Facades

In my quest to become even more Midwestern (very proud of my heritage as a Scandinavian), I finally picked up Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor. While set in small town Minnesota, I love the vivid imagery and storytelling ability of Keillor to relate even to us city folk. He picks up on the subtle nuances of life and character so well. Here's a passage from chapter 2 that I found striking a chord.

It was a printed poster entitled NEW ALBION, THE BOSTON OF THE WEST, and under the title, a perfect picture of a town with great buildings, stately homes under broad trees, avenues thronged with traffic. "Home of New Albion College, World Revered Seat of Learning Set in This Mecca of Commerce and Agriculture. Dr. Henry Francis Watt, Ph.D, Litt. D, D.D., President. Choice lots Remain For Purchase, $100."

"Mr. Bayfield," Henry gasped. "You take me for a much better man than I am!"

"Mr. Watt," Bayfield replied, "you will do just fine, sir. You will accomplish the purpose admirably, I have every reason to believe it."

"But Doctor! You have me a doctor of philosophy, literature, divinity-great God! I'll be found out! There will be a scandal! Outrage! People will never forgive it!"

Bayfield put his arm around the young man's shoulders. "You seem to be ignorant of the true nature of doctors," he said. "My boy, the first and foremost work of a doctor is to inspire confidence in his being one. So long as the public has faith in him, then any man can be a doctor, and if the public hasn't faith, then the greatest doctor in the world will have no effect on them."

"But the degrees. I have no degrees," Henry pleaded.

"First, we shall get the college on its feet. Then the college will grant you every degree that is needed."

"I will get my degrees from my own college? Me, the president of that college? Do you think it is right, Mr. Bayfield?"

"This is the West, Mr. Watt. Here, men are not so dependent on the opinions of others. Here, it matters less what others think than what a man himself says he is. Look around you, sir, and you will see men who are mere mechanics, workingmen, even foreigners, become masters of great affairs and vast estates. That is why we have come here. So as not to be held back by requirements!"

The facades that we erect around us are many. The 'degrees' that we hold are even more numerous. If you have any confidence in the world, I wouldn't doubt you, like me, have faked it. Be it in a work setting, at home, or before an audience at a dinner party. We're trained fakers.

Unless you're willing to spend lots of money and time, sometimes the best education is living. It's getting involved. It's meeting new people, engaging. Learning through experience. I've found this is how I learn best and I'll never have a degree to show for it. After all, I'm a writer.

Togetherness

As I was sitting in my favorite spot the other day eating my favorite food and drinking my favorite drink I experienced a flood of short conversations I've had recently. Not the ones in my head, mind you, but rather chit chats with Mary, my Mom, Chad and, o.k., maybe a few from my head. I'll spare you the backstory that led me to this place, but all at once I realized I am enjoying a great sense of togetherness right now. Not that I don't normally, but it's always a good time to take stock in the many small and big graces I both enjoy and take for granted. And not that I'm 'happy' or 'carefree,' because words like that don't ever tell the story-no, it's more of a deep-seeded sense of togetherness.

I'll explain. Mary is getting her MBA right now and so the simpler life we enjoyed until September waved bye-bye, at least for Mary. But, this new challenge affords creative ways to spend time together. I had the privilege of putting together a short video for her last big group Organization Development presentation (no one else had a video in theirs) this past week. It wasn't a paying gig, but it was rich in time and creativity spent together.

This month is a month of celebration for Mary and I: both of our birthdays, our anniversary, Christmas, nephew birthdays, brother-in-law birthdays. Exhausting! And one of the joys is getting to eat and laugh and play games with our family. These precious times are here, right now, ripe for the picking. We're both so grateful for those in our family who encourage and challenge and love on us. It's a good day being together with family.

I get to meet my dear friend Chad at Starbucks every single week. We talk shallow, deep and anything in-between. We've been getting together every week for something like 6 years now.

Mary and I get to take Tabby to the 'parky' a lot this time of year and watch her frolick in the snow. She absolutely loves the snow and can't get enough. So, more Mary, Troy and Tabby time...together.

And today Mary and I celebrate 3 years of marriage together. She is the beautiful-inside-and-out woman who talks me through sleeplessness, pursues laughter, stays in shape (and keeps me in shape,) challenges herself, desires peace, lives a raw determination yet balances the chaos, spends time every single day being quiet and enjoying God, has became the loving adoptive mother of my doggy daughter, cherishes my family and so much more. Every day of being married holds new promise and I'm grateful to Mary for helping me see life in a way I never could have experienced it. I only hope I can be this for you, Mary.

At the end of the day-when I've given up on an unreturned e-mail, read one too many news stories, been disillusioned by empty promises-togetherness is a gift I can't hope to parse with words.

Expensive newspaper

It's four below zero in Burnsville this morning. We've got an ongoing battle with our 20 year old furnace that wants to keep puttering out and I've gone to bed several nights in the past two weeks of below-average temperatures thinking we may be frozen to the bed in the morning. Last night we were victorious once again. So, it's really cold here. But we've got nine inches of snow on the ground and it definitely feels like December should 'feel.'

I am sitting on the downstairs couch that looks out onto our small plot of back/sideyard with a view to the main road in front of our place. From my vantage point, I can see (an obviously crazy) person walking slowly on the street. I couldn't see what this person was doing until he got over the snowdrift that was blocking my view of him/her.

It was the humbly paid local newspaper delivery boy/old man. It's hard to tell how old anyone is after age 12 nowadays, especially so bundled up in layers in four below zero temps. But, as he slowly, slowly got closer, I could tell he was an older gentleman. With a beet-red face. And he was delivering the little local paper that I read maybe once a year because of someone I know in a story. It typically sits on our front step, two, three or four bi-weekly editions deep, collecting mold, until someone decides it's finally time for recycling.

I watched the man amble slowly-with his drop foot and shuffling gait, to the other townhouses on our street. It took a while-long enough to develop frostbite if you weren't very careful-to get to our place. I imagined why he must be doing this. The news must be delivered to the people! Or maybe the regular delivery guy was "sick" and he was a last-minute stand-in on this frozen day. Or maybe it was his only source of income as a retired person and he is supporting himself and his wife with it.

We're really good at being end-users. That neat little boxed-up term that means we don't have to do any of the grunt work, we just get to enjoy the final product. I get to savor a meal prepared by a middle-aged man on medication for depression-just barely holding his job. I get to wear clothes made by children who are forced by their parents to work 15-hour days. I get to experience life and freedom because someone who didn't have to gave their life.

There is a backstory to everything. I have an intense 'context' complex that (forces me or allows me) to see situations, attitudes, facial expressions, dialogue, etc. nestled in the context of the backstory, the history or special circumstances surrounding a person. It helps me to a better glimpse of why we are the way we are. We are so accustomed to seeing the tip of the iceberg, the head of the pin, that we often forget what went into getting to that place. I wonder if we stopped and considered the backstory more often we would hold our tongue, our thoughts, suspend our judgements more...just long enough to find the common ground in both of our contexts.

The CEO who has risen to the top of his/her field after 40 years in the industry. The alcoholic desperately trying to cover a life of disappointment. The single parent. The successful teacher. The car salesman. We all have backstories. The man with the makeshift cart delivering the community newspaper to a townhouse development on a crazy cold Saturday morning.

If for no other reason, I'm going to read that paper for the delivery boy and the painstaking effort I know he took to deliver it.

Specialness

Enlightenment.

My short blogging hiatus can be blamed on self-loathing and lots of learning. As anyone in America is vividly aware, the Christmas season has now been upon us for a little over 9 weeks. It's not even December and I've heard every Christmas song ever recorded at least 12 times. I would be frustrated at the overkill but for those entertaining little nuggets of sales information we affectionately call commercials.

I started to feel bad when I saw an intriguing spot about a guy getting a slew of white elephant gifts for Christmas. (I'm not in the habit of memorizing television spots if they don't have a catchy jingle, so I'm taking the liberty of summarizing here.) The guy got a wicked looking clock, some little trinkets and it was evident he simply wasn't enjoying a fruitful Christmas season. I mean, really, how could you? The man had probably been a good boy (40 years old or so) the whole entire year and then...what?! No good toys? Aw, nothing but a bunch of junk he'd have to return in long lines. But, just when you think his holiday is a bust, the jolly voiceover reminds us that we have it within our power to rectify others' shopping follies. We can get what we really, really want. Cut to serene and snowy picture of 3 brand new Lexus' perfectly gift-wrapped. And just as I was getting bummed with the guy for all the crappy stuff he got for gifts, my hopes were renewed when I realized that if I visit a Twin Cities Lexus dealer and give them $35,000 of my own money, I can have a good Christmas, too. Brought to you by the car company who engineered a self-parallel-parking series. Life would be easier if someone else did the parallel parking, you'd have to admit.

And then I learned something from Dodge. I guess they have figured out how to bring the family together. Again, a wonderful service brought to us by those kindly generous higher ups in the executive community. They have actually done their research and found, first of all, that the family nucleus in America has suffered. Perhaps a result of the video games or internet or headphones or constant DVD's playing as babysitters...I mean, who truly knows why the family in America has suffered? It would take at least ten minutes to figure that out. And I don't have that kind of time. Regardless, Dodge is making some headway in this area of familial reconciliation. The voiceover tells us that "Dodge is bringing the family together again..." And guess what they found brings the family together, no kidding? A minivan (that looks exactly as past models without increased safety features) that has, get this-headphones and DVD's playing and video games! Dodge actually found that those same distractions that have caused a healthy family nucleus to become less interactive actually reunites the American family. That is so cool. I can't wait to have kids so we can pop in a DVD, crank up the tunes and never talk to our children in the backseat. And then kick my feet up and watch the reuniting take place. Thank you, Dodge.

This holiday season, if you want your dignity questioned and your intelligence insulted, watch lots of commercials.

(The author does indeed, for research purposes, recommend taking one 15-minute span of television watching time with your family or friends to critically analyze the advertising genius of American capitalism--then come to your own conclusions.)

The Wistfully Whacked Out World of Disney

Saturday mornings I don't usually watch cartoons. But I turned on the TV Saturday morning (another thing I don't normally do) and found myself watching the Disney cartoon The Replacements. I'm not familiar with the show, but it was a scene about baseball, so I indulged for a few minutes and found myself critiquing everything I saw, which I usually DO do.

Here's the setup. The family: mom is Agent K, a beautiful blonde cartoon with a slim figure and British accent who "insists on trying to adapt her super-spy skills to parenting, with little success." Dad is Dick, an overstuffed stuntman and "Like Special Agent K, he has no experience parenting, but a total lack of knowledge has never stopped him from doing anything." Todd and Riley are the two stereotypical kids.

The situation: down by a run (or maybe they are tied), the kids have to score a run to win the game. I think Todd was at bat and I found myself intrigued by point 1.) The kids used a satellite contraption to steal the signs from the catcher as an advantage in hitting. The scene passed by so quickly without so much as a nod to the cheating, Disney must assume all teams have access to such technology and that they were in fact, playing by the rules.

With Todd cheating his way to first base, the plot thickened. Shelton, the potential winning run, a scrawny nerdy kid, made his way to the plate, terrified and knock-kneed. A couple of pitches went by and 'blam!' he was beaned by a fastball. The crowd went nuts as Shelton's beaning forced home the winning run. Ah yes! The little nerd wins it by taking one for the team.

The entire scene was less than 3 minutes but notice what I got from that short segment: 1.) Dad and Mom are less than adequate to parent (but look good), 2.) kids cheat to win and are celebrated and 3.) the little stick of a scapegoat kid gets nailed for the good of the team. I'm not a parent yet, but I'd have to worry about my kids watching this seemingly innocent little show that depicts parents who are inept but attractive, kids cheating and pre-pubescent boys getting hit by fastballs so the cool kids can win a game. Hmm...

Call me over-the-top analytical, but this miniscule act on the stage of unprecedented media intake should warn us that we need to question the value of what we watch. Are we ingesting TV, movies, games, etc that align with our values, beliefs and faith? Or are we settling for a digital babysitting box to breathe our society's flawed systems into us?

Ah, words.

These beautiful little building blocks of conversation. They hold the power to beat down, lift up, honor, discourage, confuse, portray and tell a story. Words are such a creative and wonderful gift with which to communicate. We can use them lazily or efficiently.

We think them, throw them at people (or in expletive cases, at inanimate objects), dream them, ponder them, learn from them, ignore them. We dissect them, analyze them, worry about them and, at times, receive our lifeblood from them.

And throw in the tone in which they're given or received, the attitude to which they're attached, and you've got a virtual smorgasbord of material to critique.

Words have changed nations, history, lives and self-esteems. And an individual letter can alter a meaning.

I just started reading Brendan by Frederick Buechner and found this nugget this morning...

Beg not, refuse not, she said. One step forward each day was the way to the Land of the Blessed. Don't eat till your stomach cries out. Don't sleep till you can't stay awake. Don't open your mouth till it's the truth opens it.

As we make our way through the days, my hope is that I will consider every
dotted 'i' and crossed 't' to mine the truth from the untruth.

Picture this...

So really this entry is more of a daily update. You need to see the picture to appreciate it, but I've got these industrial strength (studio-looking) headphones on to drown out the conference call Mary is on here in the Fig T home office. I'm having to crank up the volume because they are hitting the call pretty (loud) figuring out the group presentation for her Organizational Development class. (Did I mention she aced her first grad school class?)

Just as some people can only fall asleep while listening to music or with the TV on or can study with a movie and iPod blaring...I cannot listen to music with words (though Don Henley is now playing on my awesome 80's iTunes station) while writing. So, if this is an all-over-blog tonight, you'll know why. Blame it on Henley.

The real news (ala the Onion) is what's been going on with the Green Gronseth's. We have replaced some bulbs around the house with the mega-efficient, money-saving version. I replaced a ceiling light with one that uses 1 bulb rather than two. We're trying to drive smarter. But here's the (perhaps 'dumb' as one called it) kicker: we're competing (now within our household) to see how far into the cold weather we can go before turning on the furnace. We've seen lows of 23 a few nights in the last week. And we have thus far beaten old man winter.

In fact, both of us love the colder weather. Save for the cracked skin and 4 hours of daylight, we'd much rather freeze than boil. Truly we are both Minnesotans.

The lowest the temp has dipped inside is 61. Really not that bad when you light a few candles, cook with the oven (then leave the door open when finished) and wear layers.

Friendship

There's a lot to blog about these days and I'd be remiss if any more time passed without mentioning some special people in our lives. Lee and Davis Mitchell and their two beautiful children (Lewis pictured on right with Lee and Davis) and (Bo pictured on left with my wife Mary) are the kind of people you want to be associated with. Friendships are funny. There are people in my life who have come and gone during certain seasons of life (as I've come and gone from others' lives) and there are people who, as time passes, rise to the top as unique people on the journey I need in my life, those with whom I cherish the painstaking efforts of long-term friendship-building. Lee and I met 13 years ago when we were both on our first Young Life camp trip as adult volunteer leaders. Wide-eyed and terrified, we endured, nay, thrived, during the week with kids and following became pen pals. There, I said it, we were pen pals. This was before e-mail came onto the scene and cell phones were consumer priced. We had an excuse. Over the last 13 years our lives have in many ways mirrored each other with similar life experiences, shared experiences and now the great joy of having our wives begin a friendship.

Last month we had the privilege of joining them at the Mitchell family "cottage" on Sea Island. Before we got there, Davis asked us what our favorite color was. "Blue" was our reply and when we got there, we were greeted by blue balloons and got to stay in the blue colored master suite (they're all master suites, let it be known. There was truly nothing 'cottagey' about it). It was a relaxing 5 days of beach walks, food, sweet laughing kids, southern caviar (thanks Davis!) and rich conversation. I mean, hey, if you're going to build deep friendships, why not at the beach? We're so grateful to have had this time to be together.

To me it is a picture of perseverance and consistency. We've put the building blocks of faith, grace and honesty at the forefront and have seen, even through 'slow' periods of life and friendship, the harvest reaped from such a commitment. Thank God for friends and family we get to share life with. This is really what it all boils down to for me-my and Mary's life intertwined with family and friends whose arms we hold up and who hold our arms through the highest highs and the lowest lows.

Davis recently started a blog (got me blogging again) and you'll have to check it out here. Beautiful stories and pics of their family...

Anybody home?

Last night Mary and I took our dog Tabby for a walk. We're pretty good about getting Tab exercise everyday (weather pending), so it is really part of our routine. We have a little regiment that involves me getting Tabby ready (harness and leash on) and Mary getting the house ready (locking the front door and turning on the front light if it's dark). It was already dark, so we turned the light on and took off down the road.

It was only six o'clock, but in our neighborhood we don't typically have many trick or treaters, and last night was, obviously, Halloween.

The walk was fine: Tabby sniffing at and peeing on things, letting the world know she owns Evergreen Drive. When we turned back onto our road, however, we ran into a dilemma. As we approached our place, two tiny trick or treaters accompanied by adults were slowly walking up our drive. Oh no! We left our light on-and on Halloween, in a neighborhood like ours, an outside light signals candy. The scene turned slow motion. We looked at each other.

"Go up to them and aplogize that we left our light on and that we don't have any candy," I whispered to Mary.

"Run up ahead of them and find some candy in the house," she whispered back.

It was dark, but Mary was sure that the candy collectors recognized us and our dog and that we lived in the lit place they were approaching.

We snapped looks back and forth to each other. Walking. Whispered 'what should we do's?' back and forth. Still walking. Approaching...

And at that moment we made the decision. We did what any sorry hosts without candy would have done. Maybe. We kept right on walking. Past our house, down the street and out of sight.

So, our apologies go out to the little princess and Yoda who took tiny little steps, with high hopes that they would hit the sugar jackpot. We're still wondering how the parents broke the news when nobody answered our door.

We'll be sure to turn our lights OFF next year.

Slow Doughnut Weather

I have to come clean and pronounce that I am a doughnut-aholic. I'm admittedly out of my rhythm when I don't start my day with one (or two) and a cup of coffee. It's been a long time in the forming, but I do enjoy my little routine of driving down the street to Byerly's, bantering with Judy over 'the game' and getting my glazed old-fashioned doughnut(s) to go. I start brewing the coffee before I leave so that's it's ready when I get home.

And I'd have to say that over several years I have discovered a science to eating doughnuts. Especially when I have two. And let's just say for the sake of argument that I always have two. There is a strong tendency to devour the first one, making my way into the second almost without noticing the first. I'll have a book in one hand, cup of coffee in another and donut in the third. With the multi-tasking going on, I've found myself halfway into the second without even realizing it. I grasped that not only was this a cherished short time to enjoy the morning, but in breezing through doughnut 1, I'd miss the taste, the texture, the mysterious combination of bitter coffee and the sugar of the doughnut. So I had to consciously change my approach.

I started going slow with doughnut 1. I'd take a bite, sip coffee and let the two dance together for a moment. I'd read a paragraph and then repeat. The philosophy is pretty simple: if you're going to eat something other than fruits or vegetables, something that doesn't have a lot of nutritional value, at least enjoy it! It's like snarfing a Big Mac (which, truthfully, I haven't had in years). What a waste.

In slowing the process down, I experienced more. I felt the rigid contours of fried and frosted deliciousness, I saw the spirals of steam wafting from the coffee, I experieced the clashing of the complementary solid and liquid. I got more out of this little ritual.

This past week in Minneapolis has been breathtaking. It's a particular week of the year that I want to bottle. There is a strong tendency (usually when I'm walking our dog Tabby) to get the job done, mission accomplished, snarf the doughnut. Walk to the end of Evergreen and back, get the dog exercised. But this week in particular I looked up, around, behind me. I witnessed a glowing full moon, a sky painted with pink and magenta, trees that bounced orange and yellow from its leaves. The crisp, quiet air only added to the wonder of the scene. I took the mural in with my nose, my eyes, my ears and it was so delicious.

The days keep moving faster. I can't get this morning's ritual back. I can't get back the walk last evening. I can only move slower, breathe more, taste more...be present more. Allow the weight, the tension, the joy, the sorrow of each moment to be a gift shared with God. I can choose to feel an airy sunset on my face, to slow down my words, soak in smiles and conversations, enjoy being closer to to who I am supposed to be.

Back at it

It has taken watching the blogging efforts of friends to inspire me to get back, but here am I! And I'm fresh off watching game 2 of the World Series last night with a little commentary on how ridiculous Fox sports has become...

Anyone who has diligently watched games 1 and 2 has observed (likely an annoying observance) that a certain national Mexican restaurant chain has offered to give everyone in America a free taco when and if someone steals a base in a World Series game. Fine and dandy. But, leave it to Fox to create the hype and give millions in free advertising to the aforementioned taco establishment. It's what we've become...a free-talking, free advertising nation of money-driven execs who want little more than to pad their pocketbooks and drive consumers to a Grade D meat-filled diet.

But, it's nothing new. Janet got millions of free advertising in giving up self-dignity when she lost her top during the Super Bowl. Britney gets countless hours of free publicity from the press and entertainment media when she makes poor parenting decisions. On and on the list goes of goofs who attract attention by making stupid decisions. And the media continues to feed the beast with...free tacos.

I hope Joe Buck is getting some payoff for his valiant advertising effort for the many detours he took viewers through during games 1 and 2. We don't want to hear about free tacos. We wanted simply to watch the game with some colorful commentary on America's favorite pasttime. We don't want to hear the CEO of already-mentioned-chain-restaurant tell America they're doing it for their customers. And we certainly don't want...your free taco.

Another small example of America's lust for money, publicity and a free lunch.

I'm wondering if next game they'll make a dozen pitches for an antacid.

Yep, I'm back.

Chapter four in A Room Called Remember (Buechner, read more here) is written on hope and the role the church plays in a rather hope-forlorn culture. As God told Moses, the ground he was standing on was holy, set apart. The general premise of the chapter was that awkward, unsure and faithless as we western church-goers are, there are reasons that we continue to go back on Sunday mornings: in hope that we will see, hear, taste, feel or smell God in that place set apart.

I thought of the service we attended yesterday. A few rows in front of us sat a woman with special needs. That’s how ignorant I am: I can only say that she had needs others sitting around her didn’t have. I would guess her to have been 35 years old, and it appeared that her mother or a caregiver sat in the pew behind her.

It was confirmation Sunday, and unless you think high school kids great, which by great fortune I do, you might have thought yesterday at church to be one of few during the year God doesn’t take roll call.

The service, led by the youth pastor, was a barrage of contemporary music, kids sharing their testimonies about how their beloved pastor pointed them in the way of God and they can’t now fathom how they would ever have become a Christian if not for the youth guy and confirmation.

And as it often unfolds for me, the message wasn’t spoken from the pulpit. It was communicated in disruption.

The woman a few rows in front of us was swaying a lot during the music. Her right leg seemed to want to walk out of her socket, but she wasn’t going anywhere. She was clapping, if I remember it right. When it was time to sit down, she sat like everyone else. But she was jittery. At a couple of, what most in the church would have deemed inopportune times, she clapped, sort of like someone trying to start a clap, or the wave, except that she could have cared less if anyone joined. She started clapping, almost wildly, as if she might even stand and start bucking her arms wildly.

A nanosecond into the inappropriate clap, the woman in the row behind her put her hand on the clapper’s shoulder. She diligently obeyed, and the service went relatively uninterrupted. The younger woman’s enthusiasm didn’t wane, though. I could see that she wanted to clap again and again and then another time during the service. She was almost beside herself with something like giddiness. It was an enthusiasm that was contagious, at least in my head.

I found myself wishing I was more like her. And maybe that’s something the church in my town is missing: more of us with special needs, clapping wildly for our God simply because we can. Because we have beheld Him in a sanctuary, or heard him in a cool new song led by a hip youth pastor, or felt Him brushing against us in a too-packed pew. There are more reasons than breaths to sway our hips, clap our hands and cheer for our Creator.

We don’t need reasons really, to clap for God, to get excited, to show a little enthusiasm. Acknowledging my past and embracing my future and new name should be enough to get me going. And maybe watching this woman clap for God moved others to look for God not only on confirmation Sunday, but in other holy places.

The Shopping Cart

It doesn’t take long, really, for man to recognize the stark difference in the way we think from that of our female counterparts. A clear example shone its revealing glory at Target the other day. On these trips, the ones I would rather forego to sweep the garage or plunge a toilet, I am given a mission. It’s a small mission I’m trusted with, one that doesn’t require a lot of responsibility, but a mission nonetheless. During the few months I’ve been married, the mission usually means gathering two or three peripheral items from the grocery department. These are the ones that, if forgotten, won’t force meal rescheduling. Gatorade, coffee creamer and chips are peripheral items.

It was in my mission-minded state that I returned, beaming, with my items collected and deposited into the cart. Looking at the cart, in horror, my wife began hastily rearranging the fruit in the shopping cart then the bread and the vegetables. Why wouldn’t you put the fruit together and the boxed and heavy things toward the back? She wasn’t making a lot of sense to me at that moment, because, didn’t you see, honey, I just completed my mission? I got each of the three items you requested. And I didn’t break a thing. Seeeeaahh?

The next week I thought I would live out some of my own personal creativity. We both had the oil changed in our cars late in the afternoon. It was a one-man operation, so changing both of our cars out took no less than 6 hours. After filling my wife’s car with gas, I brought it around the side of the station for a wash. It was automated and still open despite the closed service station. Pulling out of the wash and driving home, I called Mary in a panic. Honey, I said with anxiety in my voice. Honey, I’m stuck in the car wash. They closed the station while I was in the middle of the wash, and the doors are locked! What? What?! Her puzzled and concerned response was moving. I said again I was stuck and needed her to call the police and get someone over. Are you serious? She always asks that. Well, no. Ha ha, honey, I’ll be home in five minutes. I laughed hysterically the whole way home.

Rearranging the shopping cart. Could anything be more clear and straightforward? Why would anyone in their right mind put a box of graham crackers on top of a bag of pears as I did that day? Men just don’t get it sometimes. We two sexes are different. Gifted in different ways and very different.

That is the artistry and wonder of God’s creative sixth day.

Layers

It seems I build my life in layers. I’m looking out the window at two of mine in the parking lot: a Jeep and a bike rack. Both define a little of who I am, I suppose, and both nag, in our society of images, that I keep up with what it means to tote a bike rack on the back of an SUV.

The SUV connotes several things. First, that I am a rugged outdoorsman whose demanding lifestyle requires a demandable car. Yeah. I could be a wildlife photographer and need to drive through impassable terrain that I could not possibly traverse with a Hyundai or Ford Fiesta. It might mean that I am a diehard off-road enthusiast, my life existing as a non-stop mudding adventure. Um-hmm. The self-conscious dude in the equally appropriate Cadillac SUV at the stoplight next to me might think I live on a dirt road that winds through overgrown forest with the tendency to morph into watery muck after a hard rain. Nope, nope and nope. And the one time I took my Jeep off of the road, to turn around, I was afraid of scratching the paint.

The bike rack brings a whole different set of expectations. I am a Lance Armstrong wanna-be, have a hidden desire to ride in a Tour de Something, or actually might, just might, intentionally tote my bike to ride it somewhere, because the road across town is better than the one in front of my house.

These are two of scores of ‘layers’ in my life. Consider a hand full of cards in a spoons game. The more of them I have in my hand, the farther I am from winning and yes, grabbing the spoon.

What is the point in our colossal game of spoons? I think it is to grab hold of the Eternal Spoon, God. It is to grab hold of Life and dance wildly. If my hand is full of these layers, these cards carelessly fumbling around in these uncoordinated hands, picking up spoons and dancing with them is not an option.

In 2 Samuel 6, David danced naked before God. He wasn’t carrying a bike rack, or listening to an i-Pod or wearing Nike Air sneakers. He was just naked. Raw. In the buff. He didn’t try to manage a hand of cards, or an elaborate portfolio or an all-star athlete image. He wanted to know and be known, to praise Jehovah with his full self.

The layers are just so addictive! The more I have surrounding my true heart, the less time I have to look at what my soul has become, or is becoming. It is simply easier to fix a boat or home theatre system or tile a bathroom than it is to sit down and have a long, intimate visit with God and my soul.

Layers. Call them distractions, barriers, even separation. Stripped bare, of all that this delusional world has to offer, how about following in David's footsteps? Not dancing naked in a perverted way, but in a desire to know and be fully known by our Creator. We were created to be naked, right?

What do you say to letting go of a layer? Dance. Dance wild and naked in honor of the One who loves your soul.

On Writing

But I (write) about my life anyway because, on the one hand, hardly anything could be less important, on the other hand, hardly anything could be more important. My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually. (Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets)

You can check out a long clip of a new documentary on Buechner here

I write with a story in mind. Mine is the autobiography of a selfish, occasionally selfless, thinking, analyzing, sometimes secure, sometimes terribly insecure, self-proclaimed observer of life, hopeless romantic, searching man of meager faith. I have a story to tell, and it is the one borrowed to me. On this side of a life as writer, I don’t know if my story will jolt anyone but me-and it has done that if I quit today-but I know that I need to scribble my part, nevertheless. It’s a strange place to be: energized by the clicking of a keyboard, watching letters dance onto the screen in such a way as to make any good sense to the reader that they would continue reading and even, even take from it a morsel to eat. And so in the only way I yet know how, this is the answer to the question that has plagued what I would call my rookie writing year: what is left to write? If there is nothing, then there is my story. And, it’s not important because it is mine, but maybe you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.

For me, writing has a direct correlation to reading. Engaging with a book is opening to a safe vulnerability with its author, sopping the drops of wisdom wine with my soul bread. Excellent writing bridles my heart nearer to the flame of God, closer to the life I was meant to live, a deeper, richer experience of earthly years. Both reading and writing give me the opportunity to commune with the church in marvelously unique ways.

The writer of Hebrews says that the word of God is living and active, and I believe the writing of men and women God-seekers is similar. In this silent community where voices are loud and soft, weak and strong, we (writers and readers alike) offer fragile thoughts and faulty pretenses and one-sided opinions to another faithful or faithless for a sitting, bantering in that conscience place where daydreaming and decisions are made, a place made welcome to the warmth of God's Spirit. We commune in this place where it is safe to poke around with intellectual sticks at the profound.

Reading and writing opens doors. A hypnotizing novel offers a place of fantastic living, a place other than ours to live if only for hours. Reading gives us solace and comfort and sanity in recognizing a heart that has gone astray, a way for us to fully grasp that we are not alone in this marathon. Both reading and writing are a great source of laughter as we prod our own memories and share others’ in a step back to look at lighter living. It is a community of interaction.

I have excavated profound wisdom from books on the writing life. Enamored by the practices and habits and patterns of writers, these lives seem to leap off the pages at me and usher my nonsense to sense. I seem to have found my way into a fraternity to which I’m only now rushing. A giddy schoolboy, I gobble the wisdom and insight, snarfing the clues to successful writing. My back straightens, my eyes wide, I sit on the edge of my seat for a hushed voice to give me holy wisdom on the writing life. Sssh, the author is about to reveal hidden secrets! Read and write. Read and write. Read and write. Some say it with eloquent reverence, and others, like Anne Lamott, say it with a raw spiritualism, “For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” This is actually the third draft of this piece, Lamott would be proud.

It is in the third and fourth draft, searching for the right words, throwing and retracting thoughts and phrases that the writer is the ringmaster in a circus of word acrobats. Again, Buechner,

You sit down at your desk in front of your typewriter, or if, like me, you don’t use a desk and a typewriter, you sit down wherever you sit down with a pad of paper in your lap and a pen in your hand. Is it a book you are going to write, or a letter to a friend, or a diary, if you keep one? Or are you sitting down not to write anything at all, maybe, but just to think, to remember, or just to pray, maybe which is another kind of thinking, another way of remembering? Whichever it is you sit down to, the process is much the same. Writing, thinking, remembering, praying-you need words for all of them. Words are put together from letters, all twenty-six of them. So the alphabet is your instrument. Everything you have it in you to say must be said by means of A’s and B’s and C’s and D’s. By means of vowels and consonants, you must put together the best words you can-words that, if possible, not only mean something but evoke something, call something forth from the person you address with your words. Christ himself both spoke such a word and was such a word.

Using words as acrobats, we fling them to, toss them at, the screen, the pad of paper, and see if their choreography elicits a response. Do the limber and elusive and tumbling words chosen form a cohesive production to draw us one step further? Is the formation molded in such a way as to wrap our understanding around it, fingering the grooves, recognizing its shape, holding it in the very palms that we thrust to the sky in misunderstanding? If so, I have done my job, I have succeeded. If it is Tom Foolery, I will scrap it. I will try again.

There is limitation in writing. Take the word ‘blessing.’ A thesaurus might suggest the following as appropriate synonyms: absolution, baptism, benediction, benison, commendation, consecration, dedication, divine sanction, grace, invocation, thanks, thanksgiving, unction. Still, can we truly fathom the astounding value and significance of a blessing from God? We are limited to 26 letters of an alphabet to piece together what we can of the concept of blessing. There will come a time, however, when the experience will no longer be limited. True recognition of God’s blessing will burst our hearts in a way words have never done.

Until then, I will try to be faithful. I will write as I know and learn and practice. I will get better and closer to the real meanings of things. Still, I won’t reach that place where words are rendered useless, though I long for that time.

The Big Game

The big game. A bunch of oversized men on illegal muscle stimulants. Bats cracking and helmets smashing. A gaggle of mid-twenties guys in tight pants, spitting and packing chew. The big game is approaching. It’s still weeks away, but you can tell it is getting closer. The grocery stores tell us: a spinnable tower of useless sports rousers grace each entry. Every radio and television station gives countless hours of coverage to everyone from the coach to the guy who cleans up that spat and packed chew.

The questions are always the same, Who’s dominating this year? How do you guys feel going into the big game? What are you doing to prepare? And the answers are just as high and philosophic: 1.) we are 2.) confident and 3.) focusing on the game. Same answers every single time. There is no change in the way they answer the same monotonous inquiries. It is simply a different player in a different jersey on a different day.

The frenzied hysteria approaching the big game is worth millions and millions of dollars in advertising, television airtime, big game paraphernalia, not to mention the tickets themselves. Which, of course, depends on the tickets you are referring to: the pre-game, game or post-game festivities.

Just think how much better off we are investing so much into the big game. I cannot remember which teams played last year. But I can tell you what I ate that night. I cannot tell you if T.O. was reinjured, but I could tell you at who’s house we were watching him. I will not be able to recall the score, but I will jump up and exclaim it was ME! who scored a triple Yahtzee during halftime.

It is not so much the big game that we crave, rather the anticipation buried beneath the drone of computers and too-long workdays and our own boredom. In the anticipation, we find others also gathered helplessly hoping for camaraderie, community and connectedness. It is refreshing to have a delicate pat on the bottom in the spirit of anticipation.

Hey Mr. Overpaid sports guy? It does not matter who wins. The world does not depend on the spread. We forget the scores tomorrow. We only care that there is a game. The significant event comes in laughing around a bowl of chips, sending e-mails to the gang about Chris falling into the coffee table while re-enacting the big catch and the heart-to-heart in the other room that had nothing to do with any game anywhere.

The big game simply reveals our natural need to be together. If it were not the big game, it would have to be something. All kinds of people, some with criminal backgrounds, some with sordid sexual histories, they all gather around the big game. Perhaps a birth or a wedding or an out-of-this-world baby in a manger. Something.

It stirs us to rally. It gets us to stand behind something. It gets some to just stand.

Let me help you find your seat...

I read in the signing-on process for this Blogger, that you never know what will happen next. I'm not sure what happened first that I should end up in some outfield writing a blog. I only hope that in some way, somehow, my small voice in the vast choir of the web is one that sings. I don't know what will go on here. I don't even know what Blog stands for, so give me a little time. Until then let's put our feet up, grab a strong cup of coffee, and observe the view from the outfield...