Definitions of Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.