than Fiction, talks about his brief stint using anabolic steroids. It's addicting, psychologically more than physically. A transformation is taking place, you can see tangible results for your efforts, and your body feels more like that of a titan or superhuman, rather than human. It's power, and power feels good. No wonder hardcore athletes continue to use even though they know the internal damage they're doing to their heart, their testicles, and other parts of them. It's hard to walk away from.

In high school I worked out because I wanted to be noticed, to date women, because I had a lot of anger and needed somewhere to channel it. Now, there's something else going on. I wanted to not have to think for a while. At the same time the semester ended, so did my relationship with a girl I'd been seeing. We weren't together long, but it impacted me a lot. Working to exhaustion, feeling pain in my back, legs, and arms felt cleansing, a way to put school and the voices in my head behind me for a while. It's worked, for the most part.

Palahniuk's steroid prescription ran out, and he stopped using. School's going to start again (at least office hours) in a few weeks, and my desire for a full-time career in construction has been satisfied (I'm more grateful for my education and job teaching), but I learned that I love both working with my body and my mind. In another life, or in Morrowind or Oblivion, I might have chosen the warrior poet, or the warrior monk. For now, the adventures are coming to an end, perhaps, at least until my restless spirit stirs up again.

The abduction of Elwin Ravenblack

2007-06-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

When she was a girl, Elwin Ravenblack had run through green fields, heard the birds and gulls cry out high above as they circled her coastal home or flew out to sea. She felt the sun warm her face and bronze her arms and legs, and smelled the salty tang on her lips as the breeze blew in. At night, sometimes she would sneak away from her home to lie in the grass on her back and look at the stars, listening as the waves crashed against sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff. On warm nights like this, she would count the stars, imagining that the sky was a great sea, and the points of light were islands, waiting to be explored, and she was captain of her own ship, sailing far out into the night. She imagined she could feel the swell and sway of the water beneath her strong, fast ship, like she were riding some great animal, and with these thoughts she would fall asleep, content.

This was before the oars of the black ships scraped against the shores of her home, the wind unfurling the flag that smelled of death.

The ships had made landing a few miles further north, in a sandy cove, and men with silent steps and sheathed weapons crept into the town. The screams of women and children in the night and the clash of iron drowned out the grating of gulls, and the town of Lorlinden was set ablaze, sparks ascending into the sky before winking out. Elwin was not in town this night, but had gone out to the field near the sea. She awoke to the sound of the screams and blazing light, and an image of her mother came to her mind, and she panicked.

With feline grace, she crouched and ran to the edge of Lorlinden, back to her home to see if her mother, father, and two brothers had escaped. She ran from room to room of her house, but there was no one there, until she ran into her own room. She stepped to the windowsill--it was still unlatched from before--and had stuck one leg out the window when a man stepped from the shadows, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back. She fell to the ground with a thud, and then all went black.

She awoke to taste copper in her mouth and a pain in the back of her head. She was hanging upside down, being carried like a sack over the back of a giant of a man who smelled like sweat and sour beer. Her head pounded and pain shot like knives and glass up her spine, and then she was in darkness again.

She woke again, this time overwhelmingly thirsty, as a cup was roughly brought to her lips and something foul and bitter was poured down her throat that made her stomach turn to fire. She coughed and spat it up, but was merely laughed at by her captor, slapped, and then the cup came to her lips again. This time she held it down. She lay on rough boards in the dark, opening and closing her eyes to see if she were blind, and felt the swell and sway below her and knew she was at sea. She lay there for a moment, exhausted, trying to catch her breath and pray that the burning in her stomach would go away. It did, but its heat spread through her body, to her arms and legs, and up to her neck, until she felt warm and fuzzy headed, and closed her eyes, dreaming of green fields and the days she had been a princess.

* * *

Ten years went by, and the world had changed. She had grown into womanhood, her body had hardened under hours of hard labor, her hands had grown calloused, and her mouth ran like a scar across her face to match the lines that crisscrossed her back from countless beatings. The ocean spread out before her, rising and falling, with little distinction between the gray surf, and the gray sky overhead. The world indeed had changed, and trouble was brewing at land and on the seas. She had looked once for green fields, but over time had stopped. They now seemed like a dream from long ago.

Still, there was a change coming. She could feel it in her soul, see it in the fearful glances of the crewmen as they tried to mask it with sneers and bravado and sharp cuffs across her jaw she no longer felt. She would bide her time for a little longer; she had become a master of waiting. But make no mistake, the day was coming, and it would arrive soon.

The Epitome of Cool

2007-06-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

There's a dance, it's a rhythm, and you have to know the music.
If you don't, baby, you end up lying on your back, or your face. Somewhere in the prone position, anyway.

Don't be too needy, too clingy, too desperate to be with someone. If you are, it'll never happen.
Play it cool, be uninterested, and sometimes even a little cocky/jerky/bitchy/whatever. Don't always say the right thing. When you walk away they'll be fuming, but they'll be thinking about you, and maybe what you said. Then come back, laugh, tease them a little, and you'll have them in your hand. You'll have taken them through the deepest lows to the highest highs. You're their new king of the world.

If they're having a bad day, don't console them. See who they can be and take them there. No one wants to be miserable, so don't enable them. When you're excited to see someone, hang back. You don't want them to know you're excited. Yeah, they're special, but not THAT special.

Walk into the store, the club, the social center like you own the place. Know the owner's first name. Buy the bartender/bouncer a drink. Ask the waitress about her day as if you already know the answer, you're just challenging her a little to come alive.

Find the next adventure. Wear chainmail, around your body or around your heart. Go find yourself in the forest or jumping out of a plane or from a bungee cord. Whatever it is, do something, something you're afraid of, something you've never done before, just because you're alive today and tomorrow . . . well, we won't talk about that.

Eros

2007-06-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

The Story of Cupid and Psyche

Psyche was a mortal of incredible beauty, and Aphrodite, goddess of love, was jealous. No one, least of all a mortal, should be as beautiful as she (Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest? Not you). So she sent her son Cupid (Eros) to kill her, but he fell in love with her instead. He visited her every night and made her promise not to look on him. Their affair went on for a while and Psyche became pregnant, but her sisters warned her that her lover was a snake who would devour the child. Psyche hid a knife to kill him, but instead pricked herself on Cupid's arrows and fell madly in love with him, but also discovered who he was. Angry, Cupid left, with Psyche grasping onto his heel. Aphrodite came up with a series of tests for Psyche to achieve immortality, but not until she'd gone into the world of the dead and come back again. In the end, Psyche regains Cupid's love, gains herself immortality, and earns the begrudging respect of Aphrodite.

Though it ends well, the are moments of pleasure, but also incredible pain in this love story.

The day we visited the Coliseum in Rome it rained, so we spent more time there than we'd originally planned while we waited for the rain to stop. There was a temporary art exhibit on Eros upstairs, and different depictions of the Greeks in relationships. Part of their understanding of Eros was the love can sometimes be pleasurable, sometimes painful, and often both at the same time.

Many of the stories we're told as kids end, "And they lived happily ever after," and we imagine that's what life should be when we meet the right person. Maybe there's something wrong when pain is mixed in.

Someone told me recently, "We usually hurt the ones we love most." It's not always intentional, though sometimes it is, but living close to someone, risking vulnerability with them, being with them day in and day out, we're going to hurt each other. He said something at the wrong time that hurt her deeply. She didn't come home until late and his mind wondered where she'd been. He accuses her. She accuses back, and soon something that had been safe and beautiful is broken between them. Life would be easier without relationships because we wouldn't hurt each other.

She wishes he were more. She has a hard time respecting him some days when he yells at the kids, or seems too soft with them. He wishes she wouldn't sound so shrill when she's reminding him again to take out the garbage.

We long for the good moments, the joy, the enjoyment and beauty of relationships, but forget it's often intertwined with pain. The things we're most afraid of, the things we want to hide from others, become apparent, at least if we're being honest with each other. Over time, it's inevitable.

So sometimes we run from relationship to relationship, because it only makes us invest so far and no farther. If we're gone tomorrow, or in a month, they won't see the insecurities; they'll think we're a good person. Intimacy comes through the doorway of conflict, but conflict is hard and some wounds run too deep.

The best relationships last for years, but at the end of these, she's dying of cancer and he is having his heart ripped out as he holds her hand. She watches him, once strong of body and mind, forget his own name and drool at the dinner table. They go to the cemetery gravesides of the friends that used to have over for dinner, played cards with, served in wars with, fought or loved, knowing that soon they'll be parted from each other as well.

What do we do with the painful aspects as well as the pleasurable aspects of love? Is it too much? Do we sacrifice one because the other is too much? Is there value or wisdom that comes from both? Can we have one without the other, or are they two sides of the same coin?

Story Fragment 12 June 2007

2007-06-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

The witch woman comes.

The house is empty except for an impending doom. The hallway, the living room, the stairs that lead up and the stairs that lead down, and the view through the bay window to the outside world carry the weight of quiet anticipation. Disembodied voices float up from the basement: "Stop worrying out loud. We can hear you, we're trying to watch TV." Grandpa sleeps upstairs, the rustling beneath the covers an inaudible whisper.

There are no wise men left. His friends have gone into town, and out in the field, still some way off near the treeline, he sees her making her own path, picking her way closer, wrapped tightly in a blanket or dark cloak, and there's a creature padding behind her. Somehow he's been expecting her, but he doesn't know how he knows this, only that her coming is a portent. Of what? He doesn't know.

The sun has set; it's not quite dark, but the half light between day and night casts shadows on reality. It's the time-between-times when the worlds are thin, and anything--real or fantastical--may happen. It's been raining outside, and the smell of clay, grass, and ozone still linger in the air. Should he lock the door, look for a weapon, or simply wait for the inevitable? She is seeking him, he knows this, as much as he knows that running would be useless. She is bound to him and he to her. She would find him no matter where he went, and so he waits, drumming his fingers impatiently against his leg, and tries to slow his breathing. She brings the snake, a voice echoes again from below, the test of Pythias.

When she comes up the steps to the house, she opens the door as if it were her own home, matter of factly, and reaches a slender hand up to the hood of her mist covered cloak, pulls it back, and underneath is a much younger face than he expected, and thick jet black hair spills down over her shoulders and around her face. Although she is pale, she is incredibly beautiful, and her green eyes are piercingly unflinching, full of wisdom and secrets.

No introduction is needed, or expected. They step into the kitchen and pull up chairs around a table. A large gray moor cat has followed her in from outside and pads softly to her side, wraps itself around her feet, and immediately falls asleep. He doesn't see a snake, and looks at her questioningly.

"You know about the snake," she demurs in a voice that reminds him of dark earth and bells. "It's inside the cat. Stick your hand inside its throat and the snake will swallow your arm. If your conscience is clean you will have nothing to fear and can remove your arm unharmed."

"And if not?" he asks, his eyebrows arching mildly.

"Then you will die."

"What choice do I have?"

"You always have a choice." She looks down at her hands, inspecting her nails, and the moor cat awakens briefly, yawns, and closes its eyes once again.

"Okay, I'll do it," he says. There were no wise men left. He now realized the choice that stood before him. If he took the test and passed, he would have the knowledge of Ancients, his path would be lonely, but there may once again be hope to rekindle the fire needed for the coming storm. It was a dangerous gamble, but he had been waiting for this.

"Do you have any questions?"

"Yes. My conscience is clean in this world, but in the other one, I don't know. There's something still troubling me."

"Agreement first, and then questions?" A smile plays across her lips, but she doesn't say what she's thinking. "You have to let go of your guilt in both worlds, this world and the world you left behind. There is no difference between dream and reality. They're both the same. Forgive yourself. Seek forgiveness if possible, and then you will be ready for the trial."

He still carried guilt. He didn't know how it ended with her, but it had ended, and now he carried a painful reminder with him, tucked away from all but himself, an image of her to be mulled over when he had time to think about such things.

"Okay," he said. "I'm ready." He rolled up his sleeve. The moorcat, as if on signal, woke instantly, yellow eyes gleaming and turning to slits as it opened its mouth to reveal long, sharp fangs. He closed his eys and pushed his arm deep down its throat. There were no wise men left . . .

Italy and Greece: Second installment

2007-06-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's where we left off . . .

Monday 28 May. We were still in Florence, ate a quick breakfast of rolls, butter, nutella (good stuff), coffee and some hot chocolate that most people said tasted like warm milk with chocolate added for color. I liked it, but it wasn't very sweet. We got on the bus, said goodbye to our driver Sylvanus (gold medallion man), and had a new driver named Johnnie (possibly part of the mafia. Good thing we didn't speak Italian or we would have been nervous. The cars passing and yelling at us seemed to speak perfect Italian, to which Johnnie responded, also yelling out the window while driving around breakneck curves in the mountains or the Autostrada. Enough about Johnnie). We drove through Tuscany, which was absolutely beautiful, and saw cream colored houses set on hills with terra cotta tile roofs, vineyards, and olive groves. Honestly, I think I was deeply involved in a conversation with the person I was sitting next to, and only saw the scenery in passing. We took an obligatory stop at a gift shop (they'd paid our way to Rome or Assisi), and I bought some things for friends and saw a couple dogs. The bus climbed a hill and we found ourselves in Assisi, the home of St. Francis (of Assisi). We took a short tour of the town, saw the church of St. Clare, followed a road through town to Francis' church, where he's buried, and watched the clouds roll in from the surrounding hillside. We went inside the church, and when we came out, we got pelted with rain. I had left my poncho in the car.

The neatest thing here was seeing Francis' tomb underneath the main church, and the tomb of Martin of Tours, the guy who brought Eastern monasticism to the rest of Europe and might have been a link for the Irish monks, Patrick included. We were on our own for lunch, so Chris and I left the group and found a nice restaurant tucked away up a hill in the heart of town, away from the main street, got out of the rain and sat down to the best meal we would have the whole trip (bread with olive oil and a salad, pasta noodles with mushrooms, ravioli, spinach, more mushrooms, thinly sliced beef, sausage, and fruit with ice cream). We then headed back into the rain and found shelter in the Roman temple of Minerva that had been converted into a church. It still had high Ionic or Corinthian columns holding up a porch, and this is where we stood. I told Chris about the time I nearly ran away from home but got stuck in a rainstorm instead, and he told me about how he became a Christian. All while waiting for the rain to stop.

Then we were off for Rome. It stopped raining after we got on the bus.

Tuesday, 29 May: Rome.
The hotel in Rome had a balcony, and ivy climbing up the walls. It was a busier city than I envisioned, and there were more Smart cars than I'd seen anywhere else. By appearances, a car could park wherever there was space, though this wasn't totally true because we saw a car being towed one of the mornings we were there. We couldn't figure out why, but I guess there are some places even in Rome where you can't park. We also saw a car scrape against the shoulder guard rail, right itself, and keep on going. Even though there were four lanes to the road, about six cars could--and did--ride side by side, especially if there were some motorcycles in the mix.

We started out at the church of St. Peter in chains, and saw more "authentic" chains of when Peter was in prison (we'd seen other "authentic" chains earlier). Michelangelo's Moses was also there.

We walked to the Coliseum, and it started to rain. Luckily, I'd remembered to bring my poncho (also dubbed a tent) and we walked around the Coliseum, took pictures of the stands and the labyrinth of walkways, holding pens, and passageways below the floor, and decided to wait out the rain. Fortunately, there was a gift shop and a sculpture exhibit on Eros, so we made our way past Greek vases and Roman statues, and waited for the rain to stop. Bethany and Stasi and I spent a lot of time together that week, and the two ladies thought it would be a great idea if we actually had a battle in the Coliseum, since that's what people did in the Coliseum, they fought . . . and died. We wondered how short careers would be as a gladiator would be (probably not very many commercial offers, or the opportunity to open up restaurant chains or car washes). Stasi and I fought, I died, and Bethany caught the whole thing on video. So the gladiatorial games are still alive and well in the Coliseum, though not as bloody or violent.

We made our way up Palatine hill in the rain, saw the remains of Emperor Domitians palace, saw the Arch of Titus (?), Trajan's Column, the Circus Maximus, and the Pantheon. The Pantheon was bigger than I imagined, and truly awe inspiring.

In Florence we had seen the statue of David (Michelangelo's). It stood at the end of a hall, was fourteen feet tall, and the minute we saw it we saw nothing else. Even now it's hard to describe. It was perfect, flawless, the ideal human body, and a thing of beauty. Stasi said, "I wonder what Michelangelo must have felt, stepping back from this when it was done. I think he know he'd created a masterpiece. It would have been strange to see the two together, the statue and Michelangelo: Michelangelo small and human, David larger than life, a giant, a work of art."

The Pantheon was awe inspiring as well, though not in the same way. The Romans had built the dome by pouring concrete, and there were five rows of box-like panels that moved up the dome to the open oculus in the center. On days when it rains, the center of the room is slightly sloped so rain collects in the center, then drains down five holes that were part of the original design. Even now it's a mystery how they were able to pour so much concrete perfectly to create the dome. It's seamless, a modern day engineering marvel.

After lunch we stopped at the church of (I don't know) and saw a painting on the ceiling that gave the appearance of a dome, though it was mostly a flat, or slightly arched, roof. The artist had used optical illusions, so that as you stood in the center of the church it looked like the ceiling went up and up, and depicted the Ascension of St. Ignatius. I don't remember who the painting was by.

In the afternoon, Brandon, Austin and I went to the Capitoline Museum and saw Marcus Aurelius on a horse, a large image of Constantine (at least his head), and the statue of the Etruscan she wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, the brothers who, according to legend, founded the city of Rome. The highlight though was that I got to see the statue of the Dying Gaul, a Roman sculpture of a Galatian Celt that I have seen in several books on Celtic monasticism. The man is resting, leaning heavily on one arm, his torc around his collar his only clothing. A gash is open in his right side and the horn behind him is broken in two. His sword lies on the ground. His tousled, wild hair sticks out like spikes, and his traditional moustache would make any NASCAR driver proud, but even in death, the Dying Gaul has a look of proud nobility, enough to capture the admiration and respect of the artists and soldiers who conquered him in battle.

We ate dinner in Rome, somewhere, but I don't remember where, and we got back to the hotel late, passing the garrison walls that surround much of the city. There would be more Rome the next day at the Vatican, but again, for another time . . .

Poem: First draft

2007-06-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

I know a girl who doesn't like to dust
Her voice speaks rain and hidden lust.
The landscape of her mind: gray and green,
She has a knowledge of things unseen.

Beauty and sadness, long dark hair.
She smiles softly as I stop to stare
into her face, as I study it intently
and wonder if I'll be able to hold onto it when she's gone.

This girl I know, she haunts my dreams
with silent cries and guilt-ridden schemes.

Italy and Greece: A Narnian Adventure

2007-06-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

We came back from Athens yesterday. It was one of the longest days of my life, and while I was glad to get home after fifteen days out of the country, coming back to Lincoln was also depressing. I chalked it up to being exhausted. The two weeks we were gone felt like we'd been gone forever, and at the same time had barely left. It felt like stepping into Narnia through the wardrobe, and then coming back again to find that we had changed but nothing else around us had.

So here's a quick snapshot of the journey. I hope to expand it, maybe in my journal, maybe in more blogs, but here's the short version for now.

Thursday 24 May. Milan, Italy. We flew to Milan by way of Munich, Germany, and were going to head to the Church of St. Ambrose, but didn't have time, so we went on to Verona, saw Juliet's balcony (Romeo and Juliet), were greeted by hot temperatures and Italian gelatto (smooth Italian ice cream made with milk), and then made our way to the hotel
outside of Venice in a town called Caorle that sat just off the Adriatic Sea. I stood that night in the sea, letting the water lap over my feet as I watched the sun set and darkness descend.

Friday 25 May. Venice. We drove to Venice on a bus, passing through towns and seeing Italian homes with tiled roofs and small vineyards and olive groves. Some of the homes looked like little Roman villas, but were definitely different from the American homes we've grown used to seeing. We caught a ferry across the Po River (?) into Venice, and visited the doge's palace, St. Mark's basilica, rode on gondolas and saw the campo (village square) that Giacomo Casanova frequented (to keep the virgin nuns company). My friend Chris decided he could easily live in Venice, though I was happy to move on, mostly because of the heat. We also saw the Basilica of the Friars, and I saw a pyramid sculpted by Antonio Canova (Cupid and Psyche is my favorite).

Saturday 26 May. We left Caorle and headed to Florence, Italy. We took a walking tour near the Piazza del Signoria, and I saw a copy of Michelangelo's David (we'd see the original at the Academie the next day). We passed the the Uffizi with sculptures of a number of Florentine Renaissance figures (Dante, Boccacio, Galileo, da Vinci) and climbed 400+ steps of the duomo and saw images of Hell and Paradise, and then saw a beautiful view of Florence (Firenze) from the top. At first I disliked Florence, but quickly came to love it, even more than Venice. It rained hard that afternoon, which brought cooler weather, and we watched the sunset off the Old Bridge (Ponte Vecchio). I saw architecture here all the way from Roman times to the Renaissance, to present day.

Sunday 27 May. I spent four hours in the Uffizi looking at paintings with Emma and her aunt Cathy. I saw Botticelli's Birth of Venus, work by Giotto and Cimabue (Madonna and Child), and a number of other sculptures and works of art. We also saw copies of Laocoon and Sons, and of Silenus and Bacchus (Bacchus/Dionysius, the god of wine, and usually attributed to festivals, Greek satyr plays, and drunken orgies). That night we had a service in the hotel, and then I watched Shrek in Italian.

To be continued soon . . .

Another Journey Begins

2007-05-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

I leave for Europe tomorrow for two weeks. I'm going with a group of students and adults, and we'll be in Milan, Florence, Rome, Assisi, Venice, Athens Mycenae, Pompeii, and other places as well. I'm excited, though the trip has crept up on me and doesn't feel real yet. I haven't even packed, though I have many of the supplies I need.

I'm leaving, the only regret that someone I've come to care about won't be there to see me off, so it's a mixed departure.

I'm taking my camera and journal, hopefully with many stories yet to come.

Be back in a couple weeks, God willing.

A Question of Value: Struggling

2007-05-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we're so afraid of being hurt that we'll do anything we can to prevent it, whether it's healthy or not.

A man or woman buries themselves in work. One more meeting, one more project, one more promotion will make us feel validated. It's a rush to be recognized, to have an employer or fellow employee or student tell us "good job. You made a difference."But what happens when we go to work to get our validation rather than find it in a marriage of thirty years? Or we've just started a relationship and we can't let go of those Saturdays at the office, or an extra hour or two rather than spending time with the person we care about? It's fear of being hurt, fear of losing ourselves, or that the person we're with won't see us as wonderful, or we won't be enough. At work, why do people fight and backbite and gossip and try to take projects or complain about someone else getting a raise if it's not getting at this idea of value and the fear of losing it?

Our value doesn't come from our jobs.

A man is married to a beautiful woman and has children who love him, a great job, a wonderful home. Yet he masturbates rather than has sex with his wife, or sleeps with other women to feel like he still "has it," that he's still potent, that his value comes in his conquests, his virility, his sexual appeal. It's scarier to be vulnerable with the woman who's known him for years. She knows his flaws better, he can't hide them as well, and there's the risk that she'll criticize him for them, that he won't be enough. She's not always in the mood, and if he's honest, he isn't either. He doesn't always take the time to notice the things she does for him, or tell her he loves her, and when he's honest, she's more a mystery to him now than ever, or he feels like they've gotten in a rut and there's nothing new. He wonders if there's something else, somewhere else, if this is the life he was supposed to live, or if his value lies elsewhere.

She wonders if they need a bigger house, or more furniture, or new curtains on the window and new carpet in the living room. There's a new dress on sale, and shoes to match. Yet she wonders why the dress doesn't make her feel prettier after it's been washed a few times.

A poor man wonders what it would be like to be rich; a rich man wonders what it would be like to be richer; a single person wonders what it would be like to be married; a married couple wonders what it would be like to have kids; a teenager wonders what it would be like to have a car; a kid wonders what it would be like to have an amazing toy; a workingman or woman wonders what it would be like to be retired or on vacation in the Caribbean; a person in the nursing home wonders what it would be like to be young again or to have family once again around them. A dog wonders . . . who knows what dogs wonder, they seem pretty content as long as they have food, a place to run, and people to sniff.

We all long for something, and finding our value seems to be ever elusive, this hole in us, and sometimes we either close ourselves off from our dreams to keep from being hurt, to keep them from being snatched away, or we fight tooth and nail to hold onto the things we hold to be important, the things that make us feel validated.

In the day to day of that we make mistakes, we break things and hurt each other and enter families and workplaces and love and sports teams and social settings with these hurts and fears fighting within us. It's hard to lay down our armor and our swords. It's hard to say I'm sorry. It's hard to trust and become vulnerable with our greatest hopes and deepest fears, to be honest with the things that make us feel guilty, and it's hard to find our value, not in our jobs, or successes, or even relationships, but in something else entirely, more permanent.

Michigan

2007-05-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm grading writing finals and am watching the stack of papers in the manila folder get smaller. My least favorite part of teaching is the grading, mainly because it's something I do alone, and no one else is there to share it. I've spent hours in coffee shops, at my kitchen table, in an office, sometimes reading papers about the benefits of thinking critically, or about someone's life experiences at work, or their childhood, or their divorce, or swimming in the ocean and almost drowning, or the birth of their first baby, or the time they had to shoot someone.

I think a lot. Sometimes I wish I didn't. Married friends say they don't think, or have shifted to autopilot, and sometimes assume I have no idea what's that like.

I did. In Michigan. Sometimes I was in a different city every night, four nights out of the week. My house was in one city, my office in another, and on average I drove two hours a day. For six months I drove four hours a day, plus had two teaching gigs. I stopped counting how many hours I worked. If I was awake, I was working, or at the gym to try to clear my mind. They were 80 hour weeks, easily. I slipped into autopilot then. I kept moving, wondering how long I could keep up this pace, begging for it to end, feeling more lonely and more emotionally bare than I'd ever felt before in my life. Only twice before had I been so sick of working; I felt like a machine, stripped down to whatever was needed for the job. I couldn't remember who I'd been before, only what was needed of me at the moment. What had happened to dreams? What had I thought life would be like? Not this. Hope was erased and in its place was dogged pushing until it was finished. Some days I wondered if that day would ever come. I prayed that I wouldn't lose my soul. I was glad to not have close friendships or a relationship in my life, I'd have nothing to give. I was dead inside from pouring too many places and having too many one-sided relationships where my value came from what I could give, not in the fact that I just was.

But on nights like tonight people and places start to resurface, images, and I get a little homesick for this time in my life. I wanted to share it. In Jackson there's a street with brownstone houses on the righthand side of the street once you turn off the main road (127) and are heading toward downtown toward the center. I wondered what it would be like to live there; it would feel like a castle. Nearby there's a restaurant on top of one of the hills called Steve's Ranch that has decent codfish, beer battered onion rings, and lowlit ambiance and a salad bar that looks like all the color has been sucked out of it by a vampire. The downtown has cobblestone streets, a few highrise skyscrapers, and buildings with theatrical masks set in concrete of men and women smiling (comedy) or frowning (tragedy). There are boys and young men who drive through empty alleyways and parking lots at night on bikes, coming and going from a drug deal. There's a police station a few blocks beyond that. The city center gets quiet at night, and hooded men and homeless wanderers hide out in bushes or under overpasses. I saw a couple students making out in a car one night as I was walking across the parking lot, then she got in her car and he drove away in his.

I worked with a man named Glenn who stood 5'5", rail thin, a Japanese American who had grown up in Hawaii and was surprised that I knew about the conflicts between the Filipino immigrants and the Japanese immigrants over the pineapple farms. He had a daughter a few years younger than me who had moved back to California because she never felt like she fit in in Michigan, and another daughter who was in high school. Glenn liked to talk theology or missions.

There was the girl whose boyfriend did drugs and stole their color TV. She couldn't leave him and was more worried about her gambling problem and how thin he was getting because of his heroin addiction. There were the women who'd been molested as kids and were still grieving it in their sixties. There was Eric, the formal African American fire chief who sometimes missed class because he was called to a fire, was tending to his rental properties, or thinking about moving to Florida. There was Lenny, riding in to class on a crotch rocket, struggling to finish his thesis and justify to his wife the purchase of his bike.

There were R, J, and T, always cracking jokes in class and making me laugh, then talking about their posttraumatic stress disorder from getting shot at in the line of duty and shooting a man. I ended up going on a ridealong with them and got caught up in a drug bust, SWAT team and all.

There were the ex-military students who had done their tours of duty and now were working on business degrees. Some came to class in uniform. A couple were deployed in the middle of the course and couldn't finish. They left behind families, didn't tell where they were going, only nodded stiffly, shook my hand hard, and said it had been a pleasure.

All these people. They cross our paths for brief moments and then are on their way to something else, or we are, and we're left with some good experiences but also sadness. At first this was very hard. I connected with a number of students and had a few crushes and would have loved to have been friends with a number of others. After hearing pieces of their life stories, sitting across from them, sometimes weeping with them or laughing, it felt like we had shared something. We'd see each other sometimes in the halls of the centers, or at the grocery store or graduation, but things had changed. We had had our time, and now it was different.

Over time, it became harder to connect. I knew the students would be gone in six weeks and besides, the faces started to blur together. So did the roads. Some nights I wouldn't know if I was driving north or south, home to Lansing or away to Flint, Jackson, Bay City, or Battle Creek. It was disorienting, like blacking out and coming to only to find that you've lost all bearings, have no idea where you are. Your soul has come unglued.

A boy and his cat, a talking donkey, and a snake

2007-05-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

The last day of class ended yesterday. Now what's left are piles of papers and projects to grade, finals next week, and then I leave for Greece and Italy. I don't know how I feel. It's been an intense year, and often I've felt like I can only see a few feet in front of me, but now it's ending, and there's a feeling of loss. I've always had a hard time saying goodbye, whether it was moving, the end of a schoolyear, the end of summer, of camp, the end of a play, or the loss of a family member or friend.

I've been dating someone. I'm smiling as I write this, and yet I also find myself hiding sometimes. It takes me to places I've rarely been in my life, memories I've tried to shut out or ran from. Sometimes the closer you get to someone, the more you realize that there are parts you can't know about them, and parts you can't share. I've felt this before, almost always with my closest friends. It's a lonely feeling. We're broken people.

And yet once, a donkey spoke and his rider wasn't surprised that he spoke, but was more surprised at what she had to say. "There was an angel in the path about to kill you, and I saved you. So why are you beating me?" The man had forgotten how to see and hear. His senses were dulled. He was out of tune with the world around him.

A snake spoke in a garden, and the woman (and man) weren't surprised, but what he had to say made all the difference. He promised they would see, but instead we've been groping in the dark ever since.

There was something more, and on some level, I think we all feel this. Maybe we were more connected once: to animals, to each other, to the grass beneath our feet and the trees that swayed in the wind, to God, to the universe around us, to the things that we can't see and no longer believe in. Maybe we could even feel the grass growing, the trees stretching up to the sky, from the depths of their roots to the tips of their branches, and their growth was good. The food from their branches didn't just give us nourishment, but also deep pleasure. The water sparkled on our tongues and sang in our throats, and made us laugh. The marching of ants and the building of webs could distract us for hours in deep fascination.

We feel this absence deeply, and yet try to drown it out at the same time: through music, images, words, media, coverings that remove us from the outside world, from nature, from the wild beauty of it . . . because the memory of what we lost is too painful. A deep part of us longs for it: we have commercials offering getaways into the mountains and outbacks of the world if we buy the right mountainbike or off road car; we have well toned and tanned men and women sitting by the side of a pool or on the beach, sipping margaritas and relaxing in a paradise of contentment. We have offers for products that will make us feel sexy, feel comfortable in our own skin and reconnect us, usually sexually or romantically, to each other. We still long to be connected.

For the moment, I'm caught between this absence, yet also aware that there are still glimpses of presence in the world. I've smiled more this month than I have in a long time. When I'm with people I care about there are long periods where I feel peace, connectedness, like I've come home.

There's a boy I know who has a special relationship with his cat. When the boy leaves for the weekend, the cat wanders around the house, looking for him, crying for him, wondering when he'll come home, and when he returns, the cat follows. The relationship we once had is broken, but glimpses of it remain. The cat doesn't talk, but almost.

There are words that heal, words that communicate value, words that once spoken can wipe away mounds of fear and doubt and bring grace to a situation. None of us moves through life without deep scars and wounds along the way, but the glimpses that remain of what once was give us hope that someday it will be restored again.

The Death of Trust and a Bottle of Wine

2007-04-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

Seventh grade. The year before he hadn't even noticed women. There were girls he did homework with, sat in band class next to, or argued with about some stupid detail of class. But now, everywhere seemed to be teeming with them. Who were they, why did they smell so good, and why did he have a hard time talking when he was around them?

Third hour. Science. Amy sat across the aisle at another of the polished black tables with the metal spigots that allegedly spilled out gas when turned on. Allegedly. He'd never seen it. He'd been working up the courage to ask her out for weeks so, typical seventh grade style, he slid a note across to her. She read it, giggled, then said yes. They were officially "going out."

Fourth hour. Same day. History. Amy asks across the room, "So where are we gonna go out? Are you gonna pick me up on your bike?" He hadn't thought that far ahead. Seventh graders didn't have cars, so a bike would do he guessed, or they could just meet in between class to work out the details.

Ten minutes later. "Amy doesn't want to go out with you anymore. Sorry." He shrugs, gathers his books, and heads out of class as the bell rings. It was a stupid idea anyway.

* * *
He's the best man in the wedding. The bride is beautiful, the groom is nervous, and the best man? The best man feels like he's going to throw up, not from too much to drink, or because he's got a bad feeling about the marriage, just a bad feeling about the chili mac he'd had the night before. Oh yeah, it had been a bad one. Knocked him out on the floor of the bathroom in the movie theater after he'd emptied the contents of his stomach, chili mac and more, into the toilet.

Same best man, same best friend, years later. They're in business together, money starts disappearing from the account. The business ends. The beautiful bride is now bitter, the groom got groovy in other people's beds, and the only thing that bailed in time was the chili mac years earlier.

* * *
A parking garage, capitol city. Gotham sleeps, except for three friends, one of them hanging over the rails of the third floor of the garage, feeling fuzzy after the bottle of merlot and shots of rum, wondering how far of a fall to the floor below, and if he'd feel it. He guesses not. Same best man, stands at the edge of the railing, this side of the free fall into space, and a dam breaks. He hadn't even known it was there. Not again. Guard rails and dams and long falls to the rocks below. Losing more than he'd ever wanted to, he doesn't know if he can take another.

* * *
They're making out. She's breathing into him and he's breathing back. They're close, smiling, and he wonders if it's enough. He wonders if she's telling the truth when she says she's happy or if he is. His heart was left by the side of the road miles back and everyone's a potential suspect in its murder. Is she the seventh grade girl breaking his heart? The boy wander who spins tales until nothing seems real anymore? Is he free falling out over space, once again feeling fuzzy, waiting for the concrete to jar him back to reality? Nothing is as it seems. What's the motive? What is trust? Does it swim down deep in a bottle of wine to be dregged out slowly from the bottom? Innocence hitchhiked with Experience, and now they're miles away.

Semester ending

2007-04-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in a while, though there's a lot to write about.

In the last month I spent a week in Boston, went to Cincinnati, started going out with someone who makes me smile a lot and goes on adventures with me, and have been scrambling to finish the semester. My first year at Lincoln.

A year ago I was in Michigan, waiting to hear whether I'd be teaching at Lincoln or would stay at Spring Arbor. I'd been there three years; I felt ready for change. If I had stayed, I probably would have applied again for the Ph.D. program at Michigan State, or moved to Pennsylvania or California.

It's hard to believe it's only been one year. I've been to Oregon, Idaho, Boston, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Florida, and am headed to Greece and Italy in this last year. I've lived in four places, have seen friends divorce, have seen relationships end . . . and new ones begin. I've learned more about the Greeks, Celts, Romans and Romantics than I'd thought possible a year ago, and I've ridden or run hundreds of miles and shot thousands of freethrows.

Soon I'll be writing about the trip to Boston, and about letting people eavesdrop on our lives. I'll probably wonder out loud about technology and blogging, and changing society and current events and comics and movies and childhood and relationships and spirituality, or will gush about how much I like Stargate, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Rob Bell, a certain movie or book, or maybe even will talk about the people who mean the most to me.

It's been a long absence. Hopefully, I'll be writing again soon.

The Storm Comes

2007-03-05T06:51:00.000-08:00

August. The last two weeks of dead heat have stripped the ground of moisture, have baked the earth and bleached the sidewalks. In the city there’s a dusty feel, a matchbox about to ignite as stray newspaper and garbage floats listlessly down the street. A matronly African woman fans herself from the balcony of her apartment. Her potted plants lie gray and wilted in the sun. A faint breeze blows around corners of skyscrapers but brings no relief. The thermometers read 98 in the shade.

It’s game day, and Skye Millar and Fox Rowlins have come to the city to watch the Little Bears play the Red Birds. It’s a double header and both teams are tied for first. The game doesn’t start till late afternoon. They’ve been walking for ten blocks, starting at the lake, up Wilmont, past Monroe and Adams.

“So my first car,” Fox continued, “was a Chevelle. My dad and I had a deal. If I paid half he’d pay the other half. I usually had to work odd summer jobs, got a paper route, and saved. He helped me buy my letterman’s jacket, and was going to buy my first baseball glove, but I wanted a special first baseman’s glove and that was extra, so he said I’d have to cover the difference.”

“When was this?” Skye asked. He’d walked in silence mostly, listening as the older man talked.

“Oh, back in the ‘50s,” Fox said. “Those were better times. Even though I lived in the city, we knew our neighbors. There were tons of kids my same age, in the same grade, so we’d play baseball in the summer or go to the local pool, or ride bikes.” He paused to pull out a handkerchief and wipe his face. They waited at an intersection for the light to turn green, then crossed, the street, along with thirty others.

“And it was nothing for someone else’s parents to scold you,” Fox continued. “They were watching each other’s backs.” Fox smiled, remembering something. “There was this one time. Me and Mike Sullivan went to climb the water tower. Mike got halfway up and chickened out, but I made it to the top. We weren’t hurting anybody, we just wanted to see what was up there. So anyway, there was a platform and a guard rail up at the top, and I walked all the way around it, and when I looked at my house about a couple blocks away there was my dad in the front yard, watering the lawn. I was so scared he’d look up and catch me, so I climbed down as fast as I could.”

“What would he have done?” Skye asked, intrigued despite the heat.

“He woulda tanned my hide!” Fox laughed. “No, you didn’t mess with my dad. He was strict, but fair.” With that, the story ended and Fox and Skye walked the next two blocks in silence.

“Let’s go somewhere cool,” Skye said to Fox, pulling out a napkin he’d saved from Starbucks earlier in the morning and wiping his forehead. He hadn’t remembered sweating this much since he’d run the half marathon in May.

“Okay,” Fox said, the heat hushing even him to silence. Large wet pools were forming under his armpits, and even for a big man, Fox was sweating a lot. Sweat had dripped down his forehead, past his gray bushy eyebrows, and off his nose for the last twenty minutes. While he’d been talking he intermittently wiped his forehead and waved his arms. Now his handkerchief was stuffed in his front pocket, saturated; he had stopped fighting the constant drip.

They stepped into an Indian restaurant called the Klay Pigeon on the corner of Fulton and Wabash; cool, filtered air instantly washed over them. “That’s better,” Fox grunted, and they found a booth by the window. Soon a server with a nametag that read “Fouad” greeted them, filled two large glasses with water, and handed them plastic menus.

They both ordered the curry chicken and potatoes, and started in on a plate of pita bread and hummus.

After their meal arrived they ate for a few minutes in silence. “There’s nothing more American than baseball!” Fox said, expansively, finally breaking into conversation once more.

“Sure,” Skye replied, only he wasn’t really listening. Outside the window, men and women in business suits were walking by, carrying newspapers and briefcases over their heads. In the sky overhead dark, angry storm clouds rolled in, piling on top of each other. As the people walked by, several glanced nervously at the upward, then picked up the pace. Skye could imagine the swish swish of their slacks and skirts whining like an accelerating electric engine building charge. Other than that, it would be eerily silent.

Then, the clouds broke and the storm came. First, fat drops fell intermittently on the sidewalk and window panes, like bird droppings without the mess. Soon the drops started falling harder, faster, and the sidewalks were turned from a sun baked white to a dull, glistening gray. Small white hailstones the size of bb’s began to plink against the window and ground. The streets now were empty, save for a man or woman scurrying for cover, or too brave or stoned to notice the pelting ice.

A minute later the hailstones were the size of marbles, mothball white with an occasional streak that looked like dull glass. Skye wondered if there were any that looked like cat’s eyes. That would be funny. God came down to play marbles on a Thursday in August. God wins the game, with marbles that look like cat’s eyes. Or clear paint balls. No one wants to play because the marbles hurt and God’s too good of a shot. Gotcha. You’re dead.

Across the table, Fox let out a low whistle between his teeth. “This don’t look good,” he whispered, wiping grease and sauce from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Think the game’ll get rained out?”

“Don’t know,” Skye shrugged, and continued to watch the falling hail.

The sidewalks were now covered white, like giant sized vanilla Dippin’ dots, the kind that smacked and splattered dangerously against the glass. Fouad stood next to the table, a carafe full of water in hand, mesmerized by what was transpiring on the other side of the window. “No good,” he whispered. “No good.” Skye turned his head briefly and saw Fouad’s olive skinned face blanching white. Maybe this was more serious than he thought.

The hail had grown to stones the size of golfballs, then baseballs, and the windows shuddered and shook. Lightning fell from the sky, and thunder crashed hard enough to make one’s teeth ache. Skye could smell something burning, an electrical smell, and then the wailing siren of a firetruck broke through the pelting sound of a thousand horses on the windows. The sky had grown progressively darker and day had become night in the space of twenty minutes. The firetruck roared past, its red lights flaring in the dark, followed by the intermittent red and blue of a police cruiser, their sirens fading once again.

The hail had stopped, and in its place was the steady beating of a hard rain. Fouad inhaled deeply, and Skye realized he must have been holding his breath. He looked down at Fox and Skye and laughed nervously, refilling their glasses with water from his carafe.

The Stories We Tell

2007-02-25T21:19:00.000-08:00

There's something powerful, almost magical about telling stories. When I was three or four years old, living with my aunt and uncle, my Grandpa Churchwell would read my cousins and I stories from picture books, but he wouldn't just read the words in the book or hurry through to the end, but he'd linger on the page, ask us questions, get us thinking and telling stories of our own. He wanted us to use our imaginations, begin to ask questions, and think about what else was going on rather than just what we saw.

As I got older I remember going to Cub Scouts den meetings and the stories around campfires, or the rides in the back seat of station wagons to and from the campground, or the stories classmates would whisper during study hall about ghosts, Freddie Krueger, and girls' bodies. If it hadn't been for Stoney Thompson, I would have never known about the plotlines for all the Friday XIII movies and Nightmare on Elm Street. And if it hadn't been for Jay Battleday in band class, I would have never been introduced to Cheech and Chung, Strange Brew, or Ernest Goes to Camp. And if it hadn't been for Bill Shinabarger and Chad Howell, I might have had less wrong information about a woman's body.

Stories are the ways we remember the past. They're the ways we define ourselves and create our identity, at least the one we let others see. They create community, reinforce or challenge our value systems, and build relationship and intimacy.

I've thought a lot about the kinds of stories we tell and how it defines us. Sometimes we tell and retell the mistakes we made, wearing our mistakes as a badge of pride. We define ourselves as the bad boys and bad girls who live on the edge, and like it. Sometimes we tell the stories where we come out the hero, or the victim, or the trickster, or the outcast always misunderstood. Maybe it's important what kinds of stories we tell, because they'll be the stories we become.

Plato believed that we should tell stories only about good heroes who do moral things, the ideal philosopher kings, because these would be the kinds of people we'd strive to become. In Christian circles, I remember people defining themselves as sinners saved by grace, usually with the emphasis on the sinner and not the grace. Because of this, there wasn't much grace in their lives (maybe because of the stories they told). Augustine falls into some of this. He doesn't retell in detail the sins of his youth, but the way he reframes the telling of his own life story is by focusing on his inborn sinfulness, and an overwhelming, almost overpowering grace that he has no responsibility for or claim to. Incidentally, he also bypasses telling about the feud he had with the Donatists (contemporary "heretics") that may have cast him in a less than positive light.

I think it's also significant that Jesus gives new stories and new terms for thinking about our relationship with God. He says, call him "Daddy," because that's who he is to you now, and you're sons and daughters of a king, not beggars and paupers. These aren't just new stories, but new ways of thinking about ourselves, of identification, and, most importantly, of being.

I've seen people who have struggled their whole lives with childhood abuse. They retell the stories, relive them vicariously, and never seem to be able to break free of the bondage of these events. They have done more than let these stories define them, but have become enslaved by them. I've seen others who have lived through similar situations, who also take these same stories, but they've added other stories to them. The stories of abuse have been reshaped, reframed. What was meant for evil has been turned into something that helps others--helps others see they're not alone, helps them see there's something on the other side.

Lately I've found myself telling harder stories, revisiting the worst memories of my childhood and overlaying them on the present. Am I trying to work through this pain and emotional deadness to get to something on the other side, or am I trapped by giving too much power to these harmful stories? I don't know. I'm obviously trying to sort this out.

For the most part, I've quit wanting to blog, at least not in the ways that I did at first. Blogging became a personal diary, a way to indulge in some public narcissism. Some of the best stories I've read though (Narnia, Tolkien's Middle earth, Terry Brooks' Shannara, Camelot, Frank Herbert's Dune) are bigger than the people who write them. People don't come to read about C.S. Lewis' childhood or Tolkien's views on politics, but are brought into a story and a world that they can explore and find bits of themselves. In the process they'll find bits of their creator, but they've been invited into a place that they can make their own, and live out vicariously their own stories through the stories of fictional characters.

So stories are powerful, they're the magic woven deeply into our blood and imaginations. And good stories, those are the best stories of all.

Survival in Auschwitz

2007-02-25T15:08:00.000-08:00

Last week I read the book Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi. It's a good book. I read it in 2-3 days. Although it's good, at the same time it's a hard book to get through. I remember feeling numb during the days I was reading it. Levi was an Italian Jew, writing about his experience at the concentration camps in Auschwitz, Poland, during 1944. The period of time he covers is little over a year (part of one winter and into a second), yet the experience changes his life irrevocably. As I read it, I thought to myself, "Did this really happen? Did people really treat other people like that?" So often when I read a book there's an emotional disconnection, it feels like fiction--too surreal to have actually happened.

And yet it did happen, and makes us stare wide eyed and unblinkingly at what we're capable of, both in the ability to degrade other humans once we no longer see them as human, and subject them to living conditions that are hell and strip away any sense of humanity, freedom, or soul. It also shows us the will to survive, at all costs, and the benumbed expectation and resignation to death, and yet the will or momentum to keep moving, one more hour, one more day, without hope, without food, and without the belief that tomorrow will get better.

Maybe it was a social experiment, to see what happens when you put a group of people together under impossible situations and see who survives. It's the survival of the fittest, the will to power, social Darwinism at its cruelest and most intense. Some do survive, but to do so you have to strip away civilization, morality, and the expectations of human behavior that exist in the outside world.

This is still happening today: in the battlefields, whether it's Iraq or the civil war in Uganda, or a number of other unnoticed places around the world, or in homes where there's physical or sexual abuse, or systemic poverty, or drug addiction. We have an incredible capacity to survive, to "shell up" inside ourselves, waiting for the outside world to blow over us. We become numb emotionally to our feelings because all that remains is hurt and anger. We become numb to the circumstances of others: it's hard enough to survive, let alone worry about another's survival, and yet some do, thinking past themselves, for a moment, sharing bread, carrying the day, at least for a moment.

How many Auschwitz's exist, unnoticed, unnamed, while prisoners huddle inside hoping for a rescue party, someone to throw over the bread or throw down the oppression? How many are invisible? How many prisoners sit feet away from each other and yet worlds apart? Survival may be possible, for another day, but survival isn't living.

Iron Man Portage: Part IV (the conclusion)

2007-02-25T14:40:00.000-08:00

Thursday:

The next day began much like the others. The weather was warm, and the remaining stiffness in our backs and arms quickly loosened as we broke camp, cleaned up the mess from the animals, and got back in the canoe (which was beginning to feel like our home) and began paddling toward the next destination. Tim was navigating, and had the compass and map in front of him as he paddled from the back. Our path was straight and we were making good time.

We noticed something was wrong when we checked the map a few miles later. We stopped paddling and let the canoe drift while Tim and Don pored over the map, checked the compass, and checked the land around them. “Something’s not right,” Tim said. “It shouldn’t look like this.” The compass seemed right, or backwards, but the lake seemed turned around. We went a little further to see if the islands would look familiar. When we stopped again, Tim sounded less certain, doubting. I remembered what I had wished for the night before, but now regretted it. I didn’t want Tim to doubt himself, or his abilities to lead. “I think we’re lost,” he said. We canoed halfheartedly a little further, then Tim checked the map, checked the compass. “Where could we be?”

“Let’s see if we can find it on the map. Here’s Trafalgar Bay, and we traveled a few miles beyond that. How far do you think we’ve gone so far?”

“Two, maybe three miles.”

“Think we can find anything that looks similar?” They checked again, and then we had it, but we had canoed a few miles off course.

“We can canoe back to where we came, but that would be another four miles. We’d be canoeing an extra seven miles.”

“Maybe we should pray,” Don said. He did, and we looked at the map again. “Up ahead’s a portage, maybe we can try for that.” We didn’t know if it was still there, but decided it was worth trying. It would reconnect us to where we were heading, and would only take us a mile or two out of our way. We decided to go for it.

As we got to the shore where the portage should be, we saw only overgrown grass. Most portages are land bridges between two bodies of water and are well traveled. We were looking for a trail, a dirt path, anything. Instead, we saw a dense group of trees standing in front of us like an impassable wall, thick grass along the edge, and only a small lip in the shoreline that may have been a frequently used landing spot.

“Maybe we missed it,” Tim said.

“Or maybe this is it,” Don said. “Let’s look around.” We pulled the canoe to shore, got out, and Tim and I decided to head into the woods to see if we could pick up the trail on the other side. We were wearing shorts, but decided to pick our way through the woods. We thought it would be a good idea to leave the backpacks behind.

As we entered the woods, the brush grew thick and the trees stood close together. There was no sign of a trail, and we slipped occasionally over dead logs and branches. We began to wonder how far in we would have to go.

After a quarter mile, we broke through and came to another lake. “Wait here,” Tim said, “I’m going to look around to see if we can find the portage exit. Or maybe there’s another one we can take.” Tim followed the shoreline until he disappeared around a bend. Don was back with the canoe, Tim had disappeared, and I stood at the lake’s edge, thinking this was stupid so I wouldn’t feel afraid. We didn’t know what to expect in these woods, and their creeping branches and undergrowth began to grow in their wildness. I began to realize how alone we were.

After a few minutes I heard a “Yoohoo!!” from around the bend. I answered back, “Yoohoo!” A short while later it came again, and then again, and Tim reemerged from around the bend. “I think there may have been a portage here once,” he said, “but I think it’s long gone. That map’s about 30 years old, so anything could have happened. A lot of growth could happen in 30 years, and maybe the path’s gone.” We decided to return to the other side to tell Don what we had found, and decide then what we would do.

It had been half an hour, and we began to wonder if something could have happened to Don. We pushed through the undergrowth and the trees, stumbling over branches, then stopped. We heard something else, a breaking of twigs, crashing through the trees. Halfway back we called out, and the noise turned toward us. Don had been wondering what had happened to us too, and had begun looking for us. The three of us walked back together to the canoe. On the way we noticed the skull of what looked like a donkey or mule, some droppings, berries, and a beehive. “I think there might be a bear close by,” Don said. We laughed, but stepped quietly back to a rock to have some lunch and decide what we were going to do.

In the meantime, storm clouds began to pile on each other. We made peanut butter sandwiches, and decided if we were going to head back into the woods we’d need long pants and more clothing. Just as we pulled on more clothes and finished eating the sandwiches, fat drops began to fall. Slowly at first, then hard and fast.

“Let’s go for it,” Don said, and we agreed. We shoved the bread and lunch things in the packs, shouldered them onto our backs, and picked up the 18-foot canoe between the three of us.
A canoe isn’t meant to go through a thick forest, and at first we tried ramming it in between trees and branches. The wood scraped and whined against the aluminum, but the canoe began moving through the forest, a silver ramming rod that raised complaint. The rain fell harder, and our clothes were soaked. Leaves clung to our arms, legs and shirts, and a steady stream of water poured off my hat. It looked like a scene from Platoon. Once when we pushed the canoe hard I fell, and remember thinking “This must be what a turtle feels like on its back,” and then Tim came to my side, reached out a hand and pulled me back on my feet.

We had pushed the canoe halfway into the woods when we heard a sound. A tree about 50-100 yards away began to protest, then cracked, then fell. There wasn’t any wind. The rain had been falling steadily, and we all began to think about the bear signs we’d seen around the portage.
“Bears sometimes push down trees to warn invaders that they’re in their territory,” Tim said. We wished he hadn’t.

“Great,” I said, “and I’m the last one in line, so the first to be eaten. Well, there’s one good thing. Maybe he’ll give us a hand.” No one said anything, we just pushed harder against the canoe, and from that point it seemed like the canoe began to glide over the branches and leaves.
We emerged on the other side, soaked, exhausted, leaves and mud clinging to us and the canoe. We decided to take a picture. The rain had stopped, the clouds literally parted and the sun began to shine.

Later that day it would rain again and we would find ourselves all standing under a poncho, waiting for the rain to stop so we could continue canoeing, and later we stopped at a waterfall while Tim climbed out to a rock in the middle of the rushing river so we could take a picture, but the event of the day and of the trip had already happened. Before then the trip had been Tim and Don’s trip. After that day the trip became our trip. The three of us had braved the Iron Man Portage.

Iron Man Portage: Part III

2007-02-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

Wednesday:

Tim says he has a picture of me standing over one of the camp stoves while he was cooking toast. You can’t see my face, but I’m wearing a hat, my wild hair is poking out of it in different directions—mostly sideways—and I’m wearing a red flannel shirt. It’s probably a good thing you can’t see my face. He says I look like I’m ready to pounce on the toast as soon as it comes out of the pan. My famous phrase that week was, “Is it done yet. How about now?” He thinks the picture’s funny.

I don’t really like toast that much, all I remember was after Wednesday I was really hungry, and usually tired and sore. Wednesday was the day we canoed through Trafalgar Bay.

The bay is at least a two mile stretch of open water, more like Lake Michigan or the Gulf of Mexico than anything we had seen up to that point. Everything else before then had truly felt like a lake. Here it was wide open, and canoeing out into a body of water like that can really be an overwhelming, dwarfing experience. The water became rough and choppy, and in bad weather it could be dangerous. Fortunately, we were given another day of clear skies and mild weather, except for a stronger headwind.

Because of the waves, we also had to paddle differently in the rougher water. If we had used the long, smooth strokes here that we had been using in calmer water, the paddles would have knocked us or left our hands. Instead we used shorter, quicker strokes, and kept the shoreline nearby. We still felt the rhythmic rise and fall of the canoe as it plowed into a crest, then dipped down into the trough, crested, then dipped again.

Shortly into this we spotted another group, our first sign of other people since we had crossed over into Canada. It was a youth group, in six or seven canoes, and all of these seemed to be paddling well, except one struggling canoe in a cove. Tim and I had been working out during the summer so we were pretty fit, and Don was a strong paddler as well, so we came up on the canoe at the end of the group first. Tim and I wanted to keep paddling, catch up with the rest of the group and sail past them. Maybe we didn’t want to be bothered. Maybe we just wanted to beat everybody else. “I think we should stop,” Don said.
We resisted. It would be a lot of work. We’d probably get tired. Why didn’t the other canoes take care of their own? Don acknowledged all this, then repeated, “I think we should help.” He was always doing that, reminding us of the more important things, teaching us lessons even though he let us lead the trip. And we finally agreed.

We entered the cove and came alongside the other canoe. A middle aged woman and high school girl were in the boat, paddling in opposite directions and rotating the boat pretty well in a circle. “Need a hand?” Don asked. I don’t think they swooned, but they looked up, smiled sheepishly, and admitted defeat. Tim and I were still grumbling to ourselves, but soon their canoe was tied to ours with a rope (Don just happened to have one), and we began canoeing. At first the women helped, but the more they helped the harder it was to paddle. “We can go ahead and paddle,” Don said. “Go ahead and rest.” The women put their oars in a few more times, then allowed us to tow them.

The other canoes had pulled away from the rest of us, so the race was on. Tim, Don, and I paddled hard, and before long we saw the other canoes again, passed one, then another, then another. The lead canoe looked across the water from a hundred yards away, and we could see they were thinking the same thing. They paddled faster. We paddled faster. Both sides matched stroke for stroke, plowing through the water at the same speed, but the other canoe couldn’t keep going at the pace we had set for each other and began to fall behind. A little further ahead we all decided to stop for lunch, and Tim and I went swimming. We ate sandwiches, rested and talked, then canoed a few more miles.

By late afternoon we were beginning to feel the results of our struggle with the lake. Our arms were heavy, the paddling seemed more labored, and we were out of sorts. I had turned silent, moody, and began to feel out of place as Tim and Don related stories of past canoeing trips or pored over the map together, or knew exactly where to stop, how to paddle, and what we needed.

We found an island further ahead, away from the youth group, but even at that we could hear their voices and bits of conversation carry across the water. Tim and Don set up camp and began cooking while I rowed the canoe away from the island to fill our water bottle. I needed some time alone. The rhythmic pumping of the water filter gave my hands something to do while my mind wandered, allowing me to think dark thoughts. Tim had led the trip, but Don had been there for support, fading further into the background as Tim began directing more of the course. The more Tim led, the more I resisted. I didn’t want to be told what to do; although it’s not easy to admit, I wanted something to happen that would shake his confidence. In short, I wanted him to fail.

We ate dinner mostly in silence. Earlier Don had told stories when we had stopped, told us how he and Candy had met, how he had worked so much at one time that he had three uncashed checks sitting in a desk at home because he didn’t have time to go to the bank to cash them. He told us of his powerlifting workouts, and judo, and how his dad had been an alcoholic and he didn’t want the same life for himself, his family, or his children. He wanted good relationships for Tim and me, and we joked about women falling from the sky with ribbons tied around them (and little else), gifts with our names on them, intended specifically for us. Don’s eyes lit up as he unfolded the stories. He was a natural, and smiled easily. We began to devour his stories as eagerly as we ate the food.

Shortly after dinner we got in the tent and fell asleep. During the night we awoke to the sound of scratching and snuffling outside our tent, something larger than a cat, but none of us wanted to see what it was. It got into what remained of our supper, the unwashed dishes, and rattled the pans and snuffled around looking for food. Eventually we fell asleep again, too tired to notice.

Iron Man Portage: Part II

2007-02-21T08:51:00.000-08:00

Tuesday:

The next morning, after breakfast, we had a few minutes to ourselves before we broke camp and canoed to the next island. I sat on a rock overlooking the lake. During the night, fog had rolled into the cove, surrounding the island, covering it in an otherworld of quiet isolation. The tendrils curled and smoked, retreating as the sun burned through and I wondered if I would capture this moment again, writing in my journal, breathing, with rested, sore muscles and a filled stomach. We were so far away from everything, and I liked it. Here was a different world, wilder, more raw, more beautiful, and it was hard not to see the fingerprints of God everywhere we looked. The quiet peacefulness sank in deep in these moments, and I think we could all feel something coming loose, unraveling, unknotting itself, and we began to laugh more, smile more, at least in the moments when we had just woken up from a night of sleep, or stopped in the middle of the day to eat something from our packs.

But back to the day itself, Tuesday. We started late that morning, but after a couple hours came to another island with a fourteen foot cliff. We stripped off our clothes and put on swimming trunks and got ready for the jump. Tim and Don had been here before, and had jumped several times, but had never found out the depth of the water. Tim climbed the boulder first and stood at the edge and got ready to jump, but then kept standing there.
“Go ahead,” I said, “jump!”

“The water’s too cold,” he said. I asked him if he was afraid. He said no, he just didn’t like cold water. But I think he was afraid. After some time, Tim stepped back and Don stepped up, took a few deep breaths, then jumped out, flew through the air, splashed and went under, then resurfaced, his hair clinging to his face, his beard dripping water. The “old man” had shown us up.

I had jumped into deep water before, but never from this height. From the diving boards in swimming pools, you could always see the bottom, always knew what was coming. Usually there wasn’t long to wait after you sailed off the board. Jump, splash. Jump, splash. Off the high boards it might be jump, one, splash. But here it was an act of faith to run off the boulder high above the lake’s black depths, soar out into nothingness, and count “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . .” enough time to reconsider your decision before the icy waters closed over your head.

The water was a black hole, revealing nothing of what was underneath the surface. From where we stood from above there were moments where the diver would disappear, then the rest of us would wait, and inevitably the body in the water came to the surface a few seconds later. But when I jumped, after the moments of doubt, mixed with fear and exhilaration, my body would impact, and I’d plunge down. I felt gallons of water close over my head. I never tried to open my eyes, I think it would have been useless, but I quickly started kicking, trying to stop my descent into this unknown place, pushing as much water past me as fast as I could until my head resurfaced and I found air. We never knew just how deep the water went, none of us touched bottom, or saw what was beneath. It may have been better not to know. I guess that’s faith.

We jumped a few times, trying to see how many words we could say before we hit the water. Don tried it first, yelling “Jesus saves.” We didn’t know if he was trying to be funny or calling out for help. I couldn’t think of anything better to say, so I yelled out “Spider-maaaaaaan” as long as I could until I hit water. Tim, however, had us all beat. He got out the sentence “I just want to be friends!” with time to spare. He was still getting over his ex-girlfriend stalking him.

When I jumped, I’d feel the rush of adrenaline blocking out everything around me. I didn’t notice the look of concern on Tim’s and Don’s faces. “You might want to jump out farther next time,” Don said quietly. Tim agreed. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but tried to run and jump farther out the second time. It wasn’t until the third time I jumped that I realized what they were talking about. As I jumped I turned my head and saw the rocks six inches from me before the water closed over me. I realized then I was done.

The Iron Man Portage: Part I

2007-02-19T07:42:00.000-08:00

This is a project I wrote about over a year ago. I had intended to post it, but then never did. It grew so long (by blogging standards) that I didn't know what to do with it and felt self-conscious enough about it that I tabled it. A week ago, one of my writing students wrote a paper on a trip to the boundary waters, so I dug this up. Maybe it's time to share it.

Iron Man Portage

One summer my friend Tim, his dad Don, and I went up to Canada for a week to go canoeing in the boundary waters near the Minnesota/Canada border.
We left on a Sunday afternoon, drove through Wisconsin and Minnesota, and arrived at the canoe outfitting post around 5. It wouldn’t open for a couple more hours, so we dozed in the car while we waited.

Monday:
We ate breakfast at a diner in town, and when the outpost opened, we were signed in by a ranger girl with a cute smile, short, brown hair and long, lean hiking legs that ended in short shorts. She gave us a few maps and Tim and Don began charting out our course while I wandered around, looking at the large model of Quetico Park.

Half an hour later, our eighteen foot aluminum canoe rested in the water, our loaded backpacks tucked away inside on the bottom of the canoe, and we pushed off. We wouldn’t see our car, the ranger, or many people for another five days.

The day was clear and we traveled nine miles, with little more than the sound of our paddles dipping in and out of the water, scraping the side of the canoe, and our quiet, almost shy conversation in the midst of this vast cathedral. Blue sky stretched out above us, and silvery steel water surrounded us. We passed cabins and islands, but gradually these thinned and became nonexistent until we were surrounded by forested shores, water, the sky and islands. Tim and Don remembered previous years when it had rained, but for this trip the weather couldn’t have been better.

At one point earlier in the day we had passed a cabin with a Canadian flag, gave our registry papers to a border officer, and crossed the boundary from one country into another. Other than the flag, everything was the same. There was no dividing line, no marker to show that we were in the United States one moment, and then weren’t. The woman with the papers and the cabin were the only thing that let us know the difference. And yet we had crossed over. We were in a new place, new territory, and we made a big deal about it.

We came to an island and decided to camp that afternoon, and took baths in the lake (with organic soap). We cooked chicken and potatoes over the burners, and cleaned the pans. Since none of us had slept much the night before, our arms and legs felt leaden, our minds fuzzy, and we decided to sleep a couple hours. We’d clean the other dishes later, start a fire, and relax.

At one in the morning we awoke. I don’t think any of us remembers what woke us up, but we had all overslept through the alarm. We were no longer tired, so we decided to clean the rest of the dishes. Don was out of the tent first. “Come out here and look at this,” he said. We followed, and I saw Don’s silhouette, and saw him looking up into the night sky. I looked up as well, and won’t forget what I saw, but can’t describe it. At least not well. It was a clear night, and where I’ve seen hundreds of stars in town or out in the country, or from the deserts in Idaho, here there were thousands. The starlight was so bright it reflected off the water like moonlight. “There’s a shooting star,” said Tim, “and another.” We kept calling them out, but soon stopped after there were too many. The sky was bleeding white, as if someone had poked holes in the night and had gone crazy with it. Some of the holes were big, others were small, but they were all over. We were awed into silence, and just watched the sky above us. We were too far south to see the northern lights, but I’m not sure we needed them. I wasn’t ready for anything more beautiful.

I’m not sure how long we stood watching the stars, but it was quite a while. Eventually we pulled away, and built up a fire, talked, drank hot tea and Tang until we were tired again and crawled back into the tent.

I Don't Get Augustine: a Journal Entry

2007-02-15T06:39:00.000-08:00

I hesitate to post in the blogworld these days. After blogging for a while, you forget that people actually read your stuff, even if they don't comment, and sometimes these are people you've never met, or may not want to know your business, and sometimes it feels ugly to put out things you're thinking and know that someone can judge you for it.

It's one of the reasons I moved more to the fictional perspective. I may or may not agree with the perspectives of the characters I use. They may or may not be me. I want what I write to be something more than constipated whining. I should leave that in journals.

But today I'm breaking that a little, moving back to the journal format.

Yesterday I shoveled for three hours and am feeling it some in my lower back. It's a good feeling. I didn't take pictures of our neighborhood, but really regret it now. The place was transformed. It was quiet, it was peaceful, it was really white, and the soft powdery snow dunes could have been a scene out of the Arctic, or a very washed out desert. I shoveled out four different houses in the process, and while everyone was well hidden on Tuesday when the storm was going through, yesterday it was like we all wanted to emerge again to begin the digging. It's things like this that I enjoy because it creates a kind of community that disappears once again after the crisis is over.

So I'm also reading through Augustine's Confessions, trying to put together a lecture in a couple weeks. I have to admit, I haven't liked him much. He seems narcissistic at times, overly obsessed with every thought and movement he makes. He reminds me too much of me. I especially didn't like the parts when he was writing about his early childhood, suggesting that everything physical was bad, everything spiritual was good. It reminded me too much of things I heard as a kid, and the hang-ups a lot of Christians have had over sex, the environment, physical beauty, and art and culture. I see a lot of good in those things, though I realize too that I see a lot of stuff that's twisted, or downright ugly, shallow, or evil.

As I've been reading on in Augustine, maybe what I think he's saying isn't what he's saying at all, or maybe he's coming to a maturing understanding. Last night in the section I read, he acknowledges that God created this good, and makes statements that evil is a twisting of that good rather than an equal and opposite opposing force.

That's what I don't get. Earlier he said he thought they WERE opposing forces, reflecting more a Manichean (?) or Zoroastrian idea. So which is it? What does he believe and what's he trying to say? Or is this a reflection of changing thinking, maturing, the willingness to change his views over time. If I want the benefit of the doubt for revising my thinking, I guess he deserves it too.

I'm no Augustine expert, and I'm still not sure I like him. In the midst of first year teaching at a new college with new material, I'm finding myself wrestling, a lot. I gave a lecture on the Celts the other day. I really LIKE the Celts, and I was excited about talking about them, but when the lecture was said and done, I felt like I really bombed. I was sick, and couldn't think clearly, but it was more than that. I wondered if I said what I'd wanted to, if it was communicated well, and realized it probably wasn't. I told a story, not a lecture, and was hard to follow. I was told, "Think more bullet points, not paragraphs." This was good advice, I just haven't seemed to be able to figure out consistently yet how to do that. I think the potential was there for a great lecture, but the presentation . . . that still needs work.

Enough obsessing.

The Violation of Flowers

2007-02-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

Relationships have always been my Achilles' heel. My closest friends know this; I know this; I even know where it comes from. Stick me on a Freudian couch and I'd . . . fall asleep (they're just so cozy, and I'm not about to talk about my mom).

"Don't patronize me with flowers," she said. "I feel violated. Why did you send them? And close to Valentine's Day?!"

"I don't know," I shrugged. Part of this was true. Part of it was not. I did it for a variety of reasons. I did it because she wouldn't expect it. I did it because I think flowers are beautiful and so is she to me. I did it because I wanted to feel alive. I wasn't trying to rape her with flowers. Maybe at one time I could have told her this, but my mouth already knew what my brain did not, none of it could be said. It no longer mattered. The giving of flowers was meant to be a good thing. It wasn't. The word "violated" rang in my ears.

"Mark," she said, "you know it's over."
"I know," I agreed. "I've been trying to tell you that for a while now."

So why would I send Tracy flowers if I knew it was over and was trying to walk away? Good question. Maybe I wanted to get her attention before I left. Maybe I wanted to give her something that would last for a few days. Maybe I was doing it out of resignation, raising the white lily rather than the flag.

It had been growing for some time, something intangible but unsettlingly familiar. The death of the relationship was growing in me like a cancer. In the past I'd held on, letting it consume me until I lay stretched out, surprised that the dying gasp would be my last, realization finally flooding my eyes as the light faded, everyone else standing around my casket, but me surprised to find my eyes being sewn closed.

This time I wouldn't let death catch me napping. I'm not a victim. Slow sometimes, but not as stupid. When I caught death's scent, I loped off into the woods, following the animal instinct of isolation rather than the human need for healing. Hospitals have needles.

There was only one problem to my plan. She followed me into the forest. The phone calls, emails, the "one more chances," the visits with food prolonged the inevitable, the terminal nature of what we had. She knew it; I sensed it. Yet neither one of us wanted to let go, or at least didn't want to be the one to walk away first. "Go away," I said. "Leave me alone."

"I'll always remember you," she whispers. "And appreciate the time we had."
Don't. Stop it. Just let me go. This isn't helping, I thought. "Same here," I said.
"Friends?" she asks. No response. The awkward silence, and then she turns slowly, and heads back toward the house.

It's a clear night tonight, cool. Beneath me lies a bed of soft pine needles. Above the gently swaying tree boughs there's a field of stars, the moon nearly full, and beyond that, black space that stretches on beyond my imagination. I let out a long, mournful howl. Dying hurts. You don't ever really know what's beyond.

This Is Not a Poem

2007-02-13T12:45:00.000-08:00

Buckets of snow. No school. A cold to end all colds.
Reading Augustine. Thinking my nose is going to fall off.
(Legal) drugs in my system. Man, I feel like crap.

Chapter 2: The Angry Sweater People and the proliferation of wool

2007-02-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

There were news reports about the angry sweater people. They swore to take over the world if other countries refused to buy their angora wool. The goats in Yakchew had been eating very well lately, and so had been having lots and lots of little goats sprouting from their overfull bellies. The green prickly plants had also been doing well in Yakchew, so when all the little goats saw the green prickly plants they ate them almost as fast as those hardy plants grew, and wool popped out from their bodies and over their eyes and grew so long that they often tripped and fell, and so the angry sweater people decided they had to cut the wool and make more sweaters. Since this had kept them very busy, they worked long hours, and became very angry that they had to work so much. They also were angry that no one wanted to buy their sweaters, especially during the summer, and were especially angry that no one seemed to like them (the sweater people) very much. And so every day they became angrier.

The chief of the sweater people was the angriest of all. He was so angry when he lost his two children for three days because they were buried under mountains of sweaters and his wife had decided to cook wool soup. It didn’t taste very good and he got sick, which also made him angry.

“Enough of this!” he said, so angry his face had turned red, then purple, then brown, and white once again. “What are we going to do with all these sweaters?”
“We could make sweater hats,” his wife suggested.

The chief decided that was a good idea, and for a while was not as angry. He and his wife and the people of the village made hats from some of the leftover sweaters and for a while people liked them. A couple days after the chief and his wife began making sweater hats they found their two children, who were very happy because they had been playing hide-and-seek, but were also very hungry. The chief’s wife made them wool soup, which they also did not like, and which also made them angry. So they went outside, killed one of the angora goats, and had it for supper instead. At first the chief was angry, but then he saw there was less wool for making sweaters, and since they were so far behind schedule in making sweaters and sweater hats, having one less wool making goat was a good thing. So for a while, the chief was not as angry.

But then came a day when everyone had sweaters and sweater hats, so no one else wanted any more. The chief, once again, was angry.

“What will we do now!” the chief roared, before biting a goat’s leg. The goat had been chewing on a prickly plant, turned around just in time to see the chief bite his leg, and responded by kicking the chief in the face.

“Well, let me think,” said the chief’s wife, stirring a pot of wool soup, tending to the chief’s bleeding forehead, and knitting at the same time.

“Woman, must I do everything myself!” fumed the chief. His wife said nothing, but continued to mop his head with a wet cloth, stirred the soup, and knitted.

“I’ve got it,” said the chief. “The sweater hats worked so well, we can make sweater gloves, too! Then they’ll have sweater sweaters, sweater hats, and sweater gloves. I’m glad I thought of that.” The chief was so happy about his brilliant idea that he forgot to be angry.

And so, they got to work once again. Day and night, night and day, the sweater people knit together sweaters, knit together hats, and knit together gloves. They shaved the wool from the goats so that the goats could then wear the extra sweaters and hats and gloves, but the goats mostly just ate them. They sold sweaters, hats and gloves in the street, in the neighboring villages, in the neighboring countries, and then across the sea.

Finally, everyone in the entire world had at least one pair of sweaters, hats, and gloves, and some even had three. “We’re tired of all these angora sweaters,” grumbled the people of the world. “We want something different.” And so there was an outcry by the people of the world against the sweater people, and this made the chief of the sweater people extremely angry.

“We work long hours, we make sweaters and hats and gloves, and we sell them to keep you warm! How can you be ungrateful? We can’t stop the green prickly plants from growing, and we can’t stop the goats from eating and having more little goats, and we can’t stop the wool from growing, so you’ll just have to keep buying our wool!”

Naturally, the people of the world did not like this idea at all. They liked the sweaters when it was cold, but how could you wear a sweater when it was hot? They refused to buy the wool, drew silly pictures of the angry sweater chief, and even kidnapped some of the sweater chief’s goats. And that was when the angry sweater chief decided to try to take over the world, to make the people buy their wool.

Chapter 1: Oddities and More Oddities

2007-02-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

Skye Millar’s vision wasn’t what it used to be. He had started seeing spots, had blurred vision as objects swam before his eyes, then danced, then stood still again. It had happened first in the kitchen, when the bananas he had set out the night before were hitting an orange back and forth, and the orange was doing the backstroke. How strange. He even thought he was beginning to see little people out of the corners of his eyes, but when he’d look, they’d be gone. They were tricky buggers, always too fast for him to catch them, light and fluffy like little clouds.

Other strange things had started happening as well. Dogs had begun disappearing in his neighborhood, squirrels sat up when he walked by, chattering and making motions with their arms that reminded him of his former Professor Blakeley. Were those glasses he saw one of them wearing?

And when the giant fell from the sky and through the roof of his apartment on Tuesday night, no one else noticed. They should have, there were four other people in the room with him, but no one else did. Kevin Jamstrong kept talking about guitars and drumbeats, and E.L. Mathonik arrived late as usual, and casually stepped around the giant without saying a word. He was a big giant. He practically filled the whole room. Robert Kindgood and Ben Complex were quietly talking in a corner about taxes, oblivious to the loud thud the giant had made when he had crashed into the living room. So Skye Millar stood up, just so he could see over the giant’s tremendous belly to the other side of the living room where Jamstrong and Complex were sitting. The room got quiet.

“Do you have an announcement?” Jamstrong asked. But before Skye could respond Robert Kindgood spoke up, “I think we should keep meeting,” he said. “I like the music here and the TV, and it’s warmer inside than outside, though I’m having second thoughts.” About what, he never said. Still, no one had mentioned the giant.

“I think it’s okay,” Complex agreed. “We’re all busy, but okay. Let’s continue to meet.” Skye Millar worked his jaw muscles, like two rickety hinges, but nothing came out, so he sat back down.

“You’ll never get a word in edgewise that way,” said a soft, deep voice at his elbow. The voice was so close and so foreign that it made Skye jump. He looked to his left and his right, and over at the giant who seemed to be clearly dead, but there was no one. Captain Herman, the cat, lay stretched lazily across the arm of the couch, extending his white paws and releasing a tremendous yawn. Skye looked again at Herman. The cat was smiling.

“Were you talking to me?” Skye asked.
“Naturally,” Herman said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Mathonik said.
“Nor I,” said Complex.
“Sure didn’t,” said Jamstrong.
“It’s okay,” Skye apologized, “I was just talking to myself.”
“Oddities and more oddities,” demurred Herman.
“Hush,” Skye Millar hissed, but the cat simply licked his paw as if he hadn’t heard and began rubbing it behind his ears.

Celebrate the Feast

2007-01-04T11:09:00.002-08:00

I've often dreamed of someday having a place where guests could come and stay and be refreshed. There'd be food, music, talking, laughter, and they'd leave feeling well fed, well rested, and renewed. At times, friends have come alongside and we've tried to live out this community. Sometimes we've felt disillusioned, found out it was hard, or I felt like it was out of reach because I don't have a house of my own yet, a family, or seemingly the funds to make this work. I also know my social limitations. Like Bilbo in The Hobbit, I'm more concerned sometimes that people will trash the place, make a mess, break the dishes, eat all the food. So in a sense, I long for Rivendell of the elves but live like a hobbit at Bag End.

Last night, I saw a glimpse of Rivendell. I have a friend from Boise staying for the week as he takes an intensive winterterm class at the college where I teach. We've had time to talk, grab some Chinese, and watch Boise State beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl (incredible game). Another friend rolled into town last night from Lansing, Michigan, on his way to Joplin, Missouri. Neither of my friends had met each other, but were quickly talking like long lost friends. We grabbed some food from Kroger's (paying for it on the way out), and went home and cooked supper. My roommate Jeremiah joined us, and soon the food was done, the table was set, and we were around the dining room table eating, talking, enjoying being together. It felt good. This hasn't happened in a while.

Let me back up. I've been living in the house since September after a quick move out of another house in town where I'd been living with friends. In the midst of school and some painful things going on in the lives of my friends, I found myself retreating into silence, putting up walls, not trusting others. My roommate and I share a love for fantasy and sci-fi movies and games, but that's where the similarities seem to end. I met him at a time when I wasn't letting anyone in, so to be fair, he didn't stand a chance.

But here we all were, four of us, sitting around the table, and there was something both hopeful and healing about it. My roommate and I still have a ways to go when it comes to finding common ground, but around the table it felt like we were all being drawn into something, sharing our journeys of the last couple months, talking about movies and sports, and things we were learning, and inevitably turning to talking about God and a desire for something more in our lives.

My friend from Lansing has a gift for speaking truth in my life, whether it's telling me he likes white rice over the multi-grain stuff we cooked last night, or telling me when I'm putting up walls and confronting me about the need to stay in community during times of crisis rather than isolating. He admits he tends to go into isolation as well, but said that in a book he read that staying in community is better :). In the midst of the time, I felt something changing in me, believing again, finding peace and hope, and the place where we lived seemed to be filled with light and presence rather than just a place to drop books, grab a quick bite and head back out the door again.

After the meal we did the dishes, then three of us went to the gym to shoot some hoops. Today after breakfast, my friend from Lansing got back on the road heading for Joplin, while my friend from Boise leaves on Saturday. I don't know what life will be like when they're gone, but for now, it helped to be reminded again of the things that can happen around a simple feast of chicken, vegetables, rice, and good friends. I feel like I might be standing taller, even, kind of like an elf.

The Things (and People) I Love

2006-12-29T17:16:00.000-08:00

Tonight I'm listening to a cd a friend of mine has given me and compiling some of the blogs I've written over the last two years (85 pages). The site I used to write for will soon be no more, but in it are a lot of memories and a reflection of the journey I made, and we made, together. I guess that's fitting toward the end of another year.

Next to my computer is a picture of this girl--the one who made the cd for me--and it's one of her from around the first time that I got to know her almost three years ago. The picture, the music, and the blogs remind me of another time, when all these things were new and I was nervous, and not sure about falling in love.

Sometimes we forget what made us fall in love in the first place: with a person, a place, a song, an idea. To let you know where I was three years ago, I had just moved to Michigan after living in Illinois for ten years. I didn't know anyone, and I was stepping out on a great adventure I thought. Life would never be the same, and the words I had been waiting for had finally come: "It's time to go."

With fear and excitement I went, not knowing what the next day would bring as I met new people and learned more about myself. I had found my desert, but I was more emotionally raw and dependant on God than I had ever been in my life. My writing reflected it. My thoughts about relationships reflected it.

But then we get used to things. We grow comfortable with ritual over the first moments that drew us to realize our need for God. We begin to accept the other person in our life as a certainty, and forget what it was like to have not had them in our lives or what it would be like to lose them. The new places we stop seeing, and the new streets and routes become familiar, well worn, even contemptible ruts. Tonight, with new music and rereading some of the thoughts when things were new, it's becoming fresh again, only more than I even realized then.

Tomorrow I leave on another journey, to pursue seeing again through fresh eyes and remembering some of the things I have forgotten. I hope I find it; I hope we can take the journey together and share what we find along the way.

The Desert

2006-12-28T05:19:00.000-08:00

The desert. A harsh, barren landscape that strips everything down to its bare essentials. There's beauty here--tall mesas, rolling hills, red and brown clay--but it's a beauty that's been hammered, beaten down, refined, and is unforgiving of any false steps. Roses and willow trees do not live here, nor the blossoming reds, yellows, pinks and oranges of tulips, roses, or pansies. Instead, there's a dull gray to the sage, scrub brush and cacti as they cling tenaciously to the rocks and thin soil. You could drive for hours without seeing another living thing. If you were on foot, it could take days. The silence could be maddening, and the days and hours blur into each other until all that seems to be or to have ever been is the desert. Defenses are ripped away, and the possessions and relationships and comforts--resources that made life easy--are no longer available.

Deserts are dead places, and deserts are places where people are sometimes tested and reborn.

Joseph, sold by his brothers into Egypt then falsely accused of hitting on his master's wife, spends over two years in prison. Abandoned to his own desert and forgotten, he continues to dream of someday feeding a nation.

Moses, educated by the greatest civilization of his time, privy to the comforts of the palace, kills a man and flees into the desert for forty years, only to return to lead a nation of slaves to a land of freedom.

The Israelites, former slaves who prefer the security of slavery to the risk of freedom and something more, are tested, broken down, and reshaped in the desert.

John, sensing the winds of change and a new order, goes into the desert to prepare the way.

Jesus, before his ministry begins, goes into the desert for forty days where he's tempted, but doesn't give in.

There are also the Egyptian monastics, the Irish monastics, and others who go, willingly or unwillingly, into the desert. Sometimes it's to escape, sometimes it's to die, sometimes we're prodded and goaded into these uninhabited wastelands.

* * *

It's a literal landscape, and yet it can also be an apt metaphor for the journeys we find ourselves on. Last summer I spent a couple days in southern and eastern Oregon, driving up and down mountains until I lost sense of direction, then I crossed over into the desert and drove around mesas and through valleys for hours. The lakes, the sand, the landscape was breathtaking, but after a while I became uncomfortable with the silence. I began to wonder if I'd ever get out. I began wondering about whether I had enough gas, or what would happen if the car broke down. My cell phone didn't work here, and I began to wonder what trying to survive out here would feel like.

Deserts are spiritual places. It takes bringing us to uninhabited wastelands, away from the noise and comfort to strip us down and make us realize our dependence, our animalness of being human. We sense something bigger when we're not constantly distracted by ourselves. Rock stars, entertainers, politicians tell us how great they are, and commercials tell us how great we will be if we use their products. In crowds, we tell ourselves we're better than that fat slob, or that greasy haired girl, or could be as good as that prima donna if we practice, or that model if we lose another ten pounds, or that guy if we have this girl. We have none of that to rely on in the desert. Instead, we ask "Where will I find water, where will I find food? How can I get away from this pounding sun? God, help me!"

Sometimes our desert is a broken marriage, losing a job or moving to a place that is strange and foreign to us. Whatever the circumstance, we find ourselves at the end of our strength and resources, ready to die and not sure how to live.

And something changes. A part of us dies. A part of us is reawakened.

We have a need to live differently, to realize that there is someone bigger than ourselves and that the universe moves on without us pulling the strings. In fact, most of the time the natural world could care less whether we won a trophy, a beauty pageant, or a promotion, but notices when we abuse the resources we're given. Solitude and silence have been timeless spiritual disciplines because that's what it takes to see the ways peace has been broken in the world, in our lives, in our relationships with each other and with God. Deserts provide both. But then deserts also require that we leave them and reenter the places where flowers grow, water flows, and laughter fills up the silence.

Home for the holidays

2006-12-23T19:29:00.000-08:00

I'm home for the holidays this year, and yet it's been a painful, lonely time. It always is for me when I'm with family, but this year especially. These are people I'm related to, yet they're complete strangers. We spend time in front of a TV to avoid talking.

My parents moved to Florida after my freshman year of college, and then moved again from central Florida to Jacksonville, where they now live. When I come "home," I have no ties to the people or the place, and wouldn't come to Jacksonville, or Florida at all, if it weren't for my family.

I didn't get along well with my stepmom when I was growing up. I still struggle with anger, frustration, and the loss of a relationship I often wish we could have had. My stepmom (called Mom from here on out) had five miscarriages, and didn't have kids until I was ten. As a result, she overcompensated and smothered one of my brothers, and there has always been a rift between he and I. We've been pitted against each other and there's a wall between us that I have no idea how to cross, even though I sense there are times when we'd both like to find common ground. Instead, a heavy silence and awkwardness rests between us. My youngest brother and I get along well in person, though even between us I've felt tension this trip. I won't lie, some of it's been me. I'm wound tight these days and have anger toward something, I don't know what.

I'm 31, my brothers are 21 and 18, and yet we slip into the same roles we did as kids. I hear this is true of most families, whether the siblings are kids, teens, or are in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. How do we redefine roles, begin to see each other again through fresh eyes?

Yet I also know there are millions of people who would love to be with their families this year and can't. A blogging friend of mine writes posts about the war in Iraq. A girl I went out with once sent me an email to write our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whether we're for the war or against it, we all agree that being miles away from home at Christmastime can be lonely and hard, let alone when we find ourselves in another country, and one where people are shooting at us.

Another friend talked to me about Advent, about how Christmas should remind us of an absence, yet this runs counter to our cultural impulses. This year more than others, I've gotten stressed buying gifts for family and friends, have hated the traffic in the city, and have wondered what Christmas is about.

And yet there remains a deep longing for peace, peace in the sense of Shalom, peace between each other (my family), peace within ourselves (freedom from tension, anxiety, anger, despair), peace in our communities (no more flipping the bird), and peace with God and the sense that God is present and that things really were meant for good.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I've wished that Christmas would come crashing down, that we'd have to start over, more simply yet more peacefully. I've found myself sitting in church lately longing and hoping that Jesus is someone who lived in history, that he was who he said he was, and that this truth has power in my life and in every life on this planet. I would love to forego the giving and receiving of gifts if it meant that I could find what I was looking for (and feeling like I was still missing) when I opened presents under the tree. I would love to forego a Christmas meal if it meant feeling full of hope, joy, and peaceful relationships. I would love to forego a holiday from work if it meant that the rest of the year I was part of something revolutionary and satisfying. And I would forego another Christmas pageant, musical, Santa Claus suit, or Salvation army can if I could see God walking among us.

More than anything else, this is what I want for Christmas.

The Riders: Part I

2006-12-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

There were five of them: four men, one woman. From a distance, there were similarities. Three of the men looked nearly identical, though one was clearly older than the others, his moustache mixed a reddish white, and lines creased around his eyes and forehead. He also fidgeted in his saddle, and his horse shied behind the others, then went galloping ahead. The tallest of the younger three was lean, had a long nose and small mouth, and his hair spiked up in several different directions. He looked the least like the others. He sat easily in the saddle of his red roan and alternated between telling stories that had the others laughing and then brooding in silence. Another sat a black thoroughbred, his upper body like a barrel. He rarely spoke, but often scowled. Though when the sun broke through the clouds, he would hum a tune, or sing a verse from a song until once again he lapsed into silence. Riding beside him was the woman, on a black mare, and her long hair was raven black, or had been until it became streaked with lightning patterns of white. Her back was hunched, and she sat low in the saddle, sagging, weighed down by some unseen burden. The last man rode a dapple gray, shorter than the others but with a sturdy frame. Its rider nearly matched. He was the shortest of the five, and yet held himself straight, his shoulders thick as if accustomed to carrying heavy loads. His piercing eyes were studying, inscrutable from behind angled brows, as if he were measuring the world around him.

Five riders. Blood related. Yet, behind this loose connection were gaps and voids wrapped in silence. It was a family divided.

Dreamers and Soul Makers

2006-12-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

It was the world of dreamers and soul makers. Buddy Carson sat in the back pew on the hot July morning as one after another, people filed past, filling in the spaces in the building as sun filtered through rose and emerald and periwinkle glass, and motes of dust hung languidly in the air, creating beams that rested like halos on gray heads, white bonnets and greasy bald spots.

The room itself smelled like old leather, and like dust that has been pushed and swept from one side of a room to another, and back again, never discarded but left to choke in one's nostrils. Soon old sweat and cheap perfume mingled in with the dust and leather smells, and tiny droplets began to form on Buddy's forehead and under his arms. He'd never felt too secure in crowds, or around people in general, and he stared at the grains of wood on the back of the pew ahead of him as a few looked his way. Some shot him a brief smile, others glared reprovingly, sizing him up from head to toe. For those people, Buddy bit back the urge to stick out his tongue at them or, worse, flip them the bird.

He was from the other side of the tracks, some said. He had holes in his jeans and little grease splotches on the front of his shirt that the washing machine at the laundromat hadn't gotten out, and since it was the second day straight that he'd worn the shirt and had slept in it the night before, it settled on his slightly undernourished body in a rumpled heap. No one knew he'd spent the night under the bridge the night before, near the park where underneath the slide the words "Bill L/S Tammy 4ever" were scrawled in deep by a rock. The stones were smooth under the bridge, and the soft sound of water spilling over the rocks played like a lullaby in the humid July air, and Buddy could almost forget the beating his dad had given him earlier that evening.

But here he sat, on a Sunday morning, and the harshness of life was beginning to beat its way not just onto his chest, back and shoulders, but into his eyes, the way he hung his head, and the dead coldness he felt deep in his chest. Whenever he looked in the mirror, he often saw deep black pools staring back at him, icy depths that had no bottom, and he'd attempt a smile but it often twisted into a half crooked grimace. Rather than risk the people seeing those bottomless wells or that twisted grimace and have them throw him out immediately, Buddy kept his eyes down, pretending to study the piece of paper he'd been given called a bulletin, or bore ever more deeply into those woodgrains on the back of the pew.

He didn't think he believed it anymore. It wasn't possible. He was crossing the threshold between childhood and adulthood at a mature ten years of age, and Buddy was smart enough to realize that you couldn't take what an adult said at face value, that they often lied to you, or told you they cared about you right before they smacked you across the head. He wondered if God was the same. Some said God was dead, others said we created him, others said they loved him, but then they loved the girl in his second grade class in ways that made her shake with fear and cry whenever they entered the room. No, he didn't believe in God.

But what made him miss him so much then? What made him hope against hope that he did exist, and that he wasn't like his dad? He didn't know if Jesus ever lived, but if he did, he wanted him to be someone special, and he wanted to go sit on his lap. Maybe he would understand.

But if he didn't? If he was like all the rest, what then? Where could he go? Who could he turn to? Was there anyone he could trust? He'd decided that if there wasn't, that by the time he was thirteen, he'd hang from the tree nearest the bridge, overlooking the riverbank, the rounded stones in the creekbed, and the gently flowing water that made soft lullaby sounds. He'd give it some time, he thought, these kinds of things needed to be thought through.

The music began from the front corner of the room, an old upright piano that, even to Buddy's untrained ear, was badly out of tune. It matched the sound of the singing perfectly. For twenty minutes on the hot July day, ladies waved fans before their faces, and men wiped their foreheads with handkerchiefs as they sang about bringing in sheep, or ships, or sieves, or something like that, and about glorious days, and called each other brother and sister. Buddy sat in the back, unnoticed and uncaring, drifting between sleep and nonsleep to the buzzing of the sound and the heat.

Then the music ended, and a man with gray hair and a sharp, hooklike nose stood behind a block of wood and spoke gently, softly at first, then with building passion. He talked about caring for each other and forgiving our brothers and sisters, and from the smooth, unlined forehead and ear-to-ear smile on his face, Buddy felt like the man had no idea what he was talking about. He moved closer to the end of the pew, preparing his escape, but his hands felt hot and something was burning his eyes and a tightness constricted the back of his throat. He was hurting, he was in pain, and without waiting another moment for his escape, Buddy ran out the back door and into the side yard, a sob breaking from his throat. He picked up a rock and threw it, as hard as he could, and heard it bounce off a tree and ricochet off the hood of a car. He didn't care. He needed to walk.

The Real, the Fake, the Virtual, the Remembered and the Imagined

2006-12-08T22:04:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid I lived in imaginary places.

My parents built me a rocketship out of a cardboard box from a refrigerator they'd had shipped to their house. They even made me a spaceman helmet out of a paper bag, and a spacesuit vest out of another paper bag. I played in my imaginary spaceship until the next hard rain hit that turned my spaceship into a soggy mess.

My next imaginary place was the world of books: Narnia, Middle-earth, Camelot, the Four Lands (Terry Brooks, in case you don't know). My mom, concerned I'd get lost in this new world, had me read history books and NON-fiction books so I could also be grounded in reality. My dreams were often vivid, and seemed sometimes more real than my life during the day, and I often imagined when I was living in a small town of 800 that someday I'd leave that town and go someplace else and the adventures would begin.

Eventually, I did leave.

Now I teach literature, and give an occasional history lecture, and have been introduced to Umberto Eco and Jean Beaudrillard, the Matrix, eastern and Greek philosophy (and philosophy in general) in addition to being Christian, and most of these areas ask, "What is real, and how can we know what is real? How do we know the difference?"

I went to a lecture once on movies and culture and the lecturer talked about how people reacted to the early silent films. The technology was such a shock that often people who went to see the early films would get so mad at the people on screen that they would stand up and get ready to fight them, or would peer around the screen to see where the people went. Later films took this idea and used it to critique and make fun of itself (in postmodern lit. we'd probably call this self-reflexivity (a work of art being self aware and turning back on itself), or metanarrative, telling stories about stories).

Now we have more than just early film, but high definition film, larger than life IMAX film, "realistic" theme parks thanks to Disney (nods to Eco's Travels in Hyperreality), internet chatrooms and blog spaces where we communicate with people we have to accept on faith exist. We have emotional affairs with people we've never seen, never met, never touched, never smelled, never tasted. The world of writing and blogging, television and film seems more real and authentic than our REAL lives because they include all the best aspects of a relationship or a person's body or a situation. They are things as they "should be" and not as they are, and so the reality seems mundane. We enjoy the play acting of saving the world to the reality of trying to balance our checkbooks and not despair that our life may not be in constant crisis or in need of megamicromanaging or be as sexually ideal as we envisioned it. I'm often less in awe when I read about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea or Jesus coming to life after being dead because the stories in DC or Marvel are more sensational. Can Jesus leap tall buildings with a single bound? Can Moses stop bullets dead in their tracks, stop a train, and rescue a girl all at the same time?

I'm not being flippant or sacriligious here, I'm simply wrestling with the feeling that the world has been through a technological (and therefore social) time warp and I'm still hung over from severe jet lag, trying to hang on to the jet stream by my fingernails.

It's not the first time that change has come hard.

My great grandma was born the year the Wright Brothers had discovered flight and died after the first satelitte had left our solar system. In the Industrial Revolution people's lives changed dramatically. In Britain, the Industrial Revolution took place over 100 years; in the US, around 30, and it transformed our view of ourselves (cultural identity), how we communicated and traveled, it made us wrestle with factories and unions and new forms of social injustice, and made us deeply question our place in the world as a society and as individuals. Some felt irretrievably lost. Others felt it was the best time to be alive.

I had a hard time talking to my parents when I was in high school because they sat glued in front of a TV for 3-4 hours a night. Since college, I have had the same problem with roommates because they do the same thing with Xboxes. Personally, I've developed a jealous hatred of TVs because they seem to disconnect more often than they connect us to each other. We're forced to watch others live imagined lives than be creative with our own. We sit in silence next to friends and family rather than face to face. Yet, on the other side, advocates for TV say that it is the new shared culture and gives us connecting points to talk about (I agree. I like talking Smallville or Seinfeld or the Office or Survivor), and brings people together socially as much as it tears them apart. I don't know which is true, what's real.

I'm teaching next semester on the history of film and the history of TV, but only a couple lectures, so for now I'm thinking out loud. No answers yet, mostly questions, and I'm wondering how I'm going to tell stories to my students across a ten year generation gap that will connect, and I'm wondering how often in my lifetime we'll have to reinvent our stories and reinvent our lives so we don't get lost in change, and what things will stay the same and be timeless. How will we know how to talk about and distinguish from the world of the real and the virtual, pseudo, mirror worlds we create around us? Is it a question worth asking? Does the real world have priority over these other worlds, or are all of them--imaginary, dreamlike, virtual, fictional--permutations of the same thing?

Friendship vs. Romance

2006-11-27T07:47:00.000-08:00

She stands at the bar in a crowded, dimly lit room. Music plays and the smell of smoke, perfume, and a hint of sweat fills the air. He enters, sees her at the bar, she hasn't noticed him yet, but a couple seconds later senses his eyes on her. She looks up, smiles, looks away, then looks back and smiles again, tilting her head to the side ever so slightly.

He buries his fear deep inside himself and covers it over with the armor of confidence, smiles back, and closes the distance between them. He sees her face, her smile, her clothes, and the body underneath, and swears he's in love. He buys her a drink, they talk for a few minutes, trying to hear each other over the sound of the local band playing cover songs, and he asks her to dance. They move out onto the dance floor, leaving their drinks behind, and stand close to each other, moving, smelling each other's cologne, feeling the heat from each others' body. No words are needed, no words are possible. Their bodies speak a language all its own and they listen. A couple more rounds of drinks, more music, more dancing, and then a walk out into the fresh, cool air of the night.

The stars are out, there's a warm glow from the drinks and the dancing, and he pulls her close. They kiss, soft at first, and then deeper, longer, more passionately. The heat turns into fire, and it's a brief negotiation, his house or hers. Hers is closer, so they climb the stairs before slamming the door behind them and undressing each other in the dark. Three hours ago they didn't know each other existed, let alone saw each other's bodies in intimate detail, but they're following what comes naturally.

Tomorrow they may be strangers again, or if they're lucky they'll have breakfast, and coffee, and lunch, and then another night, and he'll bring her into his world and she'll bring him to meet her friends. One month later they're doing laundry together. Six months later they're buying fine china. Two years later they wonder what they ever had in common, but for now, this is love. This is what it looks like, what it feels like. This is how relationships go.

Another man, another woman. They talk on the phone, make dinner together, play basketball, send each other birthday gifts. They're friends, and have been for years. He cares about her. She cares about him. They spend hours talking, hours and hours. He knows her family's names, she knows the name of every pet he's ever owned. The night she came home stunned after the death of her friend he was there, holding her. The day his dad died and he felt numb she listened, understanding.

She says it doesn't feel right. It isn't love, because it doesn't look like love should look. It's not perfume and dancing and drinks and smoky bars, and instant, uncontrollable heat. The fire burns, but burns low, a steady flame but not consuming. He tells her there's plenty of kindling he's been saving up that she doesn't know about. He's been storing it away, waiting for the day when the flint strikes and the fire of straw, newspaper and twigs becomes a roaring flame of trees and houses and countrysides. But she warms her hands instead, and throws on another piece of kindling.

Sunday afternoon

2006-11-20T05:48:00.000-08:00

It was Sunday afternoon and not too cold for late November. The sun had been out earlier in the day, but now the clouds masked the world over in a thin gray. The wind blew through the naked fingers of the trees, swaying the smallest of the branches and the last of the leaves still clinging tenaciously to their umbilical cord that connected them to summer and the last nutrients of the earth before the winds would finally sever them, and they too would go back into the ground to enrich new generations of spring leaves.

Wearing her oversized green sweatshirt and a stocking cap, Billie Holliday carried the red plastic rake she'd bought from Wal-mart for $5 across the yard, swinging it like a baton, the first song by a band named Flyleaf gearing up on her iPod. She'd gone to church earlier that day, then left after a few songs, unable to continue. She needed to get away and think, she told herself, and so she'd sped out of the parking lot, stopped at Wal-mart, picked up $5 of cheap therapy (aka the rake), and had driven the ten minutes across town for home.

Fall afternoons. Raking leaves. The music had an edgy, gritty feel to it and Billie cranked it up, coccooning herself in a world of noise and the rhythmic scraping of the rake across the grass and dead brown leaves. One foot, and then another, until soon the yard was littered with small mounds of yellow leaves, like dead carcasses piled up after the kill. The grass underneath was still green, still tender and alive, and still very much in need of a last mowing.

Her body began to feel warm and the first trickle of sweat ran its way down her back. Her breathing became uneven, and she had to remind herself to take deep breaths as she raked. In spite of the cold, a glowing warmth began to spread its way into her arms, her legs, and feet. She began to remember how much she enjoyed this, being outside, working in the yard, feeling like she was taking care of a piece of her world, taming it, nurturing it, making it beautiful. She didn't care that this wasn't her yard, that she was renting it. For now, it made her feel like she was part of something.

Feeling part of something hadn't come easily. The last two years she'd been a leaf, blowing on the wind. She'd started out at the bottom, a sales rep for a computer firm, and when she'd agreed to commute six hours to Cleveland 2-3 days a week to close a $5 million deal with a potential client, she told herself the fast-track promotion would make it worth it. But then Carlye got another deal for $6 million, out of Grand Rapids, in less time and became Billie's supervisor.

It hadn't helped that her dad had died in the midst of this. He lived in Tennessee, but she'd called him at least twice a week. Now she was alone, with no one to talk to, her life heading quickly into a tailspin. She submitted her resignation and transferred to a company in Illinois. It would be a new start, she said, a redo and a chance to meet new people. Maybe feel connected again.

She continued to rake the piles together, combining them, pushing them toward the edge of the yard until a small mounded wall had grown up about two feet high around the perimeter, a boundary between green grass and the gray, lifeless concrete road. The dead leaves and gravel underneath served as a "no man's land" between them.

The phone was set to silent in her pocket. No one usually called, but today she wouldn't have talked with them if they had. Today she felt lonely, alone. She didn't know why she did this, but on days like this she turned the phone off, a conscious choice, a cutting free of the tether. She was a leaf blowing on the wind, cut off from her lifeline and rootedness, but at the same time no longer bound to the pressures of fitting in, of worrying about whether someone would call, or feeling the silent disapproval of not being enough. Knowing no one would call and choosing to not answer were differences by degree, she knew, but it was that space of her choosing that made a difference. Somehow she had control, she could wrap the aloneness around herself like a blanket and find solitude within it. Tomorrow she'd call someone. Tomorrow. But for right now, it was time to swim in silence. The last song ended, and she could once again hear the wind blowing past her ears, feel it through her hair.

There had been other days like this: going on hayrides on farm tractors and back country roads, trying to stay warm and not fall off the wagon, trying to stuff her friends as scarecrows without getting hay stuffed in undesirable places between her own clothes. When the hayride was over there'd be a roaring fire, hot chocolate, chili, and after that marshmallows that would blacken at the edges and burn her fingers as she'd try to pull the sticky mass off the stick before popping its warmth into her mouth.

There was pulling up cornstalks and tomato and pepper vines and rotten zucchini and squash into a mound in the center of the garden where her dad would stuff gaps at the bottom with newspaper and light a match as they stood there watching the flames for over an hour, the dying embers of the summer produce.

She fumbled in her pocket for a lighter. She squatted down near the edge of the pile she'd brushed into her makeshift wall, heard her knees pop, placed her thumb on the cold metal wheel of the lighter, then flicked it hard. A small flame shot up, orange and yellow with a faint hint of blue at the center, and she passed it close to the dead leaves, back and forth, until they began to smoke, blacken, and then catch with yellow flame. She stood up, stepped back and watched as the flames licked slowly at first, then hungrily, then combined together and took hold. The leaves were ablaze, sending out enough heat that she had to take a step back. She turned and walked toward the house, hearing the wind blow and the crackle of flame ending the silence.

Dreams

2006-11-18T07:03:00.000-08:00

It's late at night and I'm looking for a hotel. In this dream I'm married, and have a family. My wife's Latina--short, petite, with dark hair, brown eyes and olive skin: beautiful--and we have two children, a girl and a boy, 6 and 2. We stop at a hotel run by a Hispanic man I seem to know well. He has a room for us waiting, a suite with glass doors leading to a balcony and soft queen-sized beds, but we're standing outside in the parking lot, struck by how dark it is. There's an outdoor pool, and I'm afraid my daughter will fall in and I won't be able to find her. In fact, at some point in the dream she dives in and starts swimming and I have to jump in, clothes and all, to pull her out.

She's fine, she's a good swimmer, but my heart is pounding in my chest and I then remember that my cell phone is in my pocket. I check it to see if it's gotten soaked, but somehow my pocket seems to be almost waterproof and my cell phone only has some condensation on it. It still works. I exhale a sigh of relief. I feel like I may need it later.

The hotel manager looks around nervously, fidgeting while he talks in broken English. We shouldn't be out here. It's not safe after dark. I have a bicycle and hide it in the branches of a tree, and park my car under a bush so it won't be easily seen, and we take our suitcases in to the hotel. We came here to vacation during holiday between teaching semesters. I've brought a book and have been looking forward to some much needed rest and unscheduled time with my family, but realize now it won't be as peaceful as I'd hoped.

We've just gotten settled into our room, the kids are sleeping on a bed and I hear broken glass coming from down the hall, in the direction of the main lobby. "I'll go check it out," I say, though the look in my wife's eyes is one of terror, and I wonder if it'd be better if I stay here with her and our kids in case someone else comes, or if I should go out to meet whatever is out there. I decide to leave.

Outside our room, there's a large indoor swimming pool and fountain. Although you could swim in it, it's mostly used for decoration. The fountain has been turned off for the night, and the jacuzzi/hot tub at one end has shut down, but there are bushes and small trees around the edge of the pool, to give it the look of an outdoor paradise. Unfortunately, it also provides excellent cover for anyone who might be hiding.

I hear a splash in the water and see a deer bounding out of the pool. It had come inside for a drink, but had gotten spooked by the presence of a human. I almost laughed with relief as I saw it find the exit and make its way through an open door outside. Maybe that was the noise.

But I didn't think so. There was something else. A warning sense keeps my adrenaline pumping and all my reflexes and senses on high alert. There had been patrols of gangs outside, shootings, the once safe neighborhood was now a place of terror and I grieved the loss of another safe haven. The hotel had been our getaway, and we had stayed here whenever we were in the area. My wife and I had honeymooned here. We had struck up a friendship with the hotel manager we'd been here so often. And now, I was wondering if we'd get out.

I walk silently down one of the hallways toward the lobby to find the hotel manager crouched down behind the desk, pistol in hand. He doesn't say anything but motions me to stay low and not make any noise. I drop and run low to settle down on the floor next to him. I hear voices outside and they are coming nearer. . .

The next thing I'm outside, my wife and kids are back in the car, and I'm telling them to keep the doors locked. It's pitch black except for a solitary street lamp, but I know we have to get out of here. I run to the car door, lock the door behind me, and start the engine. The radio turns on, and startles me. The car's running, but it's idling rough, and I'm wondering if it has enough juice to get us going. There's a hill we have to climb to get out of the neighborhood, and the way the car's running, I'm not sure we can make it.

We pull out of the hotel parking lot and onto a side street when the car dies. I set the parking brake, but it doesn't hold and the car begins to slide backward. I apply the brakes, and they don't work either, so I jump out of the car and try to push it from behind. The hotel manager joins me and we keep pushing the car, trying to slow it down and get it moving in the opposite direction, but we know we're vulnerable from this position and can get picked off from the shadows. I'm terrified, and my only thought is to get out of this place with my family, all of us still alive. At this point I'm also begging the hotel manager to come with us, because it's no longer safe for him either, but he shakes his head violently and refuses. "It's my home," he says. Everything he owns is here, but I'm afraid he's a captain stubbornly going down with a sinking ship.

We finally get the car running again, drive slowly up the hill (the whole time I'm wondering if we're going to get shot, we're moving too slow), and out of the neighborhood as the dream shifts sequence and my wife, two small children, old jalopy of a car and the hotel manager fade away and I find myself in Rapid Eye Movement to somewhere else.

Quick Update

2006-11-14T06:53:00.000-08:00

The Travelin' Man series will continue. I have some ideas I'd like to work out in my head first, but thanks for your encouragement and for reading on.

For now, a quick break. My parents came into town for a couple days and I'm trying to juggle spending time with them and teaching class. A much needed break from school is coming up (giving thanks for that), so I'm trying to get caught up and limp along mentally until then, between giving lectures on Romantic lit, Hellenistic Art, and getting ready to talk about 19th century realism in Dickens and the gang. Oh yeah, also trying to think up what I'm going to teach for a culture class in ESL (English as a Second Language) tomorrow night. I'm thinking showing clips from Over the Hedge, Memoirs of a Geisha, Respiro, Life is Beautiful, The Last Samurai, and Babette's Feast. Any other ideas? I'd welcome them.

I'll post soon on Go master Chris (the game of Go), and the Zen of shooting hoops (I'm shooting around 78% right now in free throws). All for now. Be back soon.

The Madman

Shannon

2006-10-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

"Do you ever wonder," Shannon began, "why the moon looks like a face, or why people named the stars what they did? What if there are people out there and they don't like the names we gave them?"

"Huh?" Jonathan groaned, exhaling loudly and trying to roll over away from her. It was summer then, and the crickets were chirping a mating cadence outside their window. The thin blanket on the bed was bunched at the foot of the bed, its sticky closeness too much for a warm July night like this one. It was too hot to sleep, and Shannon started in on what Jonathan liked to call her "what ifs."

"Don't you ever wonder about those things?" Although she knew it annoyed him, she wanted to press him into a conversation. Why did she do this? She didn't know. Maybe she just wanted to feel him close to her, wanted to know he wanted her for more than the athletic event they'd just shared together. Maybe it was more subtly devious than that, wanting him to experience sleeplessness if she had to. You know, sympathy pains.

"Baby, it's 2 in the morning. Don't you ever stop thinking?"

"Not if I can help it," she grinned into the darkness. She rolled over next to him, tracing her finger along his spine. He farted in response, then started snoring. Sometimes she hated him, she thought, the idea coming unbidden to the forefront of her mind before she shook it away, an unpleasantness she told herself she shouldn't be thinking.

Yet outside the crickets chirped, above the sound of the rotating fan that brought some semblance of relief to the hot apartment and pulled in some of the outside air. She tried to sleep, but sleep ran like a sprinter far from her. Tomorrow she'd hate this, she'd have to go to work, but before then she'd toss and turn until capturing the final couple hours of sleep when the world rests and the crickets quiet, exhausted or satisfied, and a peace settles before the sun rises. Those two hours wouldn't be enough.

He'd always been tall, and she loved the sculpted, lean features of his body, his angled face, his strong hands. He reminded her of a movie star. She'd feel a pang of jealousy and pride when other women did a double take as he'd pass by (He's with me! Back off!). When they'd first met he'd smiled a lot. He still smiled, at work, when they were out, but behind closed doors the frame holding that bridge had sagged, if not cracked. They were losing it; she was falling apart from the inside, and she didn't know how to stop it.

And there it was, the thought that came as she lay next to this tall, lean lover she no longer knew, maybe no longer loved, just waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for the night to end. It wasn't bad, there weren't storms in the sky, but somehow, it just wasn't enough. And that knowledge was eating her from the inside, clawing its way out. She rolled over, trying not to look at the numbers on the clock and squeezed her eyes closed, so tightly she saw flashes of light behind her eyelids. She was just tired, she told herself. Tomorrow it'd look different. . .

Train Station (Tales from the Travelin' Man)

2006-10-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

Freehaven. Salem. Maple Grove. Rock Island. Rochester. The names read like a train schedule, and that's mainly what they were, but not a direct, purposeful line that would run from point A to point B on a map, but a random, meandering criss crossing of places and days that had turned into two weeks. In fact, if it had appeared on a map, the journey would have seemed pointless, directionless. It was a good thing journeys couldn't be measured sometimes by how far you traveled, David thought.

It had been two weeks since Logansport, David mused. Two weeks, fourteen days, three hundred thirty-six hours . . .

He could break it down further, into minutes, and seconds, and even measurably smaller pieces, but that wasn't the point. His whole way of life had changed, his way of thinking. The people he'd met, the things he'd seen, and none of that could be measured in the time it took. He felt somehow closer to something that had seemed miles apart before. A weary sigh escaped him and sagged his shoulders; the things he'd left behind, the people he'd been so intimately connected to: Sarah, Robert, Cameron, Miles. He was walking away from them; he couldn't help feeling a little guilty.

Two days out of Logansport he'd realized he'd left the charger to his cell phone behind. He could pick up another, but thought maybe he was better off without it. No one had called, and he supposed he should get used to the silence. Hmm, silence. That was definitely something to get used to. It wasn't the silence around him, there was plenty of noise, between cars roaring by on the highway and horns honking in gridlock traffic in the bigger cities and airline jets roaring overhead. Even the smaller towns had their noise: children waiting for the bus on cold November mornings, the train passing through the middle of town at night, music pouring out of the bars and bells tolling from churches. No, the silence was coming from somewhere else, inside. His thoughts, his head, a large gaping emptiness where schedules and conversation had been, or the distraction of a TV running in the next room or a phone call to break up an hour's drive home. And if all that failed, music--cds or radio.

He couldn't rely on those distractions anymore, and as the miles passed underneath him, it became his constant companion. At first there was a loud ringing in his ears and a pounding headache, as if his ears and brain were going through detox, getting used to less stimulation. It threatened to tear him apart at first, demons breaking through the gap, threataning to run him into madness, over the bridge, off the cliff, restless and screaming. And then, just as it had built to an unbearable crescendo . . .

Nothing.

Peace. Stillness. The sound of his own breathing and a clarity. He felt as if he were standing at the edge of the sea at dawn, his feet firmly planted in wet sand, hearing the gulls, smelling the cool salty air in his lungs and on his lips, feeling the water pour like ice over his feet, around his ankles, and then back out again. And what surfaced to his consciousness, like the flotsam and jetsam from the sea, were fragments, bits of memory: pieces of conversation, a song, holding hands, the smell of perfume, an argument, reading a book, sitting on deadwood as the sun beat down and the wind blew through Shannon's hair. They were fragments, nothing more, but maybe if he picked up enough of the shards and bits there would be something whole emerge, something complete. Some kind of recognition or pattern would emerge, and the things he'd forgotten would be brought back, only sharper and with more clarity than he'd remembered. The pieces would be made whole, and maybe (he hoped) a part of himself would be made whole as well.

The stories also emerged. There was Rose, a 300 pound black woman in her forties, sitting across the table, dabbing her eyes with a tissue as she related a time when she was in high school that four girls had called her over to their van, then pulled her inside and repeatedly raped her. She hadn't told her mom; she probably wouldn't have believed it. And Linda, working dispatch, the night the call came into central over the radio. At the stakeout shots had been fired. The man and his wife had stayed inside, and met the knocking on the door with a shotgun. Her husband was in that stakeout. Someone had been hit, someone had shot someone else. A man was dead. No other details were in yet, but they'd let her know as soon as they had something. She twists the wedding band on her finger. Someone dead last month, another down tonight. How long could she keep doing this?

Enough.

David scratched the two week stubble that had nearly become a beard. Shaving was out, but he still grabbed a shower when he could at a truck stop, or a Motel 6, just to feel human again and get the grit of the road off him and sleeping on benches and in coach and cheap hotels. He checked his pockets. He still had plenty of money and even more to draw on from an online bank if he needed it. No, money wasn't an issue, he could live like this for year without running dry. He felt like a leaf blowing on the wind, a hollowness whistling through his insides.

There was something out there, elusive yes, but he was on its trail, a pattern he hoped, between the man behind Krogers asking for money, the grim tension behind the eyes of the newscasters on the tvs broadcast at the truckstops, the vendors shaking their heads at the gas station, the subdued voices of children in restaurants, the changing weather patterns and the flights of birds. Something was different. He didn't know what but he had to know.

At the same time, there was the growing sense that he was being hunted. He caught himself looking over his shoulder more this last week, almost habitual, and he couldn't remember when it had begun. It was catching up, the secret thing he feared, and he wondered in silent resignation when (not if) it would find him.

He pictured how it would happen. He'd be too slow, spend too muc time in one place and let the dust settle, lured into a false sense of security and with the belief that maybe what had been after him would have given up the pursuit. He'd be walking down the middle of Main Street in some sleepy town when he'd round a corner and there it'd be, staring him dead in the face, hackles raised, claws ready, looming large. And it'd have him. There'd be nothing he could do, nowhere he could run that it wouldn't have already anticipated, and he'd be left, shaken like a ragdoll before it was all over.

In the distance the sound of the approaching train could be heard, still far off. Most stations were automated these days. This one was not. He liked the way it felt, the way it smelled, like rubber and old leather. He stepped up to the counter and met the gaze of a middle aged, graying man looking out from behind a glass window.
"How far does this line go?" David asked.
"Depends. Where you coming from? Where you wanna go?"
David reached down into his left pocket and pulled out a $20 and some change and slid it on the counter between himself and the ticketmaster.
"Today," David said with a wry grin, "we'll let fate decide."

Travelin' Man: Part Two

2006-10-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

At 6am he boarded the train for Logansport. The cup of coffee in his hand steamed into the chill October air. It had a crisp feel this morning, the air, and smelled faintly of dead leaves and coming frost. He pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his free hand, gripped the steaming cup with the other and cinched up the strap to his attache so it hung snugly against his body. A change of clothes, his laptop, a journal and a couple pens, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bottle of rootbeer, bottled water, and a couple breakfast bars were stowed away in separate compartments inside the bag. David breathed in and let the air bite into his lungs like small pinpricks, and exhaled with a cough. In a few minutes the train left the station.

The earth is a woman, the earth is a woman, the earth is a woman. The clicking of wheels on tracks beat out a rhythmic cadence, and since he was a boy he'd hear these phrases over and over in his head, whether when he was jogging, driving, walking, or listening to music. They didn't always make sense; he didn't know how they'd come into his head, but they would pound incessantly, insistently into the nether reaches of his subconscious. The earth is a woman.

If it was a woman, then she must have many faces, he thought. Something about it seemed sensuous; he'd come to know her well, had seen her soft rolling curves, the jagged cold heights, the deep, wet rivers and soft valleys that contoured her landscape. He'd traced and retraced her body, and the more he saw of her, the more mysterious she seemed. And elegant. Lithe and graceful as a dancer she was, sophisticated as a high class lady, worn and knowing at times as an elderly matron, and wild and passionate as a young lover. He stared out the window as the sun turned harvested fields to golden brown, and the woman underneath him danced and swayed under the train's caress.

* * *

Shannon's back had been killing her. The digging of Jonathan's fists into the knotted, twisting hard boulders of her back yielded temporary release, but then would close ranks again with reinforcements. She was breaking apart; she could feel it. Her spine ran like a twisted river, grating and grinding against the rocks, chewing dirt from the banks only to dam it up further downstream and shut off the flow. Then came the headaches, the blinding, searing light in the back of the skull or just behind the eyes that exploded like a shower of sand in the desert, and walking, moving became like shards of glass, grinding and biting into the nerves and synapses, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, leaving her screaming in the darkness. She wanted it to end, wanted to find relief in the comforting arms of sleep, but it evaded her, leaving a restless torment in its place.

Jonathan didn't understand. She knew, by the sometimes helpless, sometimes cynical look in his eyes when she said she was tired and had a headache that it was wearing on him. How can you love someone who's splitting apart, shattering like glass before your eyes? For now, he had been patient, but was becoming more insistent, more demanding. The probing of his hands was more hungry than therapeutic. Was he enjoying when he caused her pain? Why hadn't she just stuck with a dog, they were less complicated, more accepting without conditions. Oh God, make this pain go away.

* * *

Millie sat across from him, talking about death again. Had he read the obits? Had he read about the nuclear tests on the other side of the world, the beating two blocks away? He grunted noncommitally, turning the page on the History of the Greeks. The lecture was coming up, and then the conference, and he wanted to know more about the Minoans before then. He'd been to Knossos, had visited Thera, had gotten lost in the labyrinthine palace or in the illustrated texts he'd studied before going. Susan was starting college, Millie had her scrapbook club. It always seemed simpler to study history than to walk out his door down the street to the sidewalk. He'd read some of the police reports. He knew of the woman who'd been run down as she was getting her newspaper at the side of the road. It had been early. The driver hadn't seen her and the sun was just coming up. He'd rounded the corner, coming home for some sleep after working third shift at the plant. Her pink pajamas had camouflaged her, blending in with the rose colored horizon. Trees had cast a shadow. When he saw her it was too late and she went flying, a marionette lying grotesquely across the road, twisted perpindicular like no human body should look, the pink nightshirt soaked through red. He could see her then, but it was too late.

Harold wasn't interested in the obits. The snake cult and bull dancing would have to take his attention for now.

* * *

Logansport wasn't his destination. He'd stop there, get off the train, stretch his legs for a while. He might even find a nice diner to grab some lunch, a burger or a turkey sandwhich maybe, and figure things out from there. He had a map, had an idea he'd head west, past the river, but wasn't sure after that. David wasn't even sure why, it was more of a compulsion, heading somewhere, looking for something, being drawn. He'd know it when he got there, but for now he'd be content to be on the road. Away from where he'd been. Away from the Uhaul truck and the departed and the memories he'd left behind or that had left him behind. For now, he'd keep travelin'.

Saturday, October 21

2006-10-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

It's unusually warm and sunny today for late October, and it's hard to think anything bad about the day, so I won't. In response to the last blog, the early Monday went well. I ended up working 15 hours that day, but gave a lecture on 18th century art: Rococo and Neoclassical, and then wrote a lecture on 18th century lit for the next day.

The weeks fly by. We're halfway through the semester. I did the math this morning and realized I moved to Illinois four months ago. I've been to Idaho, Oregon, Kentucky, started a new teaching job, had friends divorce and had one of them end a 13 year friendship with me. At the same time ended a friendship with a girl I'd dated and talked about marriage with. She moved to Chicago. We haven't spoken since. Have stepped back from other relationships, stepped into others, and some days feel like I don't know how I got here, wonder when I'll feel like I've found home, and other days feel like there's no place in the world I'd rather be than at this place, this time, in this way. Pretty crazy, huh?

Last night I saw a football game with my good friend J.Rob. Actually, we go to the game to watch the halftime show, and mostly just use the game as an excuse to catch up and chat. It's cool to watch the ball move up and down the field, but that's just a side benefit. High school football tickets: $4. Conversation: priceless.

There's a smalltown diner called the Arcade where I sometimes go on Saturday mornings. I'm a person of habit, so I usually order a cup of coffee, and a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich on a bagel. It's a busy place on Saturday mornings, but it reconnects me to the realization that I'm living in a small town, with farmers and bankers and old state senators and college professors, most of whom today are wearing flannel.

The other day, in the midst of talking about Plato's philosophy, I told a group of my students that I'd gone rock climbing last Saturday. They thought it was great and wanted to go too, so now we're trying to get a group together to go rock climbing. I also found out they like to play Settlers, a game I was introduced to in Michigan, and we'll probably get together to play that too. I've come to think that some of the most valuable interactions that take place between teacher and students don't happen in the classroom, but outside it. It was this way when I was in college and grad school, sitting with a cup of coffee or tea with one of the profs, sometimes a beer, talking about writing and school and Ph.D. programs and life and health, world events and relationships.

Now I'm one of them. Some days it scares the crap out of me.

I think there are two major ideas when it comes to teaching. One is an Industrial Age idea, where students are the product and teachers are disseminating information (the "Sage on a stage" idea). Read the book. Absorb the information. Take the test. Write the paper. Rinse. Repeat. I always wondered why I'd lose passion for reading when I was in class, but pick it up again over summer break when I could read what I wanted to read. There's something to be said for discipline. There's also something to be said for something different too.

So the second model, the one that seems more organic, is a discipleship, mentoring idea. When the students and I have lunch together, it's still a classroom, but in these cases they're often teaching me as much or more as I'm teaching them. They're also asking the questions they want to ask. What about relationships? What about loneliness? What about this job I'm looking into? Jesus, Aristotle, Socrates and some of the Eastern teachers followed these models. It was definitely more organic, fused together the realization that learning and knowledge isn't just what happens in a classroom in a lab under sterile conditions, but has to connect to life, has to be lived out, has to actually on some level work and affect the ways we think, act, and live, and the ways we relate to each other, live in families and live in community. This is a different kind of knowledge; it's intimate; it gets down deep into our bones and changes the fabric of who we are. Experiences change us for this reason, practical application, hard knocks, reflection. For some reason this model excites me, makes me feel more alive and enjoy teaching more than the other.

Early Mornings

2006-10-16T03:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 3:45 this morning.

3:45! Yeah, that's early.

So I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. I've figured out that it's best not to fight it, so I got up, and was at the office at 5am. I've had a cold for the last week--first in my lungs, now in my sinuses--so I think it's on the way out, but it's made for some miserable days and nights. Did I mention I don't do "sick" well?

So it's 5 in the morning and I'm driving through Lincoln. It's obviously still dark but warm, and there's a musty smell in the air, like the leaves are turning to dirt while they're still on the branches, or like a 50 lb. cat decided to roll around all night on the back porch. One of my fears when I leave this early in the morning is being greeted by a possum or a skunk. I hate both, especially if they're mean or have rabies.

I wasn't expecting to see anyone out, but I saw two people out separately, walking their dogs. "What are they doing up this early?" I thought. "Oh yeah, I'm up too."

It's quiet this early in the morning, quiet and peaceful, and even though I have a long day ahead of me I felt like today was going to be a good day. In a few hours people will start arriving to work. A couple hours later students will start waking up, and in about eight hours from now I'll be lecturing on 18th century art. Not bad for a Monday.

Going home

2006-10-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

He'd left home when he was 17, maybe before. It hadn't been his home, but someone else's, so at 17 he began a new home. Most of the time he was never there, he was busy wandering the neighborhood, or knocking on other people's homes, or sitting with them in their living room.

Over the years he had knocked on a number of doors, and a few had let him in. Most told him to go away. He would look in through the windows at night, when the lights were on inside, watching families sit down to eat, watching couples snuggling on the couch, wishing that he had a home like that to go to.

One day he found a home he really liked. The woman who lived there was working in her garden, and he stopped to chat, at first over the fence, and not quite sure he wanted to go in through the gate, but she invited him in and before he knew it he was in her yard.

They continued to talk and he would often stop by to see if she was home. They'd stand in the doorway and talk, and sometimes she'd invite him into the living room where it was nice and warm. Some days he'd be present, engaged, listening and talking and things would be comfortable. On other days he'd seem distracted. They'd stand in the doorway and he'd look over her shoulder into the living room, or they'd sit in the living room and he'd find his eyes wandering to her bedroom door, which was always closed, except for one time when it was cracked just a bit.

On those days she would become frustrated. "What do you want? Are you listening?" she'd say. "Are you here to visit or to scope out the place to break in when I'm gone or asleep?" He'd apologize, say that wasn't the intent, and things would go back to normal. "I'll concentrate more," he thought "I'll be engaged. I'll be present." But then he'd find himself longing to see other rooms in the house, the kitchen, the den, the bedroom. Almost always on days like this his eyes led to the bedroom.

On these days she'd push him back outside, and on one particularly cold day he found himself on the other side of the door, digging his hands in deep, walking down the sidewalk, through the gate, past the fence, and down the road.

He walked a long way that day, and the next, and the day after that. It was all confusing. Every step took him further from the house. He began to forget what it looked like; he wondered if he'd ever go back. He wondered if he ever wanted to. He tried a few other doors at a few other houses, but it was fall when the sky is gray and the wind is cold and his attempts at the doors were lackluster and haphazard. He didn't want inside anymore, didn't know if he could. Dinners, fireplaces, couches and TVs belonged to other people, but it was much like watching a movie of other people's lives. The screen always separated the two worlds.

He began to miss his own house. The grass had grown, the weeds had sprung up, windows had broken in the house and a couple storms had ripped through the neighborhood. He was carrying in his bag a few gifts from other houses--freely given, not stolen--and he decided to begin decorating his house with some of those. A chasm had widened between his house and others, and some of the bridges had broken, but one or two were still usable, and he crossed over on one of those, back down a road that had become cracked and uneven, to the gate of his own house. He pushed it open (it creaked and groaned on its rusty hinges). He walked up to the door, noticing the loose bannister and the peeling paint, the draft of the broken windows, and went inside to get to work.

Definitions of Love

2006-10-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

A woman wants a man with washboard abs, who dresses well, who smells good, who tells her she's beautiful, who makes her laugh, who fixes the cars and the lawns and always knows the right thing to say.

A woman wants a man who's strong, who's sensitive, who earns money but is often home to take care of her, to take care of the kids. A woman wants a man who takes her places, who has sex when she wants it and not when she doesn't. A woman wants a man to tell her it'll be okay, to put the seat down, to leave his shoes at the door, to play with the kids, to ride a motorcycle and look good in a leather jacket, to paint the living room and expand the kitchen.

A woman wants a man who won't complain when she spends too much, who won't be upset when she's out with the girls, flirting with other guys (he's secure after all), who doesn't flirt with other women. A woman wants a man who lives close by, who lives far away, who won't hit her, and if he does, apologizes and says he'll never do it again (and she'll believe him). A woman wants a man who will cheat on her (if he's sexy enough for others, he's sexy enough for me), at least she'll stay with him. A woman wants a man who will stay with her if she cheats on him. A woman wants a man who will never cheat on her. A woman wants a man who's stronger, kinder, harder, softer, nicer, more decisive, less authoritative, less stubborn, more like a dog, less like a dog, who likes to kiss but always has good breath. A woman wants a man to tell her what he's thinking. A woman wants a man to not talk so much.

Random

2006-10-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

Recent events:

1. Got flipped off on a web site that once hosted a business co-owned with former friend. (Wow, how does that happen? Someone devotes an entire website just to flippin' him off!"

2. Nearly got into a slugfest with same former friend. Former friend emails next day to officially announce he is retiring from the friendship, will not contact, no, nada, never. One day later former friend text messages to tell him his favorite cat has come home.

3. Tired of talking about former friend with friends, strangers, mutants, or guests, or professional online personalities.

4. Ponders why, if so many people hate marriage why so many people try it anyway.

5. Wonders if he'll work another 12-15 hours today.

6. Realizes what itunes is and what it does (a bit behind in the technology end). This comes following the purchase of an ipod (wow, another novelty).

7. Has 90% attendance in 8am class. This is a first since, well, the first day of class!

8. Has dreams about French bathrooms and how the French don't give you any privacy in the toilet, even though he hasn't been in many French bathrooms to speak of.

9. Gets an email from girl saying he should not care about her. He doesn't respond. She writes back to ask what he things about her saying he should not care about her. He responds saying he needs space. She responds later in the day saying she'll respect that and give him space. She writes again the next day saying that this is the two year anniversary of a best friend's death. She thinks she's okay, just thought he should know. He doesn't respond.

10. Shoots more baskets at the gym. One of the only things that makes sense. Feels like basketball is becoming an extension of his hand. Wonders if he could date said basketball. Hates playing, but likes shooting free throws and layups and going jogging, but not all at the same time. Realizes career as basketball superstar will most likely never be realized (*wicked laugh* No, it could be! It could!). Decides to take up rock climbing again.

Travelin' Man

2006-10-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

And he said death come quickly, I'm takin' the next train outta town. There ain't nothin' for me here, ain't no reason to stay.

So he hoisted his pack on his shoulder, the only belongings he had left--a change of clothes, a loaf of bread, a wallet full of faded bills and a blanket--and he made his way, he made his way off today.

Cuz there wasn't no reason for where he was goin', and there wasn't no reason to stay.

Day turns to night, and night turns to day, and the travelin' man, that travelin' man made his way,

and that's the last we seen him, and we sure don't know where he's gone, cuz he kicked off the dust from his dusty shoes, and he said "I'm gonna go find my fate today."

Certainty

2006-09-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a feeling about something so deeply it was a certainty? Maybe it was about a person, or a place, or a destination, or you knew that something was around the next corner. You couldn't put your finger on it yet, but all you could do was feel like the observer in your own life as events played out.

One of the times when I experienced this was when I went to Boise, Idaho for six months. I had been working at a trucking company, going to college, living with a couple guys in an apartment. They were both dating people (who would later be their wives), and I was just out there, dangling somewhere. Between work and school, I felt disconnected, alone. I knew something had to change. I didn't know how to get there.

Then came the night around Thanksgiving when all the college guys were pulled off the dock and called into the office. Tonight was our last night (they told us this AFTER a 12-hour shift), we wouldn't need to come in next weekend, and they'd let us know if they needed us?

A tall guy named Scott who had just bought a truck said, "So does that mean a month, a couple weeks?"
"No, Scott," I said, "they're letting us go." Scott looked at the supervisor; the supervisor looked at the floor.
"Is that what you mean?" Scott persisted. The supervisor nodded. Several of the guys were devastated. They had bought color TVs, made down payments on trucks or sports cars they could no longer afford. I went home and made a snow angel. I was free!

My friend Rod saw me when I came home. "What are you going to do?"

I hadn't thought about it until that moment, and an idea popped in my head that was more certain than anything I'd ever felt. "I'm going to Boise."

I had just been in Boise that August, and it was now December, for my cousin's wedding. My aunt said, "If you ever need someplace to come to, you're always welcome here." The thought had stayed in the back of my mind and rose again to the surface when I needed it. I made a phone call the night I was let go, and in 24 hours had made plans to go to Boise. The next six months changed my life and I found a lot of healing out there with extended family, the mountains of the Idaho desert, and getting caught in a snowstorm somewhere in Iowa.

I've felt that certainty with relationships, too. Usually it's been an invisible door closing, or maybe I've been knocking on the door for some time, not wanting to believe it was actually closed or locked, hoping against hope that maybe I could find a crack in the door, or if I knocked long enough, they'd let me in. During the knocking, the hoping and the wishing my knuckles become pretty bloody, there's a lot of frustration, and then finally, either worn out or realizing that the door really is locked, I step back and start to accept that this is a door I can't open. Sometimes it's a mixture of hopelessness, despair, and acceptance, but there's peace in it too. I've stopped knocking, I know there's a change coming.

It happened like that at the end of college with a girl I had been pretty into for about three years. Unfortunately it has taken me a lot longer to realize something that other learn pretty quickly, but there I was, knowing without having to talk about it that things were over. We went ahead and had that final conversation anyway, and the next week she was dating the guy she would later marry. In the meantime I began jogging 6-10 miles several times a week and working 70 hours.

Recently I've seen a friend knocking on doors of her own, with work, with school, with relationships. She's smart, talented, educated, and yet every door she knocked on was locked. She couldn't figure it out, and watching it from the outside felt like watching someone being corralled into a very small space where there is only one place left to go, the bottleneck, before opening up into wide open spaces. I saw her go through the bottleneck, which meant she moved several hours away, and now things she'd been wishing for, hoping for, and dreaming about our finally happening. I'm happy for her, and at the same time am left wondering if there are wide open spaces for me as well. There's a dream I keep carefully hidden, and most don't know how much I struggle with it because I've learned to hide it well, but the longing is still there, and for now so is the bottleneck. The last couple months I've lost some things that meant a lot to me, and am seeing doors close left and right. Something's about to change. That's the only certainty I have right now.

Fire

2006-08-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

There’s something about fire that mesmerizes us, attracts us, draws us in. Its raw power and energy has amazing potential to be used for good—to heat our homes, to give us light, to cook our food, create spaces where we tell stories and connect with each other—and also to destroy as it consumes whatever we throw into it. It’s untamed, we can’t understand it, and it carries the potential to break out into something so totally beyond us. It’s a thing of awe, a thing of terror, a thing of beauty and a thing that has often inspired worship.

Tonight I followed a group of men as we made our way out past the east side of campus, to some trucks and dumpsters. At the time I was walking, I didn’t know where we were going or what we would find. As I got there, I saw guys pulling wood pallets out of the dumpsters, peeling off the plastic and bindings and tossing them to the ground where they were then loaded on trucks. Cardboard boxes soon followed, and clothes, and stuffed animals. “Will it burn?” We loaded the trucks, threw pallets on top, carried the trash by the armfuls to a fire that was already started.

Pallets were added to the fire, then cardboard boxes, then clothes, then more pallets, and the bonfire was banked higher and higher, the heat emanating from it tremendous as we stood twenty feet away, then thirty, then forty.

“We’re in Lincoln,” somebody said. “A little dot on the map. We want the planes to see this.” Raw power. Pure energy. Powerful, untamed, visible, with the potential to break out uncontrolled. But what I think this guy was saying was, “I want to leave a mark. I want to make a difference. I want to do something big, even if it’s in Lincoln, Illinois.”

As I looked into the flames, and saw dancing orange and yellow flames, felt the heat singe my face and hands, and then looked around the fire at the scared, excited, invincible faces, I tried to figure out what was going on. Here was energy and power in the fire. Here was energy and power and the spirit of invincibility and something reckless in the faces of the men around me. Part of me was afraid of the potential force for destruction. Part of me wanted to listen for something bigger.

In ancient cultures fire was used for cooking, for light, for religious ceremonies and sacrifices. People passed through the fire, whether it was walking on hot coals like some cultures still practice, or a metaphor for human sacrifice. There was something destructive, primal, and representative of worship and spiritual practice in the fire.

Maybe it’s no surprise that God first appeared to Moses as a fire that could not be consumed on the mountain. It grabbed his attention, drew him in. I don’t know how long it took him to realize that the bush wasn’t burning, but he was captivated. God had mesmerized him, lured him in to show him what He was up to.

At times God used fire to light the way for the Hebrews as they were wandering in the desert places or running from the Egyptians. God’s fire consumed Sodom and Gomorrah, Nadab and Abihu, and consumed Elijah’s offering as he was competing against the prophets of Baal. Fire is a powerful, dangerous, and awe-inspiring thing. The same words could be used to describe God.

In Matthew, John talks about Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. In Acts, the Holy Spirit came on Jesus’ followers as tongues of fire, the writer of Hebrews says that God is a consuming fire, and Paul says not to quench the fire of the Spirit.

In us is potential for great fire. I saw it tonight, and wondered which way the fires would burn. Would we destroy, or is there something in us that wants to be part of something big, powerful, unpredictable, a fire that cannot be quenched, a following the ways of God in such a way that will leave a mark, that will burn into our hearts and minds and hands and feet, that will be permanent. Fire can be quenched, it can destroy, it can do terrible things, but my prayer is that this year will ignite a God fire in us, that will leave its mark on us, consume us, mesmerize us. And we will never be the same.

Spider-man and Venom

2006-08-15T07:17:00.000-07:00

Spider-man. Venom. One is mild mannered, has a nerdy alter ego, is seen as the struggling, insecure teenager in all of us. He has family ties, though most of them are broken, but before they break they instill something deep within him, grounding who he is and who he will become: with great power comes great responsibility. Thanks, Uncle Ben. Why did you have to die?

The other is more powerful, dangerous, violently angry, out of control. Carrying Venom on his back is like carrying an addiction, you never know who’s got whom or when it’s going to take over. Sometimes he doesn’t want to fight to try to regain control. The rush, the power, the freedom from restraint and the ability to destroy is too great of a high. But the fear, the loss of control, the potential to hurt the very ones he cares most about (Aunt Mae, Mary Jane, himself), keeps bringing him back.

Last night I dreamed I was both.

Spider-man and Venom. Venom and Spider-man. Two sides, one person, probably the sides of all of us. But wait, this goes beyond the double personality, the alter ego, but splits even further into multiple personalities. There’s the ego (Peter), the superego (Spidey, living for the people, larger than life, the responsible if sarcastic moral superhero), and the id (Venom, the growing, uncontrollable demon). Take Venom a step further and you have Carnage, total destructive force, total chaos, a killing machine without a conscience. It’s Venom taken to the extreme, Venom without the balancing impulses of Peter and Spidey, so dangerous that Spider-man and Venom put their differences aside long enough to take on a greater evil. Venom is bad, Carnage is horrific.

On the Lighter Side: Breakfast with Landon

2006-08-02T06:21:00.000-07:00

About two months ago I moved in with some friends who have three kids: a six-year old, a three-year old, and and eight month old. The first month I spent mostly traveling around out in Oregon and Idaho, and they spent a week in Ohio. The last month though I've been settling into the new routine of a new job, and what it's like to go from living by myself (for the last five years, minus six months hanging out with my buddy Tom) to being part of an instant family of five (six counting me; nine if you count the cats. Oh yeah, and there's the lizard in the basement).

I've been pretty close to this family since I was in college. I stood as best man in the wedding, was roommates with the dad in college, was friends with the mom, was sleeping at their house the night their oldest son was born, and was able to stay a few extra months in Illinois as their second son was born before I headed off to Michigan. I've been getting to know the newest member of the family, a girl with really beautiful blue eyes and a melt-your-heart smile, and I'd count myself really blessed. I've been dubbed the unofficial "uncle," though the three-year-old, Landon, is still trying to figure that one out.

I get up early to try to have breakfast and be out of the house and on my way to work before the rest of the family gets up. Sometimes that works. Usually it doesn't. Landon's an early riser too, and often will come downstairs as early as 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, shuffling across the floor to grab a package of cheese and crackers out of the pantry before shuffling back up to bed where he eats quietly and waits for his brother and the rest of the family to wake up.

A couple weeks ago I got up at 6:30, thinking I'd eat breakfast and do some reading while it was still quiet, but right as I turned the corner I heard small feet right behind me. I stumbled around looking for the coffee filter, still feeling fuzzy, which Landon saw as a moment to begin our early morning conversation. Here's how it went:

Landon: Do you have a house?
Me: No.
Landon: Do you have a woman?
Me: Um, no. Do you want some cereal?
Landon: Yeah.

I was laughing, but wanted to give him something else to do because I didn't know where the conversation was heading.

Even though he's three, his parents like to nickname him the "Old Man," because you never know what's going to come out next from Landon's mouth. Sometimes it's sage wisdom several times beyond his years, sometimes just really quirky, and sometimes so hilarious that he makes us hurt we're laughing so hard. One day he fell and hurt his leg and told his mom he had to go to church.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I need to ask God something."
"You can do it here," she said. "You don't have to go to church every time you want to talk to God."

This morning I was in the kitchen again by 6:30, had just started the coffee and was getting ready to pour myself a bowl of Healthy Hearty Crunchy cereal of some kind; basically, colon blow twigs and flakes. I heard the song of feet on wooden floor and Landon rounded the corner, wearing a diaper.
"Are you my uncle?" he asked.
"Yep. Do you want some cereal?"
"Yeah, I want that kind," he said, pointing to the Healthy Hearty cereal you only eat after you're thirty.
"I don't think you'll like it."
"Uh huh."
"Okay, you can try it." So I poured him enough cereal to cover the bottom of his Spider-man bowl, added a few cranberries so it would match what I was eating, and added milk. Then I waited for the taste test.
*Crunch crunch crunch* went Landon. "I like it, I like it!" Give it to Landon, he'll eat . . . very little except the stuff you least expect.

So we sat down together, Landon and I, at the breakfast table at 6:30 in the morning, me with my bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee, he with his Spider-man bowl of old man cereal that matched the old man cereal being eaten by Uncle Cliff. And then the questions started.

"Is this church?"
"The house?"
"Yeah, is the house church?"
"Sometimes. I guess it could be. Does God live here?"
"No."
"Sure he does. He lives here."
"Jesus lives here."
"Okay. Yeah, Jesus lives here."
"But Ike's not Jesus."
"No, your brother's not Jesus."

I never know what's going to come out of that boy's mouth, or where our conversations are going to go over breakfast at 6:30 in the morning, but I've begun to really value the time we have together, talking, over a bowl of cereal while the rest of the house, and the world for that matter, is still sleeping in silence. It seems to be our time, with no distractions, no need to share time and attention with a brother and sister or things that have to be done. It's nice.

And I'm learning some things from my time with him, and laughing a whole lot. Someday we won't have conversations quite like this, but I hope we still talk, and I'm trying to start early at building that relationship so when he's older and Uncle Cliff is no longer cool and there are girls in his life and sports, and friends who are grabbing for his attention, that he'll still want to come sometimes to talk over a bowl of cereal, or maybe someday a cup of coffee (not now. "Coffee is for grown ups, not little boys").

His mom came downstairs this morning and said, "You've heard of the book Tuesdays with Morrie. Well, I guess this is Breakfast with Landon." Yeah, I thought, I like that.

The Religion of Movies

2006-08-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

Theater had its origins in religious ceremonies. Even before the Greek Dionysian wine and sex parties to celebrate fertility, older cultures combined music and theatricality with religion. It may have involved music or chanting, choreographed dancing, even masks and costumes to personify the gods or the symbolism of something bigger.

In early Greek drama, the chorus started out being the main players and mouthpieces of worship, morality lessons, and the audience watched (and sometimes participated in) the liturgy. Over time individuals began to step forward, with the masks and costumes, monologues and dialogues, and the chorus retreated, at first still advancing the story, and then taking the role of a single narrator.

However, in Greek culture theater continued to keep its religious roots. Whether it was Sophocles reinforcing the theme that humans should not overreach themselves and tempt the gods to anger through their hubris (pride), or Aristophanes protesting the war between Athens and Sparta (the 60s and Vietnam had nothing on Aristophanes. He was perhaps one of the first war protesters who followed the theme “make love not war,” especially through the comedy Lysistrata), theater continued to be the forum for discussing theology, morality, the problems of good and evil and human behavior.

Ironically, then, some of the biggest protestors of theater in Shakespeare’s day came from the religious sector, the Puritans (yes, the hard working folks who helped found and establish some of the American colonies). Perhaps as a response, Shakespeare sometimes poked fun at them for their strict adherence to discipline and contempt for the theater (Malvolio in Twelfth Night, who is played to look like a hypocritical fool, may be one of Shakespeare’s straw men to criticize the puritans). Due to protests stating the theater created tendencies for laziness and vice, the Globe Theatre was shut down and moved across the River Thames in London. Yet Shakespeare’s plays are still studied and mined for their wealth of understanding about human nature, comedy, tragedy, and morality.

Though early film seems to have been a combination of moving photography and vaudeville comedy, the 1920s began to take the fledgling film industry and combine elements of the theatrical (costumes, plot, theme). Many of our conversations about religion, the spiritual, or faith and movies, however, center around the role of clergy (Catholic priests, the absence of Protestant ministers) or the negative press Christians and faith seem to receive in movies.

Yet movies have also become a modern day parable. Seeing the Matrix was like seeing a sermon, or a postmodern messiah that combined elements of Eastern and Western thought together into a philosophical action film. The Matrix II took this analogy even further, creating further extremes of action, interrupted with sermonizing philosophy. Superman Returns also mixes strong elements of a Judeo-Christian messiah with the folklore of superheroes and godlike supermen. I haven’t even mentioned The Truman Show, Lost in Translation, Magnolia, Kinsey, or hundreds of other thoughtful, aesthetically well done movies.

The similarities between religion and the movies don’t end in just its origins or the issues many of our best films address. Culturally, the movies have become our 21st century cathedrals, the centerpoints where we reaffirm and challenge our values, come to understand the world, our fears, what makes us human and express our search for spiritual meaning and significance. With film, we are swept into something outside the normal experience, where we see life as larger than it is in our own realities, and where we can dream we are something more or somewhere else.

The movies have become our communal gathering places. The lights come down, the audience around us becomes a collective of indistinguishably shadowy silhouettes, a human but unrecognizable presence that we participate alongside, but don’t interact with. Sounds surrounds us, envelopes us, and our focus is directed to a bright light and moving images. When film was still a new phenomenon, people would even pick fights with the characters on camera, fooled by the illusion that the person was there when they actually weren’t. And now, even though we can rent movies and take them home to watch them in the privacy of our homes, we still choose to go to the movies sometimes for the larger experience.

Summer Update

2006-07-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

A lot of changes have been happening in my life this summer, which means more living and less blogging. In June I moved from Michigan to Lincoln, Illinois. Some buddies came up, helped me load the Uhaul on a semi-cool morning, and then we drove the six hours back down to Illinois. On the way we saw a semi in the opposite lane that had clipped a minivan and small truck, before careening across a ditch and headlong into a field. From the looks of it, we guessed the driver of the semi had fallen asleep or had a major stroke. The truck was pretty buried. Traffic was backed up 5-6 miles, people were on their cell phones, kids were out of their vehicles playing baseball, and several dogs and cats were out by the side of the road "takin' care of bizness." My friend Rod and I looked at each other, grateful on the one hand that we weren't the ones driving through it, but also struck by how the actions of one or two individuals can have a dramatic impact on hundreds, even thousands of lives. And this was just one random individual, not a world leader, businessman or politician.

A couple days later I flew to Boise to see my aunt and uncle and some cousins whom I hadn't seen in 6-8 years. I don't keep track of time very well when I'm in school or teaching. A few days later I rented a PT Cruiser, and drove nine hours across Oregon to Noti--just west of Eugene--where my92-year old grandpa lives.

Before I go on, a little bit about my grandpa. Since Grandma passed away three years ago, Grandpa's lived on his own at the farm where he and grandma spent over 20-some years. There's a room there that used to be my dad's bedroom. Another one belongs to my uncle. My oldest uncle, Bruce, was out of the house when they built it so there's not a fourth bedroom that would have been his. I was conceived in that house, on a New Year's eve in 1974. Grandpa and Grandma used to have 100 acres of farmland, where they raised cows initially, and then sheep, goats, chickens and pigeons. The barn still stands, but has a rickety lean to it that shows that its best days are over. Later they sold off some of the land and kept a manageable 25 acres. Now Grandpa rents that out and cows once more roam the back fields, grazing and mooing into the night.

Even though he's 92, my grandpa still goes to the gym four days a week, eats out at a place called Dixie's where all the waitresses love him and he loves the attention, and he still has a sharp mind. The days I spent with him I felt like I was walking around with Bono. Everywhere he went people were saying hi to him, asking him how he was doing, taking care of him. Grandpa just said, "That's how people are here. They're good people." I looked at him and said, "That's how you are, Grandpa. You've left a legacy."
He thought about it a minute, then said, "I guess if you treat people well, then generally they'll treat you well too." It's certainly worked for my grandpa.

Grandma is buried on a hill just outside of a town called Veneta. From her gravestone you can look across a valley with a lake, and beyond that, the Cascade mountains. The morning we were there the sun was hanging low on the horizon and turned everything golden. I've rarely seen a view more beautiful. Every Saturday my grandpa brings roses to the grave site. First he pulls out the withered flowers from the week before, walks slowly to the trash bin to throw them away, dumps the old water from the vases, refills them with new water, cuts the bottom stems of the roses with a pocketknife, and arranges them back in the vase for another week. He stops for a moment to reflect, and on the morning I was there asked me tearfully if I'd say a prayer. I said sure. I thanked God for Grandma, for the life she'd lived and the ways she'd influenced her family and community. I prayed for Grandpa, for the loneliness he struggles with during the days. They were married over 60 years.

Their marriage wasn't always great, but it also wasn't always bad either, and over the span of 60 years there's going to be a heavy dose of both. But sixty years is a long time with one person, living, loving, fighting, and when they're gone a part of you goes with them. When it's all said and done, I know he loved her.

After the visit with Grandpa I drove back through Oregon, stopping to see my cousin Nate and his family, stayed a few more days in Boise to visit family, then flew back to Illinois, only to drive to Louisville, Kentucky the next day.

The last month I've been getting ready for school, at a new place, a new office, trying to get reconnected to the community, trying to get reacquainted with old friends and make new ones.

In Honor of J. Rob: A dream

2006-07-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of dreams where I'm out at sea. It's not one of these calmly placid seas with a breathtaking sunset either, but dark, stormy, swirling, like a giant stomach with heartburn, or the Perfect Storm 20 minutes before it becomes the "perfect" storm. There are always sea creatures just below the surface, big ones. Take that back . . . HUGE! They're bumping against the boat, and the water's clear enough where we can see them. No one wants to go for a swim, and we hope we won't fall overboard.

In the dream last night the ship went down and we died, or at least one person died, and because they died the rest followed, kind of like in the Matrix where one of the other gets the plug pulled on them. Next, we all wake up in a room. We're all together, except for a few people, and they materialize soon after they've died. The world that was the one we were living in is now below us. We can't go back there because we can't breathe the air. It would be like diving below the water and breathing in a lungful of water. You couldn't do it and it would hurt if you tried. The air here was somehow better, and we were still us, but in a different place. And then the dying began again. Someone got shot in this new world, which meant that everyone else, one by one, would disappear only to reappear in the next world.

One thing I noticed about the group was there was tension between us. Conflicts that had been going on in one world followed us into the other. We had to talk out the problems, work them out, or else have to deal with them in the next world. I'm not a believer in karma or reincarnation, but if the first person who thought up that philosophy on life had a dream like I had, I can see why they would begin to believe that life is one big circle, and the issues we have in one lifetime follow us into the next (karma) as we follow the cycle, the wheel, through reincarnation until something changes. The people stay the same thought the venue changes. Kind of like one big pub crawl on a Friday night.

Mind Bender

2006-07-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

Rough stages, but will post for now and see where it goes.

Calvin T had always lived mostly in his head. His friends had called him "The Daydreamer," and he often had things turn up where he hadn't put them, or couldn't find things that he had been carrying minutes before.

First, it was his keys. He left them on the dresser, his desk, even a keychain by the door, but when he'd need them, they'd be gone. He'd search the other places where he often left them, then in a panic because he was running late (he was ALWAYS running late), he'd tear apart the couch cushions, look in closets, his running shorts, jeans pockets, only to have them turn up back in the original spot.

But it didn't stop there. Years passed, people died, friends got married. It felt like a blur. Had he been in a coma? He didn't think so but he couldn't account for the gaps in time, in memory. "You live too much in your head," his girlfriend Stephanie said. Yes, maybe that was it.

He was riding his bike. To his right a red Volvo turned the corner 200 meters away. He turned away to check left, then looked right again, turning just as the Volvo swerved, squealing its tires and blared its horn. The rearview mirror nicked him, sending him into a ditch, and as he tumbled he saw blades of grass, still glistening with dew, brown clods of dirt kick up around him like a slow veil, and red packed clay rise up to meet him in a slow, crushing embrace. His helmet cracked and he heard the cross fibers split apart as the helmet took the damage instead of his skull. Where had the car come from?

The hundred mile "rails to trails" race was coming up, and Calvin had been training for months. The day of the race, Calvin hit a steady pace, and found himself in the midst of five to six bikers that were sticking closely together. The ten mile mark came up, the twenty, the twenty-five, and the others began pulling ahead. A few other bikers had come up from behind and passed him as well, and Calvin found himself biking across a flat stretch with no other bikers in sight. His mind began to wander.

Minutes later he looked around him and noticed the road ahead. It was sloping sharply down and he was accelerating, faster and faster. Calvin ratcheted the gears to the top speed and rounded a corner, to see the finish line a 300 meters in front, untorn, waiting for the first bicyclist to cross the line. In less then a minute he had crossed it, barely noticing the perplexed looks of the passersby as they glanced at their watches, then looked again more intently. He must have picked up the pace he had thought, passed the others without noticing.

When the final results were in Calvin had won first place, but not without contest. The judges would send the results to a review board for further review . . .

The headaches began, nothing more than a low buzz at first, but growing progressively stronger and louder. The doctors prescribed medication, ran EEGs, sent him to labs, to Mayos, to the top physicians and scientists in the world, but nothing worked. After a while they gave up. And then the headaches stopped. Calvin woke up at 7:04 to find his hair receding, rapidly. He had overslept and would be late for work. He showered, shaved, stared at himself and his receding hairline in the mirror, telling himself he'd buy some Rogaine on the way home, and left for work. The clock above the kitchen sink read 7:02.

Being Lex

2006-07-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

Standing at the corner, hands stuffed deep in his trench coat. A Rollex peeks out between two lines of black. He's standing at the edge of tomorrow, having everything he can buy, grasping for the things he can't. Love. Family. Friendship.

He's standing at the edge of an abyss, peering over, wondering just how deep it goes, if he's destined to fall in. The height from here is dizzying, and he feels the vertigo begin to spin, clawingly close, until he steps back, afraid that the screams are his own.

He's standing. It's the crossroads. Will he turn back, continue reaching out for acceptance, for love, for forgiveness. To become a good man, a great man, to be told, "Good job, son. You did well." These are the things, the only things, he's ever wanted to hear. Or will he step forward, into blind ambition, secure in the walls of power, cloistered off in the folds of moves and countermoves, leaving pieces of human heart and flesh behind. One step closer takes him to the edge of the abyss. And then he's falling, falling. Who's gonna save him now?

Blindness

2006-07-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen. I haven't seen in a long time. There was the day they took my eyes, said I wouldn't need them. I told them I did, but then they leaned in on me, leaned hard until I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. They stuck a cold metal device against my head until I felt it burrowing up against bone, and then a pop, and the milky white ball pulled out into that device and one side went blank. I could see the bridge of my nose, could see the device pulling away with that white marble inside as they deposited it in a plastic bag, and then saw the metal coming straight for the other eye, saw it enclose my socket like a bird in a cage, and then static, the kind you see right as the TV goes black.

They said they'd give my eyes to someone else. Whoever that was would be grateful to have my eyes. They'd use them for damn sure, get some good use out of them, see colors like they'd never seen before: the bluest of skies, deep greens, hard oranges and browns. They'd see and write songs and stories and poems about the world they could see. And me? I'd live in darkness.

They said it didn't matter. I'd get used to it eventually. Most people functioned just fine without seeing, and, since they couldn't see, they wouldn't know that I couldn't see either. We'd comfort ourselves and each other by groping in the dark, bumping into each other haphazardly until we learned how to navigate without seeing, and become quite comfortable in our soft gray coccoon. And this would be just fine.

Most days this IS enough, and I've forgotten what it was like when I could see. I didn't really use them. They grew weak, and those who took my eyes said the person who now has them knows how to use them and they have grown strong indeed. These eyes--my eyes--are doing so well!! On someone else!!

But there are the days when I want to see again. I don't know how to frame the pictures of what I remember in such a way to bring them into focus. I don't have the textures. The colors aren't right. I've forgotten how to create depth. It's days like these when my sockets ache, missing what they once had, knowing now like I'd never known these things then.

After a while the sockets begin to scar over, the tissue becomes hard, unreceptive to the white malleable orbs. The fluids that once flowed, lubricating the eyeball tissue dry up. It will take more than a couple new eyeballs to get me to see again. Some days I wonder if it would even be possible again, if the nerves would reconnect, the bed would become soft again, the fluid flow. It would take a miracle.

Years have passed, and though I can no longer see I've begun having dreams that I'm walking again in a world with texture and color and distance, and beauty. They say the world has changed since I last saw, that it is crumbling all around us because there are so few sighted left, that some things are better not to see. But I don't care. Sometimes in these dreams I even see myself flying, above this world, above green treetops and through blue space, above skyscrapers and farmers' fields, and I wonder if our dreams remind us of the things we could once do, but have forgotten.

The other day, it's only been whispered so I don't know if it's true, they said that someone, pitted sockets and all, had begun to see again. . .

Sovereignty

2006-06-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went to a going away party an hour away for a friend who's going to spend six months in Africa for an internship. On the trip I went with two people I'd never met before; one was a guy from Kenya.

On the way home we started talking about the politics of Kenya, Uganda, and Swaziland, and he ran down the list of past presidents since Kenyan independence. "This guy was a good leader, this one was not," my friend Jonathan said.

"So what makes a good leader?" I asked.

He decided that a good leader is someone who listens to the needs of a variety of groups (there are 40 different representative cultures in Kenya) and not just his own group earns the respect of the people. He (or she) does not take bribes or give in to corruption, and does not build for himself large palaces or drive expensive cars while the rest of the country is starving. A good leader is a servant of the people, and gets things done that are tangible (whether these are improved roads or new businesses).

One of the ideas that Stephen Lawhead talks about in his Celtic and Arthurian trilogies is the idea of sovereignty, that the king serves the land and serves the people. There is a relationship between the two, and a good leader understands this. The people give the king/queen the authority to rule, but in his (or her) rule, they have the responsibility to protect and give back to the people.

As Enemy pointed out, Arthur was this kind of king. I also saw the movie Tristan and Isolde a week ago, but before that also read the book (a few years ago). The tension of sovereignty comes under question here too. Tristan wins Isolde, and is in love with her, but is loyal to his king, who marries her. Herein lies the conflict: should one be loyal to their feelings and love, or loyal to their king? King Mark isn't a bad guy. He loves Tristan. He loves Isolde. Tristan loves them both, and so does Isolde. The problem isn't one of loving one and hating another, but loving both but having to choose. These become some of the hardest choices of all.

But back to Celtic Britain, to Arthur, and to the idea of sovereignty. This is one of the Celtic ideas I've come to love. When a sovereign remembers this relationship between the land, the people, and the kingship and is a self sacrificing servant of the people who thinks of their welfare over his own, then things go well. But when a sovereign forgets this, and sees the people as there to serve him or her, and a birthright rather than a mandate, then the land, the people, and the kingship begin to sicken.

Does this sovereignty exist in other relationships? In marriage, in family, in business? I think so. Is the "leadership" given to a man in marriage the role of servant leadership? To think of his wife's and children's needs over his own, to work to protect and shelter them, to ensure that home is a haven, a safe and comfortable place, and to sacrifice himself through loving them? I think this is what is intended. In homes where the man lords authority over his wife and kids, intimidates them, abuses them physically, sexually, or emotionally, something sickens, the mandate is broken, and everyone suffers.

I'd like to think through this idea more of sovereignty. Thanks again, Enemy, for some great thoughts, and am hoping to hear others sound off.

Carrying the Stones of Remembrance

2006-05-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

Celtic Christianity fascinates me. I know it’s not March, but today we remember St. Patrick’s Day as a day to drink beer, wear green, carry around four leaf clovers and change the color of the Chicago River, but few know who he was or what he did that was so important. A lot of historians talk about the time when Patrick and the early Irish monastics lived as the Dark Ages. In the 5th century, Rome had fallen to invasions by Germanic tribes and later Vandals, signaling the end of classical culture and civilization. What replaced it may have seemed a bit barbaric by comparison. Buildings were burned, books were lost, and in many sections of the former Roman empire the world fell into silence. Not that the world was silent, but in times of political unrest and social upheaval, people think less about writing and more about how they’re going to keep their head on their shoulders or food in their bellies.

Enter Patrick, or Patricius, who lived six years as a slave in Ireland tending sheep, mostly in solitude, living a much different, more dangerous, and lonelier life than he might have imagined back in post-Roman Britain. In the midst of this he finds God, ends up walking 200 miles across Ireland to the coast, boards a ship, and finds freedom, only to return to Ireland years later, the home of his former masters, to tell them about Christianity in such a way that resonates with the things they had known to be true about the world. He didn’t ask them to become Roman Christians, but to be Irishmen and women who would know and love the one who created them.

Some of the things about Celtic Christianity I’m really drawn to are their ideas about hospitality and community. A good man or woman is a generous one, and laws of hospitality and generosity were not just valued, but made up the fabric of their culture. Men and women were seen more as equals, valued. If women could fight in battle then they could also be queens, or later abbesses (Brigid). The Irish loved nature, and saw beauty in all of creation, whether on the moors, the rocky coastlines, the crashing sea, the green hills, the deep forests, or the sparkling lakes and wells. Life was passionate, both in the bedroom and on the battlefield, and there was a frank honesty about sexuality and a thirst for knowledge. The spiritual and physical were closely intertwined, and the thin places were where the seen and the unseen came closest together, this world and the next, and it was evident that they had stepped over into something bigger than just what lay before them.

But one of the things especially I like about Celtic Christianity are the ways they would remember these thin places and God moments in the world and in their lives, the cairn stones. The cairn stones served as markers, a pile of rocks formed into a mound. Sometimes they represented the end of a journey or pilgrimage. Sometimes they marked a place where God had “shown up” or had shown His beauty through creation in such a way that you had to stop and reflect on it (worship). I’ve never been to Ireland, but from what I hear, there are many places to stop and just soak in the beauty of it. Sometimes it was to remember that people had been there before, and adding one more stone to the pile was a way of being part of something shared, something bigger. For whatever reason, they served as a way to remember. Why? Because we forget.

As I began reading about the stones, I thought about Jacob in the book of Genesis, who had just stolen the blessing of the firstborn from his brother Esau, and now was fleeing for his life to his uncle, (and future father-in-law) Laban (close family). On the way he stopped for the night and found a rock for a pillow and fell asleep, and had strange dreams. He saw angels ascending and descending a staircase into heaven. Some would say the moral of this is that you should never go to sleep with a rock as a pillow, but when Jacob woke up he realized he had encountered something. “This is God’s house,” he said, “and I had no idea.” He renames the place Bethel (God’s house), though it had formerly been called Luz (not very memorable) and sets up a stone marker, a memorial. He doesn’t want to forget this moment. It’s a reminder that God showed up.

Later, when Moses had died and Joshua was leading the Israelites--a nation of former slaves and wandering nomads who had been stripped down during forty years in the desert--Joshua leads the people through the Jordan River (much like the crossing through the Red Sea) and they grab twelve stones from the middle of the river for the twelve tribes, and set them up as a marker on the other side. Don’t forget this day, God is trying to tell them. Remember where you’ve been, remember where you came from, remember that I showed up and I’m taking care of you.

That generation does remember, but the next one does not. The book of Judges talks about the cycle of people remembering and forgetting, remembering and forgetting. When they forget, other nations enslave them again, then God steps in, rescues them, they remember for a while and then they forget again. Over and over this happens, and reading this sometimes we think, “When will these people learn? Why do they keep forgetting?” And then we realize that their story is our story. We all forget. We all need to be reminded of the moments when God showed up. We all have spiritual Alzheimer’s.

In Deuteronomy 6, God talks about teaching these things to your children and your children’s children. Put them on the doorframes of your houses, on your heads, your hands. Talk about them when you lie down and when you get up, when you’re eating and when you’re on the road. Everywhere. Don’t forget.

What things? What’s he talking about? He’s saying, remember the signposts in our lives, the moments when God showed up. Some of the Jews read these passages and took God literally, creating wooden boxes and attaching them to their foreheads, and making long flowing tassels called phyllacteries on their clothing that would go swish swish, but what God’s really talking about is that we need to burn these moments down deep, into our hearts, the way we think, the way we act, the way we live. He’s saying, “Let it become so much a part of you that it becomes the air you breathe, the food you eat, the water you drink.” The good things, the moments, the days, the freedom from slavery, the stepping in and rescuing moments, the ends of armies and chariots, the times when water came from nowhere and food that wasn’t there the night before shows up on the doorstep, enough to fill stomachs and give energy, hold onto these moments. Don’t forget.

My cousin and her husband have a plaque in their house, and on it are different things that have happened in the course of their marriage. Whenever something big happens they get another metal tag engraved, add it to the plaque, until it’s become quite a list. There’s the day John started his teaching job. There’s the birth of their firstborn. The day they paid off their car. The day they bought their house. The day their daughter was born. When I first saw the plaque I asked John what it was about, and he said, “It’s so we can remember all the times God took care of us.”

Shortly after that my aunt and I were having a conversation. “Nothing good ever happens to me,” I said, running down a list of personal failures and disappointments.

“That’s not true,” she said, stopping until there was an uncomfortable silence between us. She wasn’t going to let me off with this one. She ran down a list of her own. “There was the fact that you were born when your mom wasn’t even supposed to be able to conceive. The fact you weren’t aborted. There was the day you came to live with us. There was the day you came back. There were the years of protection, the planting of seeds that made you believe there was something more than what you were living in. These are the signposts in your life. These are the things you have to hold onto when you’re in the desert and things haven’t happened in a while and you’re wondering and questioning whether your life has any meaning. These are the things you have to remember.”

After that, I started seeing that all of those things were there, I just hadn’t been looking for them. There are times when I wonder if life is mostly good (the signposts), and the deserts and dark places are in between times that we don’t understand, but they can still shape us and be used for good. There are other times when I think that life is meaningless, absurd, one progression of pain and loss after another, where the good moments are the cruelties that give us enough hope that when it gets snatched and pulled away from us leaves us hurting even more. In those times we need the signposts, we need the markers more than ever, the stones we carry to pile up, one on top of another, until we realize that the reality of God moments in our lives are actually a growing mound.

Once I began looking for those moments, I began seeing more and more all around me. It wasn’t that the events were different, but maybe my ability to see them became more focused. Before I started writing this tonight, I got back from a visit to see a friend an hour away who is heading off to Africa for six months. On the way I shared the car trip with two people I had never met, yet we didn’t run out of things to talk about, and one of the guys was from Kenya. I learned a lot about the political history of Kenya, Uganda, and Swaziland, and I wouldn’t have known it if we hadn’t traveled together. The man I met and his wife just had a baby four weeks ago. A week ago I saw another friend. The visit was far too short, but the time we did have was wonderful, and we spent a lot of time with good food, good conversation, and plenty of laughter.

These mounds don’t grow in isolation. We add our rocks, our God moments to the pile, then someone adds theirs, and someone else adds theirs, and another, and another, until the mound in front of us bears witness that God is not dead, but doing something, sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes right in front of our eyes if we have the ability to see, to remember, to not become distracted or sidetracked by all the other things that make us try to discount the moments. We live in thin places all around us, where heaven is trying to break through into our lives, not just through a church service or in ways we expect, but into our moments where we find ourselves.

Here’s six months when I didn’t know how I was going to pay the bills, and at the end of the month the bills were paid. *stone drops*

Here’s moving to Michigan without knowing anyone and without a job, and not getting one job but two, not knowing anyone but making some wonderful friendships. *plink*

Here’s losing my job in 1996, and in 24-hours making plans to move to Boise for six months. *stones drop*

Here’s struggling with suicide the first six months in Michigan and friends who called at the right time or the nights I went to sleep after taking sleeping pills and still waking up the next morning. *stones drop*

Here’s the conversations with students about their lives and the things they taught me, the healing and forgiveness I’ve found in my relationship with my stepmom, going overseas, the countless conversations with close friends, the relationships with women I’ve learned from, my friends’ children . . .

Gardens and paintings and short visits

2006-05-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

I had a friend come up this weekend from out of town. We spent less than 24 hours together, yet it was filled with a lot of conversation, good food, and good caring about each other. Since she left I've been feeling the void she created by her appearance and then her absence. I usually get like this, especially when I've been spending time with someone I care about and it's been really good. Give me a few days to decompress, to process what we talked about, and I'll be back to where I was before, more or less, "good as new."

My perspective on relationships has changed the last three years. I've seen people come and go, some through my job, some from the nature of moving twice (soon to be three times) in three years, some from just the nature of meeting people and saying goodbye. Until recently, I took saying goodbye much harder, whether it was saying goodbye to my aunt, uncle, and cousins who raised me for two years, to saying goodbye to extended family as a couple generations died off when I was in high school, to going to college and leaving a town in Indiana, to leaving college, to losing parts of innocence.

I used to want to hang on, and couldn't understand why we couldn't. It seemed unfair. I was pissed. I'd jog to try to run away from the pain these losses created, I'd stay in motion so I wouldn't have to face it. The more I wanted to hold on, the more frustrated I got and the more painful and elusive it seemed. It was like going to an art gallery and wanting to take the paintings home and not understanding why the security guards blocked the gate, or going to a garden, picking the flowers only to watch them die a couple days later.

So I accepted it.

I accepted that we meet people, they come in, they go out, and we can either get angry about it or appreciate the days and moments we have with them. That's all we have anyway. We come in alone, and then go out alone. There are people who come with us, but no one the whole way, and much of the trip is like traveling a highway with on ramps and off ramps, and some of our traveling companions are with us for quite a while, and others only briefly. We may appreciate the beauty of a painting in a gallery, but see it for what it is and be glad that we got to experience it and that it's there, without needing to possess it for ourselves. Or we can walk through a garden and find peace and comfort in it without getting upset that this garden isn't ours and we can't take it with us.

"It's really good seeing you and being here," she said.
"Same here."
"I wish it was longer. It really isn't much time, is it?"
"No, it isn't. I wish you could stay longer too."
"I guess too short is better than too long though, huh?"
"Or not at all."
"Yeah." For a few minutes there is silence. The sound of rain striking the leaves and the wind blowing through the branches in the dark and the noise of a siren a few streets over are the only things that fill the space surrounding them. "It doesn't bother you, does it? The silence?"
"Not really. I've gotten used to it. Some days I go almost all day in it. But you're afraid of it?"
"I'm quiet, and am afraid of spending a couple days together and then not having anything to talk about."
"Sometimes we need that space. I need it. You need it. It's okay."
"Yeah, it's comfy. When you can be with someone and not feel like you have to talk, that's some security."
"Yes. I like that."

Too short is better than too long, but I'm not always sure it's better than not at all. I mean it is, but sometimes when the time is too short there's the pain that comes with parting. If the moments didn't come at all we wouldn't know what we were missing. And maybe that's the problem in the midst of it. We wouldn't know the good that comes with it, we'd know we were dying by inches and not know how to do anything about it because we wouldn't know what exactly we were missing; we'd just have that nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right, that something didn't fit but never know how to fix it.

In Pursuit of Giants: Part I

2006-04-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

Entry 1:

Have been going on a hunt lately into the past . . . way back into the past. I've been reading some legends about giants, and have been looking for more information on them from Babylonian, Mesopotamian, and early civilization literature. So far there is little research that takes giants seriously, and most of it is labeled as folklore or children's fiction. There's a website from a guy in Texas who claims to have some pictures of giant graves and skeletons of 35' humans (that's right, not a typo), but his website has been labeled as "very cranky" by another watchdog website. Most of the websites on giants also talk about alien abduction and extreme interpretations of biblical prophecy in the next sentence.

One book at Barnes & Noble, Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock, looks at archaeological evidence connecting the Incan, Aztec, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian civilizations together, but it seems to be categorized as "marginal" history, a kind of subversive underground.

The Epic of Gilgamesh came in the mail this week. Will be reading it soon, once papers are done and a few other books and editing projects are finished. For now, signing off.

- Drake Finton, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Not Much to Say: The White Rabbit Speaks

2006-03-14T19:42:00.000-08:00

End of the day, almost 11 here. Wrapping things up before heading home.

Taught another 4-hour class tonight; don't want to go home yet.

An hour drive, cold and dark, the wind blowing 60 mph. Once home, will go to bed, and then another day, full again, getting to the end of it and not knowing where it went.

So I'm stealing time. Time I don't have.

Don't have much to say, but still want to say it.

A couple days ago warm, bright with possibilities, gray was waking up.

And then strong winds came. Temperature plummeted. F2 tornadoes hit Springfield. Friends okay. No one hurt. Leaves devastation and chaos in its wake.

Today: everything cold and dead. Feeling cranky. Whistling emptiness inside, and strong wind outside. Inside/outside, weather/mood = the same. Car shakes, breaks the lines (I've never been good at staying between them. Haha).

Counting classes. 12 weeks = 35 classes = 140 hours (+/- 24-hours) = Cog in a machine = so tired = Gregor Samsa woke up to discover he was a beetle, and was late for work . . .

Rest and adventure. Fairy rings and dragon quests. Journey's end and home and hearth, a bowl of hot soup and good friends.

Rhythmic bass, a techno beat. Ethereal, female voice (haunting, melancholy, lullaby).

Shannon

2006-03-12T19:37:00.000-08:00

Her name was Shannon. Black hair, bright blue eyes, creamy white skin, red lips, beautiful body. She tossed her long hair behind her and strutted more than walked, and the first time he saw her he was in eighth grade. She was walking down the street in front of his house, with a friend of his named Heather, and he made a mental note to ask Heather the next day who she was.

The next year Nate went to a bigger school. The school he’d gone to only went through eighth grade, and then most of his classmates went to high school in a town a few miles south of them, while the rest went to a consolidated school about ten minutes east, the school Shannon went to.

Over the summer he’d forgotten about her, and then she started coming to youth group that fall. Nate started seeing her in the halls, and in gym class. She’d start talking to him, smiling, leaning close, and he’d look into her blue eyes and get the feeling he’d fall into them, fall down deep into a cool brightness and not be able to find his way back. That and her mouth with the red lips and white teeth that were talking, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying. It felt like a free fall, a skydive, and terrified him so much that he stepped back, like clinging to the sheer face of a mountain while the wind is whipping and howling at your face, your hands, your clothes. He thought about diving in and kissing her instead, like Erik had done to Trisha when he had stuck his tongue in her mouth in the back of the bus coming home from the roller skating trip, but he didn’t know if he could stop once he started, so he clung tighter to the rock face as the howling rose higher in his ears.

His parents noticed Shannon too. She became the topic at the dinner table, her blue eyes, perfect skin, dark hair, red lips. Dad thought she was cute. Had he noticed she was cute? He should ask her out; he should ask her to be his girlfriend. Mom didn’t say much, she thought something was wrong, something off with her. But then she didn’t say much at the dinner table ever, and a thick cloud hung over most of their conversations. The more Dad mentioned her the more Nate wished he’d be left alone. Maybe that sealed it with Shannon. The more Dad mentioned he should, the more he knew he definitely wouldn’t, no matter how blue her eyes were, how perfect her body was or how nice she was.

Then came the day in the room with the wrestling mats, the weight machines, the bleachers for the wrestling team that didn’t exist. The freshmen sat here before gym class, the last class of the day. The guys would sit along one wall, the girls along the other, the couples would occupy the no-man's land space in between. Another Shannon walked across the floor and sat down beside him. Along the wall sat a group of girls, huddled close, talking, laughing, and Shannon with the dark hair and blue eyes sat staring at him, smiling.

The other Shannon sitting next to him spoke. “Do you like her? She thinks you’re hot, well, cute anyway. Did you know that?”

“Oh.”

“So,” the other Shannon said, getting right to the point, “what are you going to do? Are you gonna ask her out? Date her?”
“I don’t know,” Nate said, looking suspicious. “Why?”

“Because,” she said, “she wants to know. I don’t think you should, but it’s up to you.”

“What do you mean? What have you heard?”

“Well,” Shannon said, smiling slightly, “it’s not so much what I’ve heard. Actually, it’s what I’ve seen. You don’t know her nickname, do you?”

“No.”

“It’s,” she paused. “It’s booger. She picks her nose. And, and . . . eats it.”

“Really?”

“Fact. Well, I don’t know if she still does, but she used to, and it wasn’t that long ago. Like last year I think.”

* * *

Danny dated her instead, from another school, and hadn’t heard the “booger” story, whether it was ever true or not. Nate had gone to school with Danny, until the end of 6th grade when Danny moved to another town to live with his dad, and his mom moved to Tennessee to avoid death threats. He and Danny had played chess a few times before that at Danny’s house while his mom watched Jaws. His brothers liked WWF wrestling and Danny liked putting smaller kids in headlocks and full nelsons. His brothers had tried them on him and he liked to try them on everybody else.

Nate had gone to Danny’s birthday party in 3rd grade. Danny got swats at the party and cried. He got swats at school in 4th grade and cried. Danny told Nate in 5th grade he’d give him a dollar if he’d cut some of Dana Zorowsky’s hair. He did. She cried. They both got sent to the principal’s office. The last time they’d both gone to the office they’d gotten swats, so Nate was sure they were in for it again. That time Danny had cried too, but Nate hadn’t. Instead of swats they both had to give Dana a dollar each to pay for the hair. Nate cried.

* * *

It’s a few months after Danny started dating Shannon, and the youth group is in Indianapolis. Danny and Shannon are there, and Nate, Mark, Heather and her boyfriend, Craig and Paula, and a few others. The sun sets over the city, the lights rise electric and they decide they’re hungry. A deep dish pizza place awaits with deep booths and smoky lighting. Danny and Shannon find a booth in a corner, and begin quietly arguing. Danny gets up, goes to the restroom, and when he comes back he walks to the booth where Nate sits, and eases in across from him.

For a while they are quiet, not saying much between them. Danny stares at his hands, and Nate stares at the red-and-white checkered pattern on the table cloth, not wanting to break the silence. Danny breaks the silence instead. “I know she’s dating me,” he says, “but she really wants to date you. You’re the one she wants.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You can date her if you want to. She’s my girl right now, but you can date her if you want. I know she’ll say yes.” An uneasy silence settles between them, the image of Danny holding onto her like property, on a leash, and images of his mom getting death threats from his dad come back to him. There’s a sadness on Danny’s face, a pinched, greedy pain that squeezes at the corners of his eyes, that turns his forced smile into a grimace.

“She chose you, man. She can date who she wants.” Nate squeezes out, goes to the restroom. He has to get away. Suddenly it feels hot and close and he needs to breathe. Danny continues to sit at Nate’s table, but when Nate comes back from the restroom, Danny’s back in the booth with Shannon, his arm around her, tickling her and she's laughing. He looks up as if to say, “This is my girl. Hands off.”

* * *

A few days later they’re coming home from Indianapolis. Danny and Nate are in the back of Craig and Paula’s car, Shannon’s riding in another car with Heather. Danny and Shannon have broken up. Danny and Nate are sitting in the back seat and then Danny says something about Nate’s mom, still bitter over the breakup with Shannon. Nate starts choking him and he laughs. Paula turns around, looks over the headrest in the passenger seat and asks what’s going on in that stern voice that isn’t quite yelling but is really close.

“He said something about my mom.”

Danny laughs, but doesn’t deny it. They pull into the church parking lot which is nothing more than a few gravel parking spaces just off the main street. Nate gets out one side, Danny gets out the other, and Craig and Paula get out and go inside. Once they’re not around and it’s only the two of them standing outside, Danny steps close to Nate, then slugs him in the stomach, hard enough to knock the air out of him, then runs down the street, past his old house three houses down with his two older brothers, Jaws, WWF wrestling and full nelsons, a chess set, and a mom who had gone to Tennessee. He goes to his uncle’s who will take him to his dad’s in the other town, his dad who sells drugs under the table that no one’s supposed to know about. Somewhere inside are Craig and Paula, Shannon, Heather, Mark, and Nate's bag of belongings from the trip. Nate stands under a street light at the corner, just outside the church, in the dark, trying to catch his breath and blink out the stars and tears that are swimming at the corners of his vision, then walks home.

Get Yourself Connected

2006-03-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

At 1am the phone rang. The last of a thunderstorm still rumbled in the distance, and I'd been woken a couple times within the last fifteen minutes by bomb dropping, earth shattering thunderclaps that jolted me awake in panic, but then I breathed a sigh of relief and was quickly lulled to sleep. Then the phone rang.

One of my friends, when he calls, usually dials at 1, 2, or 3 am, forgetting that that's usually when most of us sleep. I hadn't talked with him in a while, so the phone call was a surprise, but it was good to hear him, and I decided to fight off sleep to catch up. He told me about some things he's been up to lately and I asked questions, and then he turned it on me, "So what have you been up to?" I went blank. I haven't blogged lately, I've gone underground, swimming, drowning somewhere, in grading, traveling, reading, writing some things but never finishing. I mentioned some of this, he was good about it, but when I hung up the phone and tried to sink back into dreams, I was haunted by the thought, "What have you done?" I've been teaching 8-hour classes, and 4-hour night classes, and have read until my eyes hurt and edited more papers than I can count, yet this isn't what seems to matter right now.

"What had I done?"

So this morning I woke up when I was good and ready, put on my hiking shoes, a comfortable pair of jeans, and a green hoodie and hit the Riverwalk that runs through Lansing. The hard rain had swollen the river, and there were places where the trail was covered in a foot and a half of water. The way I usually go, toward downtown, was cut off by an impromptu river, so I took the eastern branch of the walk. I walked for an hour-and-a half until I got to MSU, walked the sidewalks on campus past dorms and huge towering brick halls. The carillon pealed a song from just beyond the trees, and I went to the Union for a burger, then the library, then got a coffee and walked an hour-and-a-half back.

There were a lot of people out. It's one of the first fairly warm days of the year and everyone wanted to be out in it, walking, jogging, biking, you name it. I breathed deep. It was good to be moving, stepping through woods, brushing past branches, stopping to chat with people with dogs, smiling at the joggers, then noticing their not as amiable boyfriends. The city looks different from this perspective, not as lonely, not as alien, and reminded me today of all the things I love best about this place and will probably miss when I'm gone.

After a hard rain, some of the debris is washed away. The sky is still overcast, the trees still bony in their skeletal frames, the grass plastered down like a limp gray head of hair, but there are red berries on some of the branches, brown and black squirrels rooting around for nuts and seeds, chasing each other with their cache-finds--almost frisky--and buds swelling at the tips of trees. Something's waking up, breathing, alive, and it's very good.

What is Love? (Baby, don't hurt me)

2006-01-30T13:33:00.000-08:00

I’ve been surfing through blogland, and most of the bloggers I admire most have been talking a lot (I mean A LOT) about relationships, love, sex, marriage, swingers, and sometimes God in relationship to all that. Though many of them right now are spent like two lovers in post-coital bliss and are waiting in that in-between time until new energies drive them in different directions and new journeys (and new blogs), for now it’s made me pause and wonder why so much energy is being spent in blogland on discussions of love and relationships, especially in a place where we don’t see each other, don’t touch, our only interactions are our minds and words, a place to vent our psychic scream of anxieties and fears, hurts and longings that in our real lives and face-to-face conversations get hidden behind the mask of “everything’s fine. How are you?”

A friend of mine says that much of what is talked about regarding love is saddening, and maybe it’s true that there’s a lot of grief, pain, confusion, and skepticism in the ongoing discussion, and sometimes bliss, of love. It’s become a cosmic grope session, either in the sheets—reaching for the other person (or persons) to connect with, seduce, control or express something uncontainable—or out of them—wondering why some relationships don’t work while others do, (and for how long?), and whether we were meant to be with one person or not, and why something’s still missing that no relationship, no matter how good, can satisfy.

I don’t have much to say about it. Not today at any rate. Maybe I’m just as spent.
But it does make me think about our loneliness and why we keep reaching out, and why we choose to do this in a world of text and art where the connections are . . . different, nonorganic, and entirely non-sexual, at least in the traditional sense. By expanding the question beyond our most intimate relationships, friendships and families, are we trying to find answers from other voices? Or are we simply voicing our thoughts, desires and frustrations because it’s a driving impulse that we MUST continue talking about, no matter whether those thoughts are driven by hope or disillusionment? We can’t not talk about it. It provides release on some level, and maybe if nothing more, that helps.

The Persistence of Longing

2006-01-22T17:05:00.000-08:00

The road to Sarah and Lisa’s had become overgrown over the years. He would have missed it this time too if his eyes had not stopped, and if the memory of a road had not risen up from the prairie grass, elms and oaks and faded years and drawn him into the wood.

It had been a dirt road once, and never well traveled, but wide enough for a car to pass, and sometimes two if both went very slowly and squeezed close to each other. Now it was nothing more than a foot path, and in places a weaving bike trail, going deeper in, ending who knew where.

He had been this way before, and after the first few steps his feet seemed to know where to lead him. Once on the path, he questioned how he could have forgotten this place. Had he stopped looking, stopped expecting what lie at the end of the trail, had his mind buried it deep in disappointment, waiting for nature to follow suit?

The narrowness of the road irritated him, and he got on his hands and knees and pulled out clumps of grass and small tree saplings, smacking the clods angrily against the ground, shaking loose the dirt and widening the road once again so he wouldn’t forget it next time. It was hot work, and slow. He began sweating freely. It was taboo work for a Sunday, but who would see him or think to look this way? The work was for him and him alone, he guessed, a private penance for letting the weeds grow up where footprints should have been. So he worked on because it must be done. Because it seemed the right thing to do. Because he needed this.

As he made his way through a clearing, into darker woods and around a bend, the two houses were still there, right where they should be, standing side by side, lonely sentinels huddled close together. It was the house he had left as a boy, and their house, only this time no longer abandoned, no longer owned by another man, no longer rented out and then boarded up. It stood as it once had, and light poured out from the windows.

He went around to the side door, the entrance for friends and family and never strangers or unwelcome guests, and lifted his hand to knock, but then the door opened and he didn’t need to. Brown-haired Sarah stood in the doorway, and before he could say anything she grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.

“You should have come sooner,” she said, clearing shoes from the entryway.

“I tried,” he said.

“Not hard enough.”

“But it was years.”

“A little longer. You always did quit too soon.”
“That’s because I never liked the games you would pick.” He stopped, and smiled, then looked squarely at Sarah. “But you weren’t here. You never answered my letter. The letter came back. It said you’d moved.”

“Odd,” she said.

“That you’d moved?”

“No, the letter. As I remember it was mostly about the dog.”

“No reason not to answer.” He paused. “Is Lisa . . .”

“Here,” she said, before he could finish. She smiled faintly. “She’ll be glad you’ve come.”

He tried not to seem too eager, but he brushed past her, a little too abruptly. She stepped back and let him pass, accepting why he had really come, no matter how hard he’d tried to be cordial and pretend otherwise, how hard he’d tried not to look over her shoulder or how hard he’d tried to listen to her without voicing his question. He’d come for Lisa.

Lisa stood at the sink, blond hair shorter than he’d remembered, arms buried in soap suds, but when she looked up she smiled, then quickly dried her hands on a towel and ran a hand through her hair, and turned toward him. Her stomach had become rounder, her face less defined, her hair a little duller, but none of that mattered like it used to. To him she was beautiful.

He pulled her to him and their lips met, a warm, familiar kiss. She squeezed against him for a moment, then pulled back. Her arms went slack and she pushed away. “Stop,” she said. “He’ll see.”

“Who?”

“My father.”

“Why does it matter?” He searched the blue depths in her eyes.

“It just does.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t try,” she said, and before he could bring her back she left quickly from the room. He had a moment to notice the room, the spare orderliness of it, the towel hung neat and straight next to the sink, the swept floors, the stool tucked snugly against the wall. The china in the cabinet, behind glass, in perfect symmetry. The clock above the doorway, catching the last light of the sun across its face held an empty orderliness to it all.

Sarah entered the room, and he saw her like he hadn’t before. What he had remembered was the short girl with limp brown hair, metal braces, and spotty complexion. Now the braces were gone, revealing straight, white teeth. The skin, while not remarkable, was unblemished and bore a healthy, peaceful warmth. She looked happy; she looked content.

“You never met my husband, have you?” she said simply.

“No. Who is he?”

“He’ll be along soon. His name’s John.”

“Any children?”

“One. A boy. Takes after his father.”

“Congratulations. And Lisa?”

“Never married.”

“Why not?” For the first time Sarah shot him an annoyed look, but let it pass. “Father needs her.”

“Since the divorce?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t he let her go?”

“He could, but won’t. She’s his right hand. And he’s fiercely jealous of her.”

He tried to speak, but couldn’t. A tightness formed around his eyes, and Sarah took his hand and squeezed it warmly. “Let it go,” she said, and there was a soothing gentleness in her words.

He heard the front door open then, and heavy booted steps across a wooden floor, and the booming rough voice of their father. “It’s time to go,” Sarah said, and quickly pushed him out the side door.

* * *

The road led away from the house, and he stepped onto it, following it blindly, letting one leaden foot carry him further ahead. The forest closed over the road behind him, but if he had noticed, it would not have mattered. In the distance, the light in the window from Sarah and Lisa’s house winked out, and the house became a silhouette, then faded into mist, and then the house next to it followed. The woods had grown dark, but a light shone in the distance and he picked his way along the trail, trying to head for it as best he could. While the journey in had seemed to take hours, the journey back only took minutes. He stepped out of the woods, onto a concrete paved road with a median. In the center stood a street light. He looked up at it, and beyond it he could see a few stars.

The Writing Specialist

2006-01-05T13:19:00.000-08:00

It’s 6 pm on a Tuesday night. Also, what I’ve come to call “show time” (at least to myself). The last few students arrive, leaving behind their 9-5 jobs so they can sit through another four hours of a lecture and workshop on writing. Four hours is a long time to have to sit through anything, but especially writing, and I know better than to think the students have come to hear me talk about it because they love writing, like me, or like my voice (though I’ve been told it’s kind of soothing, much like a dentist’s voice right before they start up the drill). Many of them are wondering what they have to do to get an “A”. Some are feeling sicker than they’ve felt before a first date or big job interview, and many of them are wondering if they can do this “school thing” after being away from reading and writing and the classroom for a number of years. At home, their spouse may be waiting, their children, Survivor, or a number of more appealing alternatives.

Even I don’t like hearing myself for four hours. In fact, I don’t talk much at all. The same knots in their stomachs are also cramping my own. I can’t eat. My mouth feels dry but I can barely swallow a mouthful of water. It’s opening night and I feel like I’m on stage and want to run anywhere but here. A few things keep me here. One of them is my love for writing.

I begin with introductions, and prayer, and ask everyone to describe their enjoyment of writing, what kinds of writing they do, and one movie they like (I like movies too, so this helps me decide whether certain movies are worth seeing). Some of them say they hate writing and don’t know why they signed up for a writing intensive program, others say they really enjoy writing and are really good at it and expect an “A.” After teaching a while, I’m not sure if they’re saying this because they really do love writing or if they think that’s what I want to hear. The next few weeks will prove this as they put thoughts and words onto paper.

Usually people bring food and we have a potluck at the beginning of the night or halfway through. It feels a bit like an AA meeting, and many of my students have been to those.

In their other lives, their lives outside school, many of them are husbands or wives, moms or dads, managers, employers, sons and daughters and caretakers. Some of them are going through divorces. Some are trying to figure out how to raise their kids. Some are getting married. Others are getting ready to bury their parents. Many of my students have worked in hospitals, or prisons, are fire fighters, police officers, EMTs, veterans or social workers.
One man comes to class the first few weeks, then gets emergency orders and is shipped out to Iraq within the week. Other than the phone call telling me he is dropping the class for now, I never hear from him again and don’t know if he’s still there, is alive, or back home with his family. I think he has a young son, and maybe a baby on the way. Another woman is waiting to be shipped out soon and has to find some friends to take care of her three kids while she is overseas. She’s a single mom, going to school, and enlisted in the national guard on the weekend.

One student comes to class and announces her ex-husband was waiting for her in the driveway when she came home from school. Since then she has gotten a restraining order, but is still afraid to return home and asks us to pray for her. The next week she misses class and the week after that. The following week she calls and drops the course.

Another woman pulls me aside before class, in tears because her paper for that night isn’t done. She’s been living in a shelter the last week, lost her job, and her ex-husband has taken her oldest child until she is out of the shelter. Thanksgiving is less than a week away and she asks if she can get an extension. Of course I say yes.

We meet in banks, in business complexes, either downtown or in out of the way areas of the cities. I teach in four different cities and often my car becomes my office. In the last couple years I have logged tens of thousands of miles, have learned bits of new languages, have heard a number of books on tape, and have tripled my CD collection. Even though it’s a writing class, we don’t talk about Shakespeare, Milton, or even Faulkner, but sometimes I refer to Stephen King, John Grisham or Patricia Cornwell, Chuck Palahniuk, and even E.B. White and William Zinsser. “Writing is a conversation,” I say. “Writing is music, it has rhythm, and characters and drama, and action and personality, emotion and humor, and is above all human.” The students nod in agreement, or question this, or share their own experiences from watching Sex in the City or L.A. Law, reading the newspaper, or having conversations with their spouse about who will pick up the kids from band practice. We wrestle together, talking about, thinking about, and doing writing together.

Many of the students write about their own personal experiences. My first year teaching writing to adult students I learned a lot. I think I aged a few years in that one. Now I have a few gray hairs to prove it. We used to meet for an hour, one-on-one, to conference over their papers. I got to the point where I’d bring a box of kleenexes, sometimes for me, sometimes for them, sometimes for both of us. Some of the students wrote about getting shot, some wrote about watching their mom or dad get lost in Alzheimer’s. A few wrote about getting married or having kids. Someone wrote about losing her best friend to cancer (that was hard). Some shared how they had been abused as kids, raped, molested, or merely neglected. One in particular wrote about her miscarriage. Another told me how, when she was in high school, four girls pulled her into the back of a van and raped her. A few of them wrote about wrestling through the alcohol demons, or drugs, or coming out of a gang. Many of them as students were looking at these situations from the other side. They saw hope. They were going to kick this. Coming back to school was their way of proving it to themselves, their families, their friends, and the world.

Writing is a solitary activity; writing is a community activity. Over the next few weeks, for four hours a night we become like family. We laugh, cry, and vent our frustrations over not finding the right words, over mutual deadlines and the pressures from school and outside it. I love being in the classroom; I hate grading. I have a hard time looking at students in the eye as I pass back grades. Some have called me a hard grader. Others have called me fair. Some have even said they’ve learned a lot about writing in the process. I used to get frustrated, even angry when I talked about a writing principle in class, or spent time going over how a paper was to be formatted, only to find it not done in the actual paper. Now, on some of the harder nights, I wonder if any of it matters or if there’s any growth at all. It helps me realize how slowly I learn as well, and lessons that should be obvious to others aren’t as obvious to me. That puts things in perspective. I begin to understand why Jesus’ disciples could live with him for three years and still not understand what he was trying to tell them. I realize how we’re all slow learners in some ways.

There’s a lot that goes into teaching, and teaching writing, that I didn’t realize when I was a student and before I began teaching. A lot of it is lonely, behind-the-scenes work. Nobody told me about the hours of grading I’d be doing on my own. Some of my writing profs who had been teaching for a while also hated grading, but said I had to grade quickly, not read every word, and get at “mostly just the highlights.” Maybe that’s why we have such a difficulty with writing. I don’t spend as much time at the office as I used to, it’s hard to get work done there, at least the reading and grading, so I often grade in my living room, my bedroom, or a coffeehouse. I do like the community at the office, though, and sometimes need that just to stay sane.

The end of the night comes, the end of the course comes, and we shake hands as we say goodbye to each other. Many of the students say it was the best/worst experience they’ve had, but feel like they’ve grown and have had a world opened to them. We promise to keep in touch, though I know deep down something has come to an end. I drive home in the dark, thinking about the night—the people, the conversations, the questions, the stories—and feel both connected to something real, and also very alone.

Breaking out of the Box

2006-01-02T12:34:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamed that I went to a church that was religious, but not spiritual. The place was packed, and somebody asked me to play the piano, but it’s been a long time since I’ve played and I was never very good at it anyway. So I sat and listened, and waited for something to happen. The guy up front talked about everybody’s duties to keeping the kitchen clean, and greeting, and making sure communion was set up, and made a joke about some guy buying a boat who hadn’t been going for months. Everybody looked back at the guy as he was walking in and started applauding, because he gave a lot to the church.

When it came time to read from the Bible everybody started talking. I realized I had only been there five minutes, and didn’t know if I should say anything, but I was angry and stood up and said something. I don’t remember what I said. All I remember was I was angry. I felt guilty, not knowing these people, and thinking I was going about it the wrong way, and felt like I was the last person to say something like this. I’ve had this dream pretty often.

I don’t think I’m religious, or even a good person, and am aware of a lot of ways where I screw up. I’ve often felt like and defined myself as an outsider, on a lot of different levels, and even though I grew up in the church I often didn’t feel “part of the family.” Lately I go, but have often left feeling pretty bored or empty. The conversation I go for and want to have usually doesn’t happen. There are glimpses sometimes and moments when I feel like, “I need to live differently. This is bigger,” or I feel more alive. At those moments usually the person’s talking about Jesus, but a lot of times church people talk more about pop psychology or making sure we’re not like “those people out there,” or “having faith to believe everything’s going well,” which seems sometimes like putting on spiritual blinders to the harder realities of life where most of the rest of us live, and where they do too if they were willing to admit it. Wrestling in the midst of those hard realities, those are some of the stories I want to hear about, and it seems like those are the ones the Bible talks about.

I don’t see myself as religious, but want to be “spiritual” in the sense that Jesus was, reaching out to people, meeting their needs, living life in a real and adventurous way. I think if I did that and more people did that, the whole religion question would fade away.

I feel like box man though sometimes, and had a dream about that too. Writing another blog feels a little empty, and there are times when I get uncomfortable and don’t want people to get too close that I fall back into some safe and secure place, saying things I think people want to hear (I’m sorry about your loss, that’s too bad. Anything I can do to help?), and yet shutting off a big part of myself in the process.

I’ve seen that tendency, and have wanted to push beyond that and live out some of the dreams I’ve thought were good ideas, but for me especially, that’s scarier and a lot harder than talking about it and saying it’s a good idea. Maybe that’s where a lot of people in general are, and what is behind some of the religious community that turns my stomach sour. Probably it’s the same thing in me.

Here’s an example. A few months ago a friend of mine started living with me for a few months. I wanted to live in community again, had lived for years on my own, and was looking forward to not coming home to an empty house. We were good friends and the idea of being roommates for a few months seemed like a good idea to both of us. Then I came home and couldn’t find the remote, or there were dirty dishes in the sink, and a lot of them weren’t mine, or we kept different hours, and I found myself getting irritated. It was supposed to be easier, better, or something, and we were supposed to get along all the time. On one level I’m a lot more realistic than this, and the realistic side of me would step up at these moments, but honestly this was probably some of what I was thinking on the emotional side. In short, it was a lot harder actually living out community than it was talking about it.

I was afraid I’d get lost, get sucked into some of the other person’s darkness, or habits, or . . . I don’t know what exactly I was afraid of. I’ve been in my own dark places at times, and it’s scary enough that I don’t want to go back there, and when I see hints of it in someone else, I don’t just see their darkness, but see hints and edges of my own clawing at me, trying to regain some kind of a hold.

I didn’t get lost. I learned a lot and grew a lot, and so did my roommate. We fought like brothers sometimes, but it felt like we grew like brothers as well. I’m grateful for the late night talks, and sorting through things, and the ways we grew in music and movies and tennis matches and soccer games.

But back to this fear of difference. Sometimes I’m afraid of becoming friends with gay people, or African Americans, or Buddhists, or people who like to party a lot. I’ve been friends with all of them, and have worked with internationals and see myself as a pretty open-minded guy while still sticking to the core of who I am (being a Christian and wanting to follow Jesus is part of this). But I’m afraid of becoming lost, and when I feel that way I feel backed into a corner and threatened, and part of me retreats until I figure it out. I think I want to have everything figured out and fit into neat containers. I am box-man, after all. Then I have friends who come along, take a look at the boxes, and shake them up and create a mess. At first I’m upset by this, but usually the reason they got into the boxes in the first place was to see what was inside, to play, to help me see that not everything fits neatly inside the boxes.

Jesus loved all kinds of people and didn’t get lost in the midst of that. Yet our own fear (mine included) gets in the way of this, and makes us want to hang out with people who are exactly like us, that we click well with, and can relate to easily, and soon we’ve got our clubs and yuppy churches all over the place. I don’t know what holds me back, probably scared mostly, because when I do step outside of my comfort zone I usually really like it.

I wasn’t sure if I could do the whole roommate thing again. I had gotten so used to living alone I had forgotten what it would be like to live with another person 24/7. I had gotten so used to hiding parts of who I was that I wasn’t sure I wanted someone to see that. I may have to someday ask the same questions when it comes to having a wife, a family, or being a parent. When you have never been there, it looks scary and foreign on the other side, but most people who are in it say, “There are adjustments, but it’s got its perks too :)”. Maybe working more with the homeless, or immigrants, or inner city, or AIDS patients, or other areas would feel the same way, a definite stretch, but more like living than anything Boxland could offer.

First Day of Winter

2005-12-21T15:23:00.001-08:00

First day of winter, and the darkest day of the year. He's glad he doesn't live in Alaska. Or Norway. No wonder they go to the saunas so much in those Scandinavian countries, to remember what heat and steam felt like, and maybe to appreciate the winter by comparison. But then, they have polar bear swimming clubs too.

Only four days til Christmas, and as usual, the holiday has crept up on him, as it has since he was in college. He hasn't put up a Christmas tree, or even lights this year. The last few weeks have been spent grading. Before then the weeks before Christmas were spent studying, getting ready for finals and squeezing in Christmas shopping on weekends and late at night. One year he walked out into the middle of a parade, going through town. He stopped for a moment, standing in the small crowd as reindeer and children with bells and red and green suits marched by, followed by a fat Santa. He remembered then, when he was growing up, his parents pulled records from under the record player (it even had an eight-track player) and played Bing Crosby's White Christmas and the Chipmunks' Christmas album, or Sandi Patti and others he has forgotten while cookies baked in the kitchen or he and his dad worked on unstringing the lights, testing them, then wrapping them around the Christmas tree.

They always got a fresh one, the Christmas tree, and not off a lot. There were a few tree farms just outside outside of town, and Dad would pull the saw off a nail in the garage, and they'd pile in the car and set off in search of the "perfect tree."

"It has to be full," Mom would say, and they'd spend what felt like hours in the bitter cold, deliberating, stamping their feet to stay warm, as Mom would circle the tree, sizing it up, "No, no good," then move on to the next one, and the next, and the next, until she and Dad were satisfied. Mom would hold the tree while Dad sawed back and forth at the base, but holding the tree wasn't the fun job because whoever held it would have sticky pine sap hands for the rest of the night. The tree would shiver, then bow, and finally collapse as the saw bit through the last of the wood fiber. It toppled to the ground, to be lifted on top of the roof of the car--pine needles, tree sap and all--where it would be transformed into something else, a thing of light and hanging memories of ornaments from previous years. There was Scooby Doo, and Santa, and Mickey's Christmas Carol, and turtledoves from the year his parents had married, and polar bears and bunnies and the crumbling clay ornament with the faded kindergarten picture that seemed too shabby and fragile to hang, but was never thrown away. It found its way onto the tree, each year looking more and more faded, and the tree began to sag under the weight of previous years and last year's silver and gold tinsel.

The house held a warm softness on these nights, even though the wind whistled and rattled just outside. It's sounds mingled with "The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful . . ." and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and tales of the "Night Before Christmas," and the pile of red, green, and blue wrapped presents that formed growing mountains around the manger scene at the base of the tree.

* * *

A fat snowman and Santa Claus greet him as he crunches through the snow from the parking lot and enters the front door of the apartment complex. The gazebo in the quad is covered with snow and lights that have been strung between it and the leafless trees. A couple lamposts stand guard, and empty wooden benches and a couple metal grills, sleeping reminders of warm summer nights, green grass, flowers, and the pungent odor of sizzling meat over charcoal. He fumbles for the keys with cold, stiff hands, drops them into the snowbank, curses, then plunges his hand in to pull them out, noticing how the snow hurts his skin as it turns quickly to liquid in his palm. The key fits into the lock, the door opens, and he climbs the stairs. He's home.

Winter Days

2005-12-20T11:24:00.000-08:00

I hate the cold. I didn't realize this until after three years of living in Michigan, driving thousands of miles a month, and not feeling warm since September. Today's one of the few days in the last couple weeks that it hasn't snowed, for which I'm thankful, but instead a bitter, "through your clothes and into your bones" kind of chill has set in. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating.

Here are some of the upsides of winter. I love waking up in the morning (if it's not still dark outside) and seeing a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, before the snowplow goes through and dingy gray tracks begin to crisscross the snow. It's also quiet, especially on warm winter nights (right around the 30 degree mark) when thick flakes fall and create a solitary world, where it's just you and a few others, watching the flakes drift down in the streetlights andChristmas lights. Thick, white blankets cover the trees, the traffic is silenced or muffled, and it's just . . . peaceful. I like those nights, and love ending those days by lighting some candles, grabbing a blanket, turning out the other lights in the house and sitting by a window with a warm drink in my hand, watching until I fall asleep.

Another thing I like about winter: skiing. Though I've only been skiing twice, I really liked it. Most of my life, however, I've lived in Illinois, and not the hilly parts of northern Illinois or southern Illinois, but the flat, windy, icy cornfield area of Illinois. Before that we lived in Indiana. On Christmas day, 2001, I went skiing with my mom and a cousin out in Boise, Idaho. We went to Bogus Basin, and waited until it was dark to go skiing. Only the lights from the cabin, the slopes, and a clear night sky lit up the night. And I remember it being bright as it reflected off the snow.

For a skiier, thinking about snow is different. The snow wasn't snow that night, but "powder" and it was something to play in, not complain about as it piled up on our cars and on the roads and stiffened our joints and axles. For the first time, we wanted more of it, and watched with excitement as it accumulated. "A couple inches of powder today? That's great? That'll make for some good skiing."

My cousin has been skiing a lot, and she taught me a couple ways to slow down or stop (very important). "Spread 'em like you want it," she said, meaning the skis, into a V-shaped position. After a couple tries, I had it down, and practiced on the bunny slope while she moved on to more challenging runs, to work on her S-curve and wipeout techniques. I'd have plenty of practice with that just on the beginner run.

One thing about the beginner slope though at Bogus Basin. It wasn't just any bunny beginner slope, but the "slope of terror!" Maybe not, but on the left side of the slope was a 10-15 foot dropoff onto the 2-lane road below that had brought us up the mountain. A few trees and some brush would have cushioned the fall if one were to get too close and go over the edge, but if the trees and the highway didn't stop your descent down the mountain, a 50-70 foot sheer drop on the other side of the road would be sure to take you to the bottom, fast. However, it didn't end there. The ground wasn't as sheer after that, but the slope only gradually became gentler, leading to the foothills and the city below.

The only reason I mention all this is because of something that happened that made me more aware of the edge of the run, the road below, and the sheer dropoff after that, in my mind's eye if not through the actual experience. I was taking a run down the slope, beginning to get a feel for small turns and speeding up and slowing down. I wasn't falling, and had only fallen once or twice that night. Below me, further down the hill, my mom was practicing some wide S-curves (back-and-forth, back-and-forth), and I heard and sensed a snowboarder further up the hill and to my right. I was going pretty straight, angling toward the edge but trying to keep a safe distance from it. I looked down at my skis to make sure they were running straight, and when I looked up, it happened. My birth mom made a wide left, crossing my path. In 20 yards, we would have impact. I began angling further to the left (and further to the edge of the cliff) to avoid her. Meanwhile, the snowboarder behind me had picked up speed, was right on my tail, and then on top of my right ski (literally). A three-way collision was quickly developing and I had to do something fast.

Here were my options:
Option 1: Hit everyone and go down in a pile.
Option 2: Bite it now, and be the only one to wipe out.
Option 3: Go over the edge of the cliff
Option 4: Shift weight hard to the left side and hope to shoot out in front of the snowboarder and Mom, and ski to safety further down the hill.

I wasn't sure I could do option 4, and Option 3 was looking like more of a possibility every second. It was then I realized where Option 3 would lead (as described earlier). Option 1 could cause some serious injury (not just to me), and Option 2 could also cause some injury (mainly to me. Did I also mention how much I don't like cold?) Biting it in the snow didn't seem like an option.

It was now or never, so I decided to try Option 4, with Option 2 as a backup to avoid Options 1 and 3, especially to avoid Option 3. I leaned hard on my left ski, somehow broke away from the snowboarder, narrowly missed my mom, and sped down the hill, sticks tucked under my arms, knees bent like I was doing time trials for the Winter Olympics. I heard shouts behind me, then let loose with one of my own. I had skied to safety.

Later, over a cup of hot chocolate, my mom said, "You did that perfectly! You didn't even seem nervous.""I was terrified," I laughed, then took another drink of hot chocolate.

* * *Now, the downsides of winter. It's dark, it's cold, and driving through blizzards is downright scary. But more about that later . . .