It's been far too long since I've posted, I know.
This is just a quick note to inform you of the upcoming '06 book list. I've got a couple I plan to finish before the new year begins. Either way, there are almost 30 books I read in 2006, and you'll be able to get a quick review here on Negatives very soon.
If you haven't yet read last year's list click here to peruse the reviews posted back in January.
j
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Eruditionis
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes
“Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.”
- Bertrand Russell
“In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.”
- Franz Lebowitz
“Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.”
- George Bernard Shaw
“Fascism is capitalism plus murder.”
- Upton Sinclair
“This American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you will, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.”
- Al Capone
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Mas jugo, por favor
I reminisce about the smallest things sometimes.
Yesterday, I made breakfast for Karen since it was her first day off in quite a while. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just a warm bowl of maple-sugar oatmeal, some cinnamon toast, a juice-glass of grape juice (she likes it), and a juice glass of chocolate milk. I had it all laid out on the dining room table on a gold-colored place mat which lie adjacent to my own on which was my bowl of Cheerios and some cinnamon toast. I drank coffee.
As I was preparing the whole thing, I got to thinking about how Karen laughs at some of the necessary food combinations I make. By “necessary” I mean that it is imperative to me that certain foods be served together. I can’t fathom fish sticks without macaroni and cheese. It’s like shoes and socks to me; there’s no point in separating them, it’ll just give you blisters. I don’t understand pizza without chips and cheese dip. I know it’s a mixture of cultural cuisines, but it still makes all kinds of sense to me. Grilled cheese sandwiches have been married to bowls of tomato soup for longer than I’ve been living. Oreos need milk. Ice cream is unbearable without a cup of water. These things just go together for me.
I was smiling yesterday morning because I couldn’t grasp a lone juice glass on a breakfast spread. Mom always had two for us (my brother and me). I figure it was a plot to get us to drink at least one of the liquids set before us because I do remember a stipulation of going through one to get to another, or not being able to vacate the premises until both glasses’ contents were emptied of all but backwash.
Karen didn’t say anything about my having provided her with two drinks. In fact, she guzzled them both and appreciated my loving, ante meridiem gesture. Either way, however, I remembered and smiled.
It’s funny how your mind can be therapy enough; especially with a great family.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Barbarian Arbors
Fall is blowing in now.
Leaves fall.
I pray.
One particular season may not manifest itself as the finest ever experienced, but it has to have its time. It has to do what it does. Then it will leave and another will replace it. And it’s in the midst of the change that the natural skirmish renders man helpless to its effects. Hopeless for any chance to reverse its effects and become what it once was. It’ll have its chance again next year.
Under this hickory, I can hear the wind whisper where it’s been. I never hear it say where it’s going. Mindless gibberish filled with erratic fluctuations in pitch fill the air as the branches interpret what I never could have heard without them. And, I wait.
I wait to hear if the wind ever speaks of me.
My questions are many and people have been no help. Surely in this ever-repeating cycle the wind has learned something or seen another like me.
So, I listen.
Nothing.
It probably couldn’t have known the difference between cheeks like mine and mine. I’m troubled by things that do not torment the wind.
Monday, September 11, 2006
American Idol Update
Well, it was a fun run!
Here’s how the weekend went:
Karen and I arrived in Jackson, Tennessee, on Friday evening in time to eat supper at Los Portales with David, Pam, B & B, Mom, Bill Baldy, and little Gary Roeder (Kevin and Holly’s son). I do believe that I must eat Mexican food 3 – 5 times a week in order to function correctly!
We left and enjoyed a stroll at Wal-Mart and a reminiscent drive through Henderson talking about houses we’d either lived in or liked. At the Lynch home we enjoyed cookies and home movies, and then drove to Casey and April’s to say hello.
When we woke on Saturday, I had no idea that we had slept until almost 10 a.m.! The bed was so comfortable, the room was dark because it was on the western side of the house, and it was slightly overcast. I think we could have slept longer!
After morning hugs and hellos I received a peculiar admonition from Mom: “When you see the car, son, remember that this is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ event for us, too.”
With eyebrows raised I stepped to the storm-door and beheld a beautifully vandalized mini-van. “Beale Street or Bust!”, “Alabama Idol on Board!”, and “I Love Joey” are the only phrases I can remember that were written on the windows in window-paint white though there were a few more. I knew then the hopes I’d had of keeping this thing low-key were A.W.O.L. and most likely would not return.
Pam had stayed up the night before making a wonderful breakfast casserole and a cheese dish that begged you to have seconds. Karen and I enjoyed the meal while reading the large poster board signs boasting that I was my family’s American Idol and how much they loved me. It was all so overwhelming.
Before we loaded up in the “limo’” (Pam’s van), Candice, Thomas, April, Casey, Colby, and Gabby all stopped by to wish me luck and pass out hugs and encouragement. I know we can’t afford it right now, nor do we have the time, but seeing all those sweet babies makes me look at my beautiful wife with visions of little versions of ourselves.
After Mom played a couple of my songs on the van’s CD-player, we took pictures and took off.
Cars on all sides of us from Henderson to the Peabody honked, waved, smiled, and broke their necks attempting to read the van’s exclamations. The passing strangers had no idea that their ogling excited us as much as anything we’d experienced so far.
When we finally arrived at the Peabody, mom directed Pam to drive into the hotel’s parking deck where we were stopped by guards.
“This lot is only for people with reservations,” the black lady stated (I think she’s quite proud of her job). “Do you have reservations?”
“Yes,” mom replied, “Mustain.”
“Debra?” the lady said after a second of looking through her long list of the privileged.
“Yes.”
“Of course, go through this gate and . . .”
It felt good. Our family has been on a lot of lists, but this is one of the first times I can recall being on an exclusive list of people who were staying at the nicest hotel in the entire city of Memphis. My parents are wonderful!
Once we parked, I began to anticipate looking a little strange. You see, we’d packed in normal luggage for the most part (there were a couple Big Star sacks floating around, though they were not the rule), but one thing stuck out like a Bentley at a Waffle House – a shiny, gray and white, 20” box fan; the staple of any sleeping member of my family. We were about to walk in to the posh and historic Peabody Hotel with a box fan. It was awesome!
We settled in to the room, drank the complimentary water, executed the token running leap onto the bed, and rested. Lulled by the melodious tones of Fred Sanford on the TV, we must have napped for about an hour before we decided to try to see the famous "March of the Ducks" and hit the town.
It was far too crowded to actually see the ducks. In truth, we missed them, but we can at least say that we were present.
We stepped out of the hotel onto Grand Avenue and were met by a cavalry of carriages and a tidal wave of the sweet smell of ribs and Bar-B-Q, the natural aroma of the Memphis air. After promising a carriage owner that we would return to take him up on his offer, we hiked to Beale Street to take in the Blues culture.
We walked a few city blocks and stumbled upon the legendary thoroughfare in all its music, food, and wanderers. Quite a crowd had already gathered. We passed a man creating dream-like scenes of fantasy using only spray-paint. Guitars, singing, drums, laughter. The undulating crowd was going everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Hunger pangs dictated our next destination: The Hard Rock Café.
At the foot of boots worn and signed by Rufus Thomas and to the right of a shirt worn by Adam Levine of Maroon 5, we enjoyed our meal (I had nachos, of course) and watched Tennessee whip California (yee-haw!), and heard about the Braves hard loss to the Phillies (grr! What a frustrating season this has been!).
We left full and walked to Coyote Ugly so Pam and Mom could have their picture taken in front of the sign like the rebels they are, then headed back to the hotel and mounted a white carriage decorated with Christmas lights, tinsel, and patriotically themed ornaments. Memaw, you would have loved it.
The night air was perfect. The breeze danced on our faces and the sights flirted with our minds as we gazed upon the beautiful parks and architecture of the city.
We returned to the hotel to see everything we’d just seen one more time, but this time from above on the roof of the Peabody. The elevator took us to the floor marked “S” which held the Duck Palace and one of the most spectacular views of the nighttime skyline.
After pictures and phone calls, we retired to the room, played a couple hands of Texas Hold ‘Em, and began to prepare for the morning.
. . .
The prize for the Alabama Idol competition was nice, but I didn’t like it at first. I thought that the winner got a guaranteed audition with Paula, Simon, and Randy, but we found out that it was actually a “Fast-Pass” of sorts. I was a bit disappointed, and it wasn’t until this past weekend that I realized how valuable it actually was.
In Birmingham, Karen and I waited in the registration line from 4:30 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. We returned to the audition line two days later at 5:00 a.m. and weren’t seated in the BJCC until almost 9:00 a.m. By the time I auditioned that day, we had collected almost 8 hours of waiting in line! Not so in Memphis. Thanks, Alabama Idol!
I didn’t have to be at the FedExForum until 7:00 a.m. on Sunday, and since Mom and Dad got such a great hotel, we only had about a 5 minute walk to get there. I think I finally fell out of bed around 5:45 or 6:00 a.m. on Sunday the 3rd. After a quick shower and a shave (my head), we walked out the door and Mom and I arrived at the venue about ten minutes early.
The line was magnificent! They said it was the biggest audition turn-out this season at almost 16,000 contestants! You can double that since everyone was allowed to bring in one guest. At the time of audition, I was on the floor surrounded by well over 30,000 people. My quote in the Jackson Sun was accurate – it was quite unnerving!
Mom and I were taken inside the doors to the lobby well before the line was allowed to enter. We were among several who had won similar prizes from affiliate stations in other states.
It was here that we found that we weren’t totally exempt from waiting. In the lobby we waited for about 3 hours or so before we were taken below to the floor of the arena, but 3 hours versus 8? We’ll take 3 any day of the week!
Karen, Pam, B & B faithfully waited outside in their fold-out chairs holding their signs and watching the crowd of strangers, hopefuls, and weirdoes pass into the future. Karen and I called each other several times and passed love signals through the window from a distance, and after the crowd had waned they packed up and went back to the hotel to catch a few more moments in their heavenly beds.
Mom and I were eventually called about 10:00 or 10:30 a.m. to the corridor that took us down below. She had to leave me since the guests weren’t allowed to go where we were going. After hugs and encouragement she returned to the lobby and snuck in the arena to watch from above.
I waited in another little line before walking on the floor to audition, and then we lined up to sing.
There were 14 tables lined up with black, cloth-curtain dividers between each. Two judges sat at each table and four people lined up in front. At any given time there were 96 people auditioning, fourteen people singing, and 30,000+ people in the seats talking, singing, shouting, laughing, cheering, and waiting. That’s quite an obstacle.
It was then that I realized something I’d not thought before: the producers are not looking for great singers at this point in the auditioning! They can’t be! You can’t hear whether or not they can sing. Instead, they’re looking for personalities. “Will this person standing before me, whom I cannot hear, make a good show if the television is on and the sound is muted or there’s too much going on in the room to hear the music?”
Six people sang before me then I was up. I sang my song, Eric Benet’s version of the Kansas song “Dust in the Wind,” and she, the judge, stopped me to go to the next person. I thought I had failed again, and that was okay with me, but then she sparked a moment’s hope that I hadn’t anticipated. She asked me to sing a second song! I perked up with the bridge of Brian McKnight’s “Back at One” and tried to sing my heart out. She stopped me.
I did my best. I wasn’t chosen. That is 100% of all I can do, and I am satisfied.
. . .
I left the arena, found Mom, who already knew, and we marched our recessional to the sounds of phone calls all around us. People were calling home, friends, and spouses telling of their fate. I was no different. I called Karen who consoled me so sweetly. We called Dad and Shane who did the same. And we walked.
We entered the hotel just in time to see everyone leaving the scene of the ducks marching. We’d missed it twice. It’s okay.
When the elevator opened on the tenth floor, the girls were ready and waiting with the luggage and the fan. Hugs and consolation ensued and I appreciated every bit of it. It’s wonderful how something as simple as a hug can be so warm and perfect when you need it (and even when you don’t).
Karen held me a while and we all walked onto the elevator speaking of how we’d not be watching the show this year and how mad the whole process made us, but really, I was fine.
We loaded up, made a quick stop at Graceland to take a couple pictures and see the spoils of fame, then went to The Olive Garden to enjoy some grease, cheese, bread, and fat. It was almost as comforting as the hugs.
Most of the van slept on the way home. We were worn out mentally and physically. Poor Pam was just tired as any of us, but she had to drive. Thanks, Pam!
Back at the Lynch house in Henderson we sat on the couches and talked and watched some video footage of the weekend. The news showed some of the Memphis auditions, but the reporters were far more excited about it than we were. It was great, but we were beginning to realize that it would have still been one of the most memorable weekends of our lives had we re-done everything and deleted the auditions. Well . . . maybe not.
We held a devotional in the living room and took communion. That was wonderful. I love to worship with my family. Then we finished the weekend together almost exactly as it began – at a Mexican restaurant. We watched UK fall hard at the feet of Louisville, heard that the Braves had beaten the Phillies, and relived the weekend while smiling at acquaintances who came to eat there as well.
Afterward, we left for Casey and April’s to drown our sorrow in Texas Hold ‘Em and Oreo Cookies.
Karen and I left Henderson around 10:30 p.m. to head home. We sang, talked about the weekend, planned for the future and stared at the headlight-lit pavement as it slid beneath us like a treadmill. We marveled each time we saw deer by the road. We saw almost twenty by the time we had lain our heads on our pillows.
In one weekend’s time, I realized that I was a celebrity to my family. I didn’t need some desperate show to validate myself (though I don’t guess I would have turned it down). I was valid. I am valid. I come from years upon years of faithful Christians, solid marriages, loving households, and fine citizens. We celebrate birthdays and holidays together, and since Heaven is more wonderful than we can comprehend, then we’ll surely celebrate the day we all walk in together. And you’d better believe that one of us will be toting a box fan!
I needed all of you to find out what I needed for eternity in a wife and that’s how I knew Karen was who I needed for the rest of my life. She has been and always will be the most incredible answer to my family’s and my prayers.
I am not worthy of any of this, but I vow to you all and to God to live the rest of my life in gratitude for it.
Thank you for all of your prayers and support. I am among all men most blessed.
Here’s how the weekend went:
Karen and I arrived in Jackson, Tennessee, on Friday evening in time to eat supper at Los Portales with David, Pam, B & B, Mom, Bill Baldy, and little Gary Roeder (Kevin and Holly’s son). I do believe that I must eat Mexican food 3 – 5 times a week in order to function correctly!
We left and enjoyed a stroll at Wal-Mart and a reminiscent drive through Henderson talking about houses we’d either lived in or liked. At the Lynch home we enjoyed cookies and home movies, and then drove to Casey and April’s to say hello.
When we woke on Saturday, I had no idea that we had slept until almost 10 a.m.! The bed was so comfortable, the room was dark because it was on the western side of the house, and it was slightly overcast. I think we could have slept longer!
After morning hugs and hellos I received a peculiar admonition from Mom: “When you see the car, son, remember that this is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ event for us, too.”
With eyebrows raised I stepped to the storm-door and beheld a beautifully vandalized mini-van. “Beale Street or Bust!”, “Alabama Idol on Board!”, and “I Love Joey” are the only phrases I can remember that were written on the windows in window-paint white though there were a few more. I knew then the hopes I’d had of keeping this thing low-key were A.W.O.L. and most likely would not return.
Pam had stayed up the night before making a wonderful breakfast casserole and a cheese dish that begged you to have seconds. Karen and I enjoyed the meal while reading the large poster board signs boasting that I was my family’s American Idol and how much they loved me. It was all so overwhelming.
Before we loaded up in the “limo’” (Pam’s van), Candice, Thomas, April, Casey, Colby, and Gabby all stopped by to wish me luck and pass out hugs and encouragement. I know we can’t afford it right now, nor do we have the time, but seeing all those sweet babies makes me look at my beautiful wife with visions of little versions of ourselves.
After Mom played a couple of my songs on the van’s CD-player, we took pictures and took off.
Cars on all sides of us from Henderson to the Peabody honked, waved, smiled, and broke their necks attempting to read the van’s exclamations. The passing strangers had no idea that their ogling excited us as much as anything we’d experienced so far.
When we finally arrived at the Peabody, mom directed Pam to drive into the hotel’s parking deck where we were stopped by guards.
“This lot is only for people with reservations,” the black lady stated (I think she’s quite proud of her job). “Do you have reservations?”
“Yes,” mom replied, “Mustain.”
“Debra?” the lady said after a second of looking through her long list of the privileged.
“Yes.”
“Of course, go through this gate and . . .”
It felt good. Our family has been on a lot of lists, but this is one of the first times I can recall being on an exclusive list of people who were staying at the nicest hotel in the entire city of Memphis. My parents are wonderful!
Once we parked, I began to anticipate looking a little strange. You see, we’d packed in normal luggage for the most part (there were a couple Big Star sacks floating around, though they were not the rule), but one thing stuck out like a Bentley at a Waffle House – a shiny, gray and white, 20” box fan; the staple of any sleeping member of my family. We were about to walk in to the posh and historic Peabody Hotel with a box fan. It was awesome!
We settled in to the room, drank the complimentary water, executed the token running leap onto the bed, and rested. Lulled by the melodious tones of Fred Sanford on the TV, we must have napped for about an hour before we decided to try to see the famous "March of the Ducks" and hit the town.
It was far too crowded to actually see the ducks. In truth, we missed them, but we can at least say that we were present.
We stepped out of the hotel onto Grand Avenue and were met by a cavalry of carriages and a tidal wave of the sweet smell of ribs and Bar-B-Q, the natural aroma of the Memphis air. After promising a carriage owner that we would return to take him up on his offer, we hiked to Beale Street to take in the Blues culture.
We walked a few city blocks and stumbled upon the legendary thoroughfare in all its music, food, and wanderers. Quite a crowd had already gathered. We passed a man creating dream-like scenes of fantasy using only spray-paint. Guitars, singing, drums, laughter. The undulating crowd was going everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Hunger pangs dictated our next destination: The Hard Rock Café.
At the foot of boots worn and signed by Rufus Thomas and to the right of a shirt worn by Adam Levine of Maroon 5, we enjoyed our meal (I had nachos, of course) and watched Tennessee whip California (yee-haw!), and heard about the Braves hard loss to the Phillies (grr! What a frustrating season this has been!).
We left full and walked to Coyote Ugly so Pam and Mom could have their picture taken in front of the sign like the rebels they are, then headed back to the hotel and mounted a white carriage decorated with Christmas lights, tinsel, and patriotically themed ornaments. Memaw, you would have loved it.
The night air was perfect. The breeze danced on our faces and the sights flirted with our minds as we gazed upon the beautiful parks and architecture of the city.
We returned to the hotel to see everything we’d just seen one more time, but this time from above on the roof of the Peabody. The elevator took us to the floor marked “S” which held the Duck Palace and one of the most spectacular views of the nighttime skyline.
After pictures and phone calls, we retired to the room, played a couple hands of Texas Hold ‘Em, and began to prepare for the morning.
. . .
The prize for the Alabama Idol competition was nice, but I didn’t like it at first. I thought that the winner got a guaranteed audition with Paula, Simon, and Randy, but we found out that it was actually a “Fast-Pass” of sorts. I was a bit disappointed, and it wasn’t until this past weekend that I realized how valuable it actually was.
In Birmingham, Karen and I waited in the registration line from 4:30 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. We returned to the audition line two days later at 5:00 a.m. and weren’t seated in the BJCC until almost 9:00 a.m. By the time I auditioned that day, we had collected almost 8 hours of waiting in line! Not so in Memphis. Thanks, Alabama Idol!
I didn’t have to be at the FedExForum until 7:00 a.m. on Sunday, and since Mom and Dad got such a great hotel, we only had about a 5 minute walk to get there. I think I finally fell out of bed around 5:45 or 6:00 a.m. on Sunday the 3rd. After a quick shower and a shave (my head), we walked out the door and Mom and I arrived at the venue about ten minutes early.
The line was magnificent! They said it was the biggest audition turn-out this season at almost 16,000 contestants! You can double that since everyone was allowed to bring in one guest. At the time of audition, I was on the floor surrounded by well over 30,000 people. My quote in the Jackson Sun was accurate – it was quite unnerving!
Mom and I were taken inside the doors to the lobby well before the line was allowed to enter. We were among several who had won similar prizes from affiliate stations in other states.
It was here that we found that we weren’t totally exempt from waiting. In the lobby we waited for about 3 hours or so before we were taken below to the floor of the arena, but 3 hours versus 8? We’ll take 3 any day of the week!
Karen, Pam, B & B faithfully waited outside in their fold-out chairs holding their signs and watching the crowd of strangers, hopefuls, and weirdoes pass into the future. Karen and I called each other several times and passed love signals through the window from a distance, and after the crowd had waned they packed up and went back to the hotel to catch a few more moments in their heavenly beds.
Mom and I were eventually called about 10:00 or 10:30 a.m. to the corridor that took us down below. She had to leave me since the guests weren’t allowed to go where we were going. After hugs and encouragement she returned to the lobby and snuck in the arena to watch from above.
I waited in another little line before walking on the floor to audition, and then we lined up to sing.
There were 14 tables lined up with black, cloth-curtain dividers between each. Two judges sat at each table and four people lined up in front. At any given time there were 96 people auditioning, fourteen people singing, and 30,000+ people in the seats talking, singing, shouting, laughing, cheering, and waiting. That’s quite an obstacle.
It was then that I realized something I’d not thought before: the producers are not looking for great singers at this point in the auditioning! They can’t be! You can’t hear whether or not they can sing. Instead, they’re looking for personalities. “Will this person standing before me, whom I cannot hear, make a good show if the television is on and the sound is muted or there’s too much going on in the room to hear the music?”
Six people sang before me then I was up. I sang my song, Eric Benet’s version of the Kansas song “Dust in the Wind,” and she, the judge, stopped me to go to the next person. I thought I had failed again, and that was okay with me, but then she sparked a moment’s hope that I hadn’t anticipated. She asked me to sing a second song! I perked up with the bridge of Brian McKnight’s “Back at One” and tried to sing my heart out. She stopped me.
I did my best. I wasn’t chosen. That is 100% of all I can do, and I am satisfied.
. . .
I left the arena, found Mom, who already knew, and we marched our recessional to the sounds of phone calls all around us. People were calling home, friends, and spouses telling of their fate. I was no different. I called Karen who consoled me so sweetly. We called Dad and Shane who did the same. And we walked.
We entered the hotel just in time to see everyone leaving the scene of the ducks marching. We’d missed it twice. It’s okay.
When the elevator opened on the tenth floor, the girls were ready and waiting with the luggage and the fan. Hugs and consolation ensued and I appreciated every bit of it. It’s wonderful how something as simple as a hug can be so warm and perfect when you need it (and even when you don’t).
Karen held me a while and we all walked onto the elevator speaking of how we’d not be watching the show this year and how mad the whole process made us, but really, I was fine.
We loaded up, made a quick stop at Graceland to take a couple pictures and see the spoils of fame, then went to The Olive Garden to enjoy some grease, cheese, bread, and fat. It was almost as comforting as the hugs.
Most of the van slept on the way home. We were worn out mentally and physically. Poor Pam was just tired as any of us, but she had to drive. Thanks, Pam!
Back at the Lynch house in Henderson we sat on the couches and talked and watched some video footage of the weekend. The news showed some of the Memphis auditions, but the reporters were far more excited about it than we were. It was great, but we were beginning to realize that it would have still been one of the most memorable weekends of our lives had we re-done everything and deleted the auditions. Well . . . maybe not.
We held a devotional in the living room and took communion. That was wonderful. I love to worship with my family. Then we finished the weekend together almost exactly as it began – at a Mexican restaurant. We watched UK fall hard at the feet of Louisville, heard that the Braves had beaten the Phillies, and relived the weekend while smiling at acquaintances who came to eat there as well.
Afterward, we left for Casey and April’s to drown our sorrow in Texas Hold ‘Em and Oreo Cookies.
Karen and I left Henderson around 10:30 p.m. to head home. We sang, talked about the weekend, planned for the future and stared at the headlight-lit pavement as it slid beneath us like a treadmill. We marveled each time we saw deer by the road. We saw almost twenty by the time we had lain our heads on our pillows.
In one weekend’s time, I realized that I was a celebrity to my family. I didn’t need some desperate show to validate myself (though I don’t guess I would have turned it down). I was valid. I am valid. I come from years upon years of faithful Christians, solid marriages, loving households, and fine citizens. We celebrate birthdays and holidays together, and since Heaven is more wonderful than we can comprehend, then we’ll surely celebrate the day we all walk in together. And you’d better believe that one of us will be toting a box fan!
I needed all of you to find out what I needed for eternity in a wife and that’s how I knew Karen was who I needed for the rest of my life. She has been and always will be the most incredible answer to my family’s and my prayers.
I am not worthy of any of this, but I vow to you all and to God to live the rest of my life in gratitude for it.
Thank you for all of your prayers and support. I am among all men most blessed.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Condensed and Apoplectic
Just when you think things are going well, it changes.
The one thing that you’ve been looking for turns out to be everything you had no idea about, and BOOM, it all falls to the ground like leaves on an autumn tree.
People are stupid in general. I mean, they’re good, but they’re stupid. Most of the time people truly believe that they are the only real humans on Earth. That’s why they treat everyone around them like an employee or a distant relative who’s come to botch up the Christmas traditions.
I’ll be back. I need to go kill some people on Splinter Cell.
Friday, July 28, 2006
The Lost Beattitude
He swayed left and right while he walked. It made him move like I used to when I would get on the hanging bridge part of a jungle gym and shake the mess out of it to scare everyone who was on it with me. I was playing. He wasn't.
I don't know if it was a congenital issue, but the crippled soul walking by fixed his eyes directly in front of him. I bet he was tired of the pity. I bet he was over the people who couldn't get over him. He couldn't bear to watch people who couldn't bear to watch him. People like me.
I don't know why I get so uncomfortable around the handicapped. I just get this "I-gotta-dodge-'em" feeling and look the other way trying to find the nearest object that looks interesting enough to seem like I was actually looking at it. I did that very thing today, but I don't think he saw me.
"Oh, what a shame," I think. "How awful it would be to have to live that way."
The problem is -- I'm the problem. It's horrible to live that way because I think thoughts like that and back them into corners or stuff them into stereotypes. The pity of that life has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the one doing the pitying. Society even goes so far as to call them "invalids." In-valid? That's ridiculous! Since when did validity find foundation in a gait or the ability to park closest to Barnes & Noble?
The Russian girls in this picture taught me a valuable lesson about John 9:
"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'
'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.'" (1-3)
These girls, like the man I saw today, have a gift from God. Never once did they feel the pity or shame of human examination. I know that because I could see the Lord in their eyes and on the faces of the kids there in Tallinn. They didn't treat them like outcasts or invalids, but with respect and reverence. It was as if they knew that those girls had been divinely blessed with their differences.
When I read that God will not give us more than we can bear, I used to think that I would have it made. All of my future woes had been promised to be tolerable. All of my future woes. It's only been recently that I began to apply that verse to the places I've been or what I have become.
God won't give me more than I can bear: I live in America -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I was born and raised to and in faith-trusting family -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I am a white male -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I am not ugly -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I am not poor -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I am a heterosexual -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. And, here, in this instance, I am not handicapped -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise.
Blessed are the blessed, for they can handle it.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Wonderland
Lewis Carroll...
"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
'Which road do I take?' she asked.
'Where do you want to go?' was his response.
'I don't know,' Alice answered.
'Then,' said the cat, 'it doesn't matter.'"
The Pan
J. M. Barrie...
"As soon as you can say what you think, and not what some other person has thought for you, you are on your way to being a remarkable man."
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Negatives
Everything that exists must have its polar opposite. So, if all we know comes from what we've seen, what might we find if we studied what we have not seen?
How can you study what you have not seen? Simply. Think.
The archives of our lives are built by units upon units of photographs. In order to see again what you once saw, the image had to become everything it was not. A negative. Go look at yours and try to see if there are things you hadn't seen. You will.
To recreate what was true in order to learn from it, everything must invert in order to see what would be if the counter were true. There's more than meets the eye. You may find out things you didn't know, you may see what's being avoided, you may see what you wish were true but isn't. In any case, it's all invisible until you invert.
Negatives -- every thing its opposite.
Changes, Water and Layers
Sometimes, I really feel like this blog is a slice of me, I mean a real peice, as opposed to just something onto which I throw a few thoughts, ideas and experiences. I guess that could be considered a fault. It's like I can't just be a little of me, or put simple representations of myself out there for anyone because I would be wasting a tremendous amount of time thinking, writing and revising if it was just a mask, or a glimpse. It would waste your time, too.
I do that with just about everything though. If I can't personalize my endeavors, then they are left in the dust to soon be buried beneath the weight of a thousand other missed opportunities.
I say all that to say this: I feel like I've changed. I'm not talking about politically or physically or something like that. I'm still a Demo-lican and my pants still measure 34 to 36 (depending on the brand and my last couple days' consumption). I just mean that I can sense something is different.
. . .
I used to drink about 2 gallons of water per day -- literally. I did it partially for health, but also for attention. I would carry around these large, 64 ounce mugs from Wal-Mart that resembled pony kegs and I would drink like four per day by 5 p.m.! I peed. A lot. But, I gave it up for a while. I guess I got tired of it, or maybe people just stopped noticing, I don't know. Either way I stopped.
But, when we returned from Estonia, I started drinking it again. I'm not doing it anything like I used to, but at least I'm doing it. I'm not doing it to be noticed, and I'm not doing it for the sake of knowing that I drank an ungodly amount by the time I eat supper (I barely hit 100 ounces by the end of the day). I'm doing it because I saw my desires through the people in Estonia.
Before we went I could name for you a long list of wants. I wanted a truck, a boat, a newer house, a wave-runner, more money, et cetera. It was a load of material crap that mean nothing and spent every day descending to worthlessness. But, when all that I was used to was stripped, when the layers that were disposable fell to the ground like patches off a disowned Boy Scout, when my bed was 8,000+ miles away, when my house was but a pining, when my ability to go to the refrigerator and open a cold Diet Sun Drop left, or when my ability to snack on something all day long vanished, all I could think about was water. I looked at the kids around me. They wanted water -- nothing else. Sure, they drank a Coke every now and then, but not like me.
When you finally realize that everything you think you know turns out to be circumstancially fueled, only then can you truly find what it is that you want. I wanted water. Do I drink Cokes now (and, by the way, in the South, a Coke means simply "a soft drink of some kind" -- it can represent virtually any brand), do I drink Kool-Ade? Yes. But now I drink water, too. I got closer to the core of me than I had been in quite a while and saw that that's what I really wanted. I have to feed the inner-me, the me that takes a pilgrimage to northeastern Europe to exhume, not just the me that functions using the layers to bear the brunt of the blows dealt to me by this materialistic world.
So, what does that mean? Tons. But, for today it means that since this blog is a part of me, and since I feel like I'm changing, I think I need to change the look of this blog.
So, it's changed.
Well, there you go.
I do that with just about everything though. If I can't personalize my endeavors, then they are left in the dust to soon be buried beneath the weight of a thousand other missed opportunities.
I say all that to say this: I feel like I've changed. I'm not talking about politically or physically or something like that. I'm still a Demo-lican and my pants still measure 34 to 36 (depending on the brand and my last couple days' consumption). I just mean that I can sense something is different.
. . .
I used to drink about 2 gallons of water per day -- literally. I did it partially for health, but also for attention. I would carry around these large, 64 ounce mugs from Wal-Mart that resembled pony kegs and I would drink like four per day by 5 p.m.! I peed. A lot. But, I gave it up for a while. I guess I got tired of it, or maybe people just stopped noticing, I don't know. Either way I stopped.
But, when we returned from Estonia, I started drinking it again. I'm not doing it anything like I used to, but at least I'm doing it. I'm not doing it to be noticed, and I'm not doing it for the sake of knowing that I drank an ungodly amount by the time I eat supper (I barely hit 100 ounces by the end of the day). I'm doing it because I saw my desires through the people in Estonia.
Before we went I could name for you a long list of wants. I wanted a truck, a boat, a newer house, a wave-runner, more money, et cetera. It was a load of material crap that mean nothing and spent every day descending to worthlessness. But, when all that I was used to was stripped, when the layers that were disposable fell to the ground like patches off a disowned Boy Scout, when my bed was 8,000+ miles away, when my house was but a pining, when my ability to go to the refrigerator and open a cold Diet Sun Drop left, or when my ability to snack on something all day long vanished, all I could think about was water. I looked at the kids around me. They wanted water -- nothing else. Sure, they drank a Coke every now and then, but not like me.
When you finally realize that everything you think you know turns out to be circumstancially fueled, only then can you truly find what it is that you want. I wanted water. Do I drink Cokes now (and, by the way, in the South, a Coke means simply "a soft drink of some kind" -- it can represent virtually any brand), do I drink Kool-Ade? Yes. But now I drink water, too. I got closer to the core of me than I had been in quite a while and saw that that's what I really wanted. I have to feed the inner-me, the me that takes a pilgrimage to northeastern Europe to exhume, not just the me that functions using the layers to bear the brunt of the blows dealt to me by this materialistic world.
So, what does that mean? Tons. But, for today it means that since this blog is a part of me, and since I feel like I'm changing, I think I need to change the look of this blog.
So, it's changed.
Well, there you go.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Just a quick shot of my beautiful wife and me. She and I drew closer to God and each other in ways that can not be described by "drew closer." As I said in the last post, I will be opening a few windows to the trip so that you may enjoy an insufficent glimpse of what has happened. I pray that you too may enjoy a similar journey to your wife and your God. 
On the shores of this sea water we rediscovered ourselves. Our purpose in this world baptized in capitalism and disease is not to continue to shelter ourselves from it, but instead to become aware of it and become available to God and to people as a channel of what He has crafted for us. We were made for this.In this I take pleasure: that I have been spared long enough to see the value of people. They breathe. They bleed. They're needy. I am, in every way, just like everyone I meet every day. I breathe, bleed, and need, and I always will.
In Genesis, God said that he made both man and woman in His image which means that He is inherently infused into the inner working of each individual human from the beginning of time. We, as followers of God, have found water. Truthfully, the water found us. It is our duty to inform our fellow humans, who all bear the image of God, where to find it so they too may drink. It is a simple task and it goes no further. The thirsty need no instruction on how to drink.
In the coming days I will continue to post pictures and lessons Karen and I have learned from our recent trip to Tallinn, Estonia. The picture here is of the water in the Bay of Finland, which is fed by the Baltic Sea.
It has been indescribable.
God is bigger than we thought.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
You Me a Phoenix Make Each Time We Touch
You me a phoenix make each time we touch.
From ash I rise and soar above the world.
You rise on me and guide my soul to such
A land unknown by souls. With wings unfurl’d
I feel the breeze that lifts my body’s flight,
And though it feels as soft as sight of dove,
I know, tucked deep inside the cave of night,
It’s not the sweet caressing of your love.
We, flying high above the land we’ve known,
See hills and streams we ne’er before have seen;
The water’s blue; the bright gray light of stone;
The waving fields by meadows’ new bright green.
We didn’t know these colors yesterday,
Or see these things we’ve seen here from our birth.
So high and fast it looks so far away.
We fall to touch and lie on our New Earth.
Now down below we ground our childish feet
And gaze up at the path we’ve always flown.
The sea-soaked sky and sun’s deep orange heat
All listen to the rook’s new golden tone.
We didn’t see that sky, not yesterday,
Or any gone before we two were nigh.
So low and slow it looks so far away.
We listen after seeing our New Sky.
The whispers of our praise dance on the wind.
Our perfect union’s hymn now nature’s song.
Discordant notes? No tone I dare to mend.
If this be Mother’s tune, may it be long!
I didn’t hear this music yesterday.
My deaf ears open’d at the sound of you.
So calm your psalm sweet carries me away
To lands, more lands I’ve been, but now are new.
You me a phoenix make each time we touch.
From ashes rise I now alive, and you,
You live with me and guide my soul to such
A land, your land, I’ve been, but now is new.
-jlm for kdm (6/21/06)
From ash I rise and soar above the world.
You rise on me and guide my soul to such
A land unknown by souls. With wings unfurl’d
I feel the breeze that lifts my body’s flight,
And though it feels as soft as sight of dove,
I know, tucked deep inside the cave of night,
It’s not the sweet caressing of your love.
We, flying high above the land we’ve known,
See hills and streams we ne’er before have seen;
The water’s blue; the bright gray light of stone;
The waving fields by meadows’ new bright green.
We didn’t know these colors yesterday,
Or see these things we’ve seen here from our birth.
So high and fast it looks so far away.
We fall to touch and lie on our New Earth.
Now down below we ground our childish feet
And gaze up at the path we’ve always flown.
The sea-soaked sky and sun’s deep orange heat
All listen to the rook’s new golden tone.
We didn’t see that sky, not yesterday,
Or any gone before we two were nigh.
So low and slow it looks so far away.
We listen after seeing our New Sky.
The whispers of our praise dance on the wind.
Our perfect union’s hymn now nature’s song.
Discordant notes? No tone I dare to mend.
If this be Mother’s tune, may it be long!
I didn’t hear this music yesterday.
My deaf ears open’d at the sound of you.
So calm your psalm sweet carries me away
To lands, more lands I’ve been, but now are new.
You me a phoenix make each time we touch.
From ashes rise I now alive, and you,
You live with me and guide my soul to such
A land, your land, I’ve been, but now is new.
-jlm for kdm (6/21/06)
Saturday, June 17, 2006
White Washed Interaction
It’s a task of great difficulty for me to figure out whether or not I’m being sincere in all situations. I’ll not go into all the things which upset me about this idea of being “fake,” but I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about: how are you? how's your family? are you okay? etc. It gets pretty old to me because it bothers me to even hear questions like those, much less say them. But, in the South, How are you? and Hi are perfect equals. It bothers me because I honestly know that I typically don’t really want to know the answer to what I’m asking. No, that doesn’t make me heartless or calloused. It actually makes me utterly truthful for admitting it.
By the way, did you catch what I just did twice?! Look at the last couple of sentences – do you see them? Of course you don’t because you are just as used to it as the next person. Why in the world would I need to use words honestly and actually? Taken literally, one could deduce that I had been writing only half truths and partial falsehoods until I added those words, and that the only reason that I wrote them was to somehow overcompensate for something I wasn’t sure you would believe, or even something I wasn’t sure I would, but I desperately wanted you to anyway.
The moment I hear key words and phrases like honestly, truthfully, to tell you the truth, actually, truth be told, and so on, I shut down. I’m either about to hear a load of crap or a load of unsure, and not knowing which and not wanting either, I stop listening.
I’ve said all this to say: I’ve become an ultra-stickler for real. I know that if I began to tell the average questioner the answer, the real answer, to how I feel, how my family is, or whether or not I’m okay, they would think I’m a bit strange or even psychotic.
Where am I going with this?
The other day I saw a child and his mother in a store. The kid was a bit unruly and I couldn’t help but wonder about the mother’s skills as a parent. The child was beyond annoying with loud cartoon sounding noises, endless questions, and constant grabbing. He had thrown three items out of his mother’s cart while they had been standing in line at the check-out lane.
I don’t know what caused her to finally snap, but as he was attempting to get out of the cart, something against which she had apparently already warned him, she grabbed him by the arm and did the mother whisper (you know, the one that is voiceless so as to be considered a whisper in technique, but loud enough to be quite audible for several feet) in his ear: is that how we taught you to act? You’d better start acting right or I’m going to tell your father!
At that point, I stopped feeling sorry for the mom. Yes, I realize that she could have been an overworked, underpaid, single mother of three, but I still lost respect. It has nothing to do with the arm grabbing because there were times when I sincerely wished that I could have had a simple arm-grabbing when I was younger. It also meant nothing to me that she could have deafened the boy with the loud whisper. Instead, I sighed wishing the boy could have been taught how to be instead of how to act.
Isn’t that the major paradox of our salesperson society? How do we switch gears so quickly and maintain any level of sincerity? It seems to me that we are so insecure, sometimes, that we feel like we need to sell people on the idea of us as if what was there wasn’t good enough. The actuallys, the truthfullys and all the others are simply examples of our acknowledgement that we live alone behind of wall of separation twenty-four hours a day. The result = public behavior.
It’s an entirely different register. We speak differently, smile differently, eat differently, drink differently and even sit differently. The things most people tell you in their living rooms, depending on how many times you have been there, will widen significantly from what they would have told you in an elevator. It happens in nearly every case of interaction between two or more people in a public environment. It’s even a joke when someone does something a little out of the ordinary to say something like you don’t get out much or we can’t take you anywhere.
There are a few people, however, who don’t seem to give a rip about the group etiquette. Of course, they’re judged, and deemed too smart or dumb to handle the rigors of human interaction. Some, of course, do it on purpose, and that gets on my nerves. It seems to me that doing it willfully defeats the purpose because you’re changing who you are in public in order for the public to notice. That does nothing. But, it’s the people who waive the pressures of the norm sub-consciously, naturally, without motive, who intrigue me. What’s the difference? The ones who do it naturally because that’s just who they are and what you see is what you get all the time, those guys are. They simply are. They were taught by their parents, or whomever raised them, how to be, how to live. The ones who switch register, whether to public etiquette or away from it, purposefully are actors; they were taught how to act. They are the ones who act out or act up; they act wrong and act right. It’s all an act, and, if privy to it, I don’t think anyone really likes that if they are being honest with themselves.
By the way, did you catch what I just did twice?! Look at the last couple of sentences – do you see them? Of course you don’t because you are just as used to it as the next person. Why in the world would I need to use words honestly and actually? Taken literally, one could deduce that I had been writing only half truths and partial falsehoods until I added those words, and that the only reason that I wrote them was to somehow overcompensate for something I wasn’t sure you would believe, or even something I wasn’t sure I would, but I desperately wanted you to anyway.
The moment I hear key words and phrases like honestly, truthfully, to tell you the truth, actually, truth be told, and so on, I shut down. I’m either about to hear a load of crap or a load of unsure, and not knowing which and not wanting either, I stop listening.
I’ve said all this to say: I’ve become an ultra-stickler for real. I know that if I began to tell the average questioner the answer, the real answer, to how I feel, how my family is, or whether or not I’m okay, they would think I’m a bit strange or even psychotic.
Where am I going with this?
The other day I saw a child and his mother in a store. The kid was a bit unruly and I couldn’t help but wonder about the mother’s skills as a parent. The child was beyond annoying with loud cartoon sounding noises, endless questions, and constant grabbing. He had thrown three items out of his mother’s cart while they had been standing in line at the check-out lane.
I don’t know what caused her to finally snap, but as he was attempting to get out of the cart, something against which she had apparently already warned him, she grabbed him by the arm and did the mother whisper (you know, the one that is voiceless so as to be considered a whisper in technique, but loud enough to be quite audible for several feet) in his ear: is that how we taught you to act? You’d better start acting right or I’m going to tell your father!
At that point, I stopped feeling sorry for the mom. Yes, I realize that she could have been an overworked, underpaid, single mother of three, but I still lost respect. It has nothing to do with the arm grabbing because there were times when I sincerely wished that I could have had a simple arm-grabbing when I was younger. It also meant nothing to me that she could have deafened the boy with the loud whisper. Instead, I sighed wishing the boy could have been taught how to be instead of how to act.
Isn’t that the major paradox of our salesperson society? How do we switch gears so quickly and maintain any level of sincerity? It seems to me that we are so insecure, sometimes, that we feel like we need to sell people on the idea of us as if what was there wasn’t good enough. The actuallys, the truthfullys and all the others are simply examples of our acknowledgement that we live alone behind of wall of separation twenty-four hours a day. The result = public behavior.
It’s an entirely different register. We speak differently, smile differently, eat differently, drink differently and even sit differently. The things most people tell you in their living rooms, depending on how many times you have been there, will widen significantly from what they would have told you in an elevator. It happens in nearly every case of interaction between two or more people in a public environment. It’s even a joke when someone does something a little out of the ordinary to say something like you don’t get out much or we can’t take you anywhere.
There are a few people, however, who don’t seem to give a rip about the group etiquette. Of course, they’re judged, and deemed too smart or dumb to handle the rigors of human interaction. Some, of course, do it on purpose, and that gets on my nerves. It seems to me that doing it willfully defeats the purpose because you’re changing who you are in public in order for the public to notice. That does nothing. But, it’s the people who waive the pressures of the norm sub-consciously, naturally, without motive, who intrigue me. What’s the difference? The ones who do it naturally because that’s just who they are and what you see is what you get all the time, those guys are. They simply are. They were taught by their parents, or whomever raised them, how to be, how to live. The ones who switch register, whether to public etiquette or away from it, purposefully are actors; they were taught how to act. They are the ones who act out or act up; they act wrong and act right. It’s all an act, and, if privy to it, I don’t think anyone really likes that if they are being honest with themselves.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Every Trip is a Short One
"I have an existential map. It has 'You Are Here' written all over it." -Steven Wright
Friday, May 05, 2006
Tim Dumb
“I tried to study the Bible once, but I got confused,” the guy said to me. “When I try to put it up against itself, I don’t make a lot of sense out of it.”
“How so?” I replied.
“For example: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ right?”
“Correct.”
“Then why does God sanction war? I see that line in the ‘Big 10,’ but I make no sense of it elsewhere. And, too, how can we justify Christians going to war? War implies killing. Does that mean they’re going to hell?”
I had a reply. I almost gave it, but I stopped myself just before I spoke. I must have looked rather dumbfounded and stumped, and in some ways, I guess I was. This was not the first time I had been asked this question; I had asked it of myself as well, but how could I honestly give him my answer?
You see, my first reaction was to say that the command applied only to unjust killing; that it was meant to pertain only to killing in a murderous fashion. I know some of you are nodding your heads in agreement with that, but I had to stop before I said anything of the kind. The Bible doesn’t say that. I had to admit that to myself in a split second before I looked the fool by adding meaning to the reference which could not have been inferred by merely reading it in context.
“I’ve just decided that I’m going to go on with dumb faith,” he said. He must have seen a hint of puzzlement in my eyes as I pondered his questions. I don’t know that he was looking for an answer, but I’m sure he felt that I thought I should have had one. “I’ve asked myself this stuff a hundred times about far more than this one instance, so I decided to leave it alone in order to keep some measure of faith.”
Dumb faith? How is that appealing? I thought.
I make it a point not to initiate religious or political conversation with people, especially those I’ve not called friend for very long. No one likes someone with an agenda and those topics are trigger points for every almost every human. If it’s going to come up, I want it to come up naturally, and, if possible, on the other guy’s terms. Some may interpret that as spineless or non-evangelistic, but I think it’s the more mission-minded approach. By the time the religious conversation rears its head, trust has become a key issue and vulnerability essential.
Tim was opening himself up to me in a big way. Not only had we arrived at a point in which he felt comfortable telling me that he had committed a Southern cardinal sin by question the Bible, he was also letting me know that he had decided to be dumb about that which he believed. That is what dumb faith is isn’t it? Even if we took the word literally to take a little of the edge off it would still mean something along the lines of faith without a voice, speechless faith, faith inherently incapable of explaining itself. It takes a great deal of trust to provide the courage to divulge to someone else that you’re living within that perspective.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking dumb faith. I think a lot of people are satisfied with that, and I guess that’s okay. It’s certainly worse if someone arrives there as a result of laziness, but I don’t think that’s where Tim was. I think he had grown so tired of being asked to believe things he couldn’t explain or without reason that he had mentally thrown his hands up and did the responsible thing.
By responsible I mean that many do not choose this route and end up far gone. This type of questioning can lead to a lot of things and the most common destination is some form of atheism.
It goes like this: Something makes no sense to someone; they ask questions and request guidance, and are greeted with skepticism and heresy rhetoric as if questioning were the unpardonable sin. Since, as humans, we are built to reject that, that someone typically reacts negatively feeling that the mere act of seeking should have been viewed as progress. That rejection is devastating.
Tim, instead of giving up on God, realized that God was real, and, being God, quite complex. His complexity doesn’t mean that He cannot be figured out, but it does mean that He may not be understood by a human mind, or if we can, we haven’t figured out how using the methods of reason and thought we are taught to employ presently.
Dumb faith. I’m not so sure it’s wrong, and I can’t say I’m convinced it’s right, but I know surely that it is, in its basest form, giving up.
Here are a couple things I’ve learned: I know that there are answers to every question, and I know someone knows those answers beyond doubt.
What I have had to conclude without any proof beyond logic, though, is that if I believe in another realm with beings who inhabit it i.e. Heaven, then perhaps those inhabitants know some of the answers that we simply can’t figure out here simply because we're here and they're there. That makes sense to me. I don’t like it, but it makes sense. Still, if that is true, then I must also recognize that I can’t know what they do and do not know and must therefore continue to search in case what I am seeking can be found here.
Well, maybe I added that last line in there because I just don’t like thinking that I can’t know something. I mean, I have no problem understanding that I don’t know something because God knows there’s plenty of that: Calculus escapes me, math in general bores me, science, man's greatest map to the mind of God, means a lot to me in terms of figuring out the intricacies of God, but I don’t care if I ever understand the mystery of pi or the mystical physics of gravity, black holes and String Theory. My point is that I just like the safety of knowing that I can know something if I want to.
I guess that’s the reason we have libraries.
I say all that to say this: I can’t figure out, as of this writing, the answers to Tim’s questions. I’m sure there are answers, and I’m sure they can be figured out if I just give them time and effort (or maybe just time), but for now, I just don’t know them.
I do think, however, that there are more researchable questions in the story: why do so many people go Tim’s route? Do they not understand the gravity of not understanding the scripture? Is it possible that they are just giving in to their own desires and attempting to make God’s theology match the way they want to live?
I know, statistically, that it has to be a fact that some readers have shouted a resoundingly self-righteous "YES" to those last two questions, and I would be a fool not to concede that there are some believers like that, but I think that the sincere ones have figured out that they can resign themselves to be that way, and it won’t send them to Hell.
I think there’s an issue at hand causing this mentality that most certainly can be fixed, but there are few who are willing to go there.
“I don’t know if the way I’m thinking on all this is wrong or not,” Tim began to conclude. “If it’s wrong, then I guess I’ll have to live or die with that. I just know I’m tired of getting nowhere and feeling bad for it.”
I had nothing to say.
“How so?” I replied.
“For example: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ right?”
“Correct.”
“Then why does God sanction war? I see that line in the ‘Big 10,’ but I make no sense of it elsewhere. And, too, how can we justify Christians going to war? War implies killing. Does that mean they’re going to hell?”
I had a reply. I almost gave it, but I stopped myself just before I spoke. I must have looked rather dumbfounded and stumped, and in some ways, I guess I was. This was not the first time I had been asked this question; I had asked it of myself as well, but how could I honestly give him my answer?
You see, my first reaction was to say that the command applied only to unjust killing; that it was meant to pertain only to killing in a murderous fashion. I know some of you are nodding your heads in agreement with that, but I had to stop before I said anything of the kind. The Bible doesn’t say that. I had to admit that to myself in a split second before I looked the fool by adding meaning to the reference which could not have been inferred by merely reading it in context.
“I’ve just decided that I’m going to go on with dumb faith,” he said. He must have seen a hint of puzzlement in my eyes as I pondered his questions. I don’t know that he was looking for an answer, but I’m sure he felt that I thought I should have had one. “I’ve asked myself this stuff a hundred times about far more than this one instance, so I decided to leave it alone in order to keep some measure of faith.”
Dumb faith? How is that appealing? I thought.
I make it a point not to initiate religious or political conversation with people, especially those I’ve not called friend for very long. No one likes someone with an agenda and those topics are trigger points for every almost every human. If it’s going to come up, I want it to come up naturally, and, if possible, on the other guy’s terms. Some may interpret that as spineless or non-evangelistic, but I think it’s the more mission-minded approach. By the time the religious conversation rears its head, trust has become a key issue and vulnerability essential.
Tim was opening himself up to me in a big way. Not only had we arrived at a point in which he felt comfortable telling me that he had committed a Southern cardinal sin by question the Bible, he was also letting me know that he had decided to be dumb about that which he believed. That is what dumb faith is isn’t it? Even if we took the word literally to take a little of the edge off it would still mean something along the lines of faith without a voice, speechless faith, faith inherently incapable of explaining itself. It takes a great deal of trust to provide the courage to divulge to someone else that you’re living within that perspective.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking dumb faith. I think a lot of people are satisfied with that, and I guess that’s okay. It’s certainly worse if someone arrives there as a result of laziness, but I don’t think that’s where Tim was. I think he had grown so tired of being asked to believe things he couldn’t explain or without reason that he had mentally thrown his hands up and did the responsible thing.
By responsible I mean that many do not choose this route and end up far gone. This type of questioning can lead to a lot of things and the most common destination is some form of atheism.
It goes like this: Something makes no sense to someone; they ask questions and request guidance, and are greeted with skepticism and heresy rhetoric as if questioning were the unpardonable sin. Since, as humans, we are built to reject that, that someone typically reacts negatively feeling that the mere act of seeking should have been viewed as progress. That rejection is devastating.
Tim, instead of giving up on God, realized that God was real, and, being God, quite complex. His complexity doesn’t mean that He cannot be figured out, but it does mean that He may not be understood by a human mind, or if we can, we haven’t figured out how using the methods of reason and thought we are taught to employ presently.
Dumb faith. I’m not so sure it’s wrong, and I can’t say I’m convinced it’s right, but I know surely that it is, in its basest form, giving up.
Here are a couple things I’ve learned: I know that there are answers to every question, and I know someone knows those answers beyond doubt.
What I have had to conclude without any proof beyond logic, though, is that if I believe in another realm with beings who inhabit it i.e. Heaven, then perhaps those inhabitants know some of the answers that we simply can’t figure out here simply because we're here and they're there. That makes sense to me. I don’t like it, but it makes sense. Still, if that is true, then I must also recognize that I can’t know what they do and do not know and must therefore continue to search in case what I am seeking can be found here.
Well, maybe I added that last line in there because I just don’t like thinking that I can’t know something. I mean, I have no problem understanding that I don’t know something because God knows there’s plenty of that: Calculus escapes me, math in general bores me, science, man's greatest map to the mind of God, means a lot to me in terms of figuring out the intricacies of God, but I don’t care if I ever understand the mystery of pi or the mystical physics of gravity, black holes and String Theory. My point is that I just like the safety of knowing that I can know something if I want to.
I guess that’s the reason we have libraries.
I say all that to say this: I can’t figure out, as of this writing, the answers to Tim’s questions. I’m sure there are answers, and I’m sure they can be figured out if I just give them time and effort (or maybe just time), but for now, I just don’t know them.
I do think, however, that there are more researchable questions in the story: why do so many people go Tim’s route? Do they not understand the gravity of not understanding the scripture? Is it possible that they are just giving in to their own desires and attempting to make God’s theology match the way they want to live?
I know, statistically, that it has to be a fact that some readers have shouted a resoundingly self-righteous "YES" to those last two questions, and I would be a fool not to concede that there are some believers like that, but I think that the sincere ones have figured out that they can resign themselves to be that way, and it won’t send them to Hell.
I think there’s an issue at hand causing this mentality that most certainly can be fixed, but there are few who are willing to go there.
“I don’t know if the way I’m thinking on all this is wrong or not,” Tim began to conclude. “If it’s wrong, then I guess I’ll have to live or die with that. I just know I’m tired of getting nowhere and feeling bad for it.”
I had nothing to say.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The Man Beside My Bed
I spent my kindergarten through second grade years just outside of Dayton, Tennessee, in a town called Spring City. My father had graduated in 1984 from the East Tennessee School of Preaching and Missions in Karns, Tennessee, just outside Knoxville, and his very first preaching position was there at the Spring City church of Christ.
I don’t remember much about our family’s time in Rhea County because I was so young, but I do remember the brick and siding split-level house about five miles outside town. It had a gravel drive that seemed like a mile going to get the paper or the mail on hot summer days, and an air conditioner that was as cool as the other side of the pillow after I had outrun the sweat bees on my way back from getting that paper or the mail.
In 1986, I sat on our brown couch in that house and watched the Challenger shuttle explode before America’s eyes on television. And, it was in the kitchen of that house that I accidentally killed Sea Monkeys by picking up the little plastic container by the lid instead of the base spilling its contents all over the linoleum. I felt like a mass murderer.
I learned to ride a bike without training wheels; I learned that Daddy didn’t like us boys to go out behind the old chicken coop; I found out that you can’t catch rabbits with a homemade trap made out of a Hardee’s cup, a stick and a few stale Doritos; and even though I didn't know it at the time, I learned about my great-great-grandfather, Arthur Jenkins.
If you entered the house through the front door, walked about four steps and turned right, you would be at the foot of the stairs that led to the bathroom, Dad’s office, my parents’ bedroom, and my brother’s and my bedroom. We slept on parallel twin size beds with a bookshelf between us. During the day in that room we would play church by mimicking the Holy Communion sacraments on a coffee saucer, and at night we would read Berenstain Bears books by lamplight and giggle ourselves to sleep.
One night something I could not explain broke me from my sleep. Without moving, I lie awake and listened, but I couldn't hear anything more than my younger brother, Shane, snoring, fast asleep in his bed three feet away, and I didn’t see anything other than what the yellow light from the bathroom down the hall revealed through our open door.
What I did next gave me a memory that has remained with me as clearly as any film or picture I have ever seen in my life.
Since I didn’t see anything while facing my brother, I turned to my other side just to re-position myself and returned to sleep. It was this move that exposed the reason I had stirred.
A man. An older bald man wearing a red, white and blue suit, a white shirt with a string bowtie, and holding on to a smooth hickory cane. He was sitting, smiling and looking at me in the same safe and warm way my granddad did when I walked through the door of his house on Christmas day after a long van ride from east Tennessee to southern Indiana. And, while I certainly wasn’t expecting to see some man next to my bed, I must say that the whole scene never scared or even startled me. In fact, seeing him made me feel good and well-protected.
I noticed he was in a rocking chair rocking back and forth, and after a second of just looking at him, he reached out his long arm to place his large hand on my side, and I immediately returned to sleep.
The next night it happened again.
I was lying on my side, the same as the night before, and awoke in the same fashion. This time I just knew he was there beside me so I barely leaned my body backward and peeked out of the corner of my eye. Sure enough, he was there smiling and attempting to lean forward himself to let me know that he knew I saw him.
It wasn’t until much later, in junior high, when I found out who he was.
I was standing in my great-grandmother’s dining room rummaging around next to her old record player through quite a collection of old canes. There was a long white one that looked like the striped cylinder that hangs outside a barbershop; a bamboo one that surely accompanied a dancer in the 30s; and then there was one that looked just like that old smooth hickory cane that I saw the man holding when I was in Spring City.
I grabbed it and ran into the kitchen to tell my grandmother the story that cane reminded me of.
I told her all about the man: his cane, his clothes, his head, his smile. Her expression looked as if she couldn’t believe her ears and walked away. I didn’t know if I had made her angry or sad until she returned holding an old, gold-framed picture taken in 1978 of her grandfather, “Paw-paw,” Arthur Jenkins.
When I saw the picture, I was speechless. In her very hands was a picture of the man beside my bed. She told me that while he did get to hold me when I was a baby, I’d never really met him because he died not long after my birth. The suit I had described to her was the very one in which they buried him.
We sat at the kitchen table for the next couple of hours talking about Paw-paw. And while the living room could have held us, we all chose to remain packed around the kitchen table glued to the unfolding stories of the family members who filed in one-by-one telling of the time that they too saw Pawpaw.
I don’t remember much about our family’s time in Rhea County because I was so young, but I do remember the brick and siding split-level house about five miles outside town. It had a gravel drive that seemed like a mile going to get the paper or the mail on hot summer days, and an air conditioner that was as cool as the other side of the pillow after I had outrun the sweat bees on my way back from getting that paper or the mail.
In 1986, I sat on our brown couch in that house and watched the Challenger shuttle explode before America’s eyes on television. And, it was in the kitchen of that house that I accidentally killed Sea Monkeys by picking up the little plastic container by the lid instead of the base spilling its contents all over the linoleum. I felt like a mass murderer.
I learned to ride a bike without training wheels; I learned that Daddy didn’t like us boys to go out behind the old chicken coop; I found out that you can’t catch rabbits with a homemade trap made out of a Hardee’s cup, a stick and a few stale Doritos; and even though I didn't know it at the time, I learned about my great-great-grandfather, Arthur Jenkins.
If you entered the house through the front door, walked about four steps and turned right, you would be at the foot of the stairs that led to the bathroom, Dad’s office, my parents’ bedroom, and my brother’s and my bedroom. We slept on parallel twin size beds with a bookshelf between us. During the day in that room we would play church by mimicking the Holy Communion sacraments on a coffee saucer, and at night we would read Berenstain Bears books by lamplight and giggle ourselves to sleep.
One night something I could not explain broke me from my sleep. Without moving, I lie awake and listened, but I couldn't hear anything more than my younger brother, Shane, snoring, fast asleep in his bed three feet away, and I didn’t see anything other than what the yellow light from the bathroom down the hall revealed through our open door.
What I did next gave me a memory that has remained with me as clearly as any film or picture I have ever seen in my life.
Since I didn’t see anything while facing my brother, I turned to my other side just to re-position myself and returned to sleep. It was this move that exposed the reason I had stirred.
A man. An older bald man wearing a red, white and blue suit, a white shirt with a string bowtie, and holding on to a smooth hickory cane. He was sitting, smiling and looking at me in the same safe and warm way my granddad did when I walked through the door of his house on Christmas day after a long van ride from east Tennessee to southern Indiana. And, while I certainly wasn’t expecting to see some man next to my bed, I must say that the whole scene never scared or even startled me. In fact, seeing him made me feel good and well-protected.
I noticed he was in a rocking chair rocking back and forth, and after a second of just looking at him, he reached out his long arm to place his large hand on my side, and I immediately returned to sleep.
The next night it happened again.
I was lying on my side, the same as the night before, and awoke in the same fashion. This time I just knew he was there beside me so I barely leaned my body backward and peeked out of the corner of my eye. Sure enough, he was there smiling and attempting to lean forward himself to let me know that he knew I saw him.
It wasn’t until much later, in junior high, when I found out who he was.
I was standing in my great-grandmother’s dining room rummaging around next to her old record player through quite a collection of old canes. There was a long white one that looked like the striped cylinder that hangs outside a barbershop; a bamboo one that surely accompanied a dancer in the 30s; and then there was one that looked just like that old smooth hickory cane that I saw the man holding when I was in Spring City.
I grabbed it and ran into the kitchen to tell my grandmother the story that cane reminded me of.
I told her all about the man: his cane, his clothes, his head, his smile. Her expression looked as if she couldn’t believe her ears and walked away. I didn’t know if I had made her angry or sad until she returned holding an old, gold-framed picture taken in 1978 of her grandfather, “Paw-paw,” Arthur Jenkins.
When I saw the picture, I was speechless. In her very hands was a picture of the man beside my bed. She told me that while he did get to hold me when I was a baby, I’d never really met him because he died not long after my birth. The suit I had described to her was the very one in which they buried him.
We sat at the kitchen table for the next couple of hours talking about Paw-paw. And while the living room could have held us, we all chose to remain packed around the kitchen table glued to the unfolding stories of the family members who filed in one-by-one telling of the time that they too saw Pawpaw.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
In Tune With the Storm's Garden (Ponderings About the Neutrality of the Future)
Right now someone is doing something for the very last time. It may even be me. Tying their shoes, cooking lunch, arguing, saying "I love you." It's the calm before the storm. The time when those who will die have no idea and every idea at the same time. They will say and do things that will be remembered on Monday when they are buried.
"How strange that he..."
"She told me..."
"I had no idea that would be the last time I ever heard his voice."
Something will be left undone. Something else will be wrapped up sufficently. Everything will end tonight for someone who did everything right and still died, and for someone who ignored and dies as a result. No one is safe. Nothing is sacred.
Say: I love you. I hate you. I will miss you. I need you. I'll be back.
Fate has you now and you will rest or roam with the answers to all your questions. Even answers you didn't know you would need to questions you never thought you would ask.
And, as much as you will want to tell me, and as badly as I'll want to know -- we can't communicate any longer.
Tonight will be the worst night of someone's life. Tonight will be the best night of someone's life. Tonight will be remembered forever. Tonight will never be thought of again. Tonight.
Forever tonight. Into the oblivion of time either on the line never visited again or on the circle to return one day.
Head to the east. Their sages can save you atop mountains of stone and knowledge where moderation and flow move through the body tuning every discordant note. The music will not fix you. It will not prepare you. It will not guide you. It will only accompany you.
The garden will not soothe you. It will order you. But only if it's in control. The sand, the rocks, the birds, the rake -- but instruments of splendor which by themselves represent only the ability. Combine with capability and acceptance, movement and light, sound and air.
Tonight marks not the beginning or the end, the middle or the prior, the thought nor the afterthought.
It will not be bad. It will not be good.
It will be.
So breathe.
(written while listening to "Mending Your Own Mind" and "Calming Insight of Ourselves" both from Dean Evenson's album Healing Sanctuary while contemplating the coming storms of April 7th, 2006 in the midwest and southeast)
"How strange that he..."
"She told me..."
"I had no idea that would be the last time I ever heard his voice."
Something will be left undone. Something else will be wrapped up sufficently. Everything will end tonight for someone who did everything right and still died, and for someone who ignored and dies as a result. No one is safe. Nothing is sacred.
Say: I love you. I hate you. I will miss you. I need you. I'll be back.
Fate has you now and you will rest or roam with the answers to all your questions. Even answers you didn't know you would need to questions you never thought you would ask.
And, as much as you will want to tell me, and as badly as I'll want to know -- we can't communicate any longer.
Tonight will be the worst night of someone's life. Tonight will be the best night of someone's life. Tonight will be remembered forever. Tonight will never be thought of again. Tonight.
Forever tonight. Into the oblivion of time either on the line never visited again or on the circle to return one day.
Head to the east. Their sages can save you atop mountains of stone and knowledge where moderation and flow move through the body tuning every discordant note. The music will not fix you. It will not prepare you. It will not guide you. It will only accompany you.
The garden will not soothe you. It will order you. But only if it's in control. The sand, the rocks, the birds, the rake -- but instruments of splendor which by themselves represent only the ability. Combine with capability and acceptance, movement and light, sound and air.
Tonight marks not the beginning or the end, the middle or the prior, the thought nor the afterthought.
It will not be bad. It will not be good.
It will be.
So breathe.
(written while listening to "Mending Your Own Mind" and "Calming Insight of Ourselves" both from Dean Evenson's album Healing Sanctuary while contemplating the coming storms of April 7th, 2006 in the midwest and southeast)
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
New Short Fiction Coming
My newest short fiction piece is in the works. Below is the beginning to "Dusty's Trail," which is supposed to act as a bit of a teaser for you, though it actually may have the opposite effect.
Dusty's Trail
"Up ahead is the trail Dusty told me about. I don’t think I ever would have seen it without his help. When you’re not looking for it, it blends in with the rest of the woods, but looking at it straight on it’s obvious. The new and old oaks rise and bend over it making the whole entrance look like a tall cathedral window so Dusty calls it Cathedral Trail. It’s religious for him, and it’s becoming that way for me.
I’ve been here to this field a hundred times. It never gets old because the seasons are always changing. Sometimes my feet drag the green grass and leave a light slug trail that’s visible when the sun is out. Other times the leaves crunch under my shoes and the sound of the rustle echoes for what feels like a thousand miles. I hate making noise out here. I feel like I’m disturbing all of nature, like laughing in church.
The air is a bit cleaner right here and it’s always windy. I have a theory about that. The trees trap this field on every side. The only breaks are the path I took to get here and the trail Dusty told me about. Sometimes it feels like protection and sometimes it feels like a lynching, but either way I think the breeze finds its way here because the trees open up like they do and allow the wind to fall to the ground pretty hard. I don’t really know that for truth, but I feel like it makes sense. But, I don’t guess nature makes a lot of sense. Like the trees – they’re here, I always see them, but for most of the year they’re dead, and I walk on the drippings of their death making all kinds of embarrassing noise.
There’s no time to be studying this place right now. I’ll be back soon enough. For now, I’ve got to find that stone-slab table he was talking about. Once I get to the trail it won’t be so loud and I think I can be to the table in about twenty minutes.
That table, according to him, either was or is a horrible place. Dusty said that a local Satan worshipping group used it to sacrifice their animals and do all their little rituals. Maybe I’m sadistic for wanting to go see it, but the thought of something like that being in these very woods is just haunting enough to be tempting.
I’ve never admitted this kind of thing to anyone, but I’m a little freakish like that. I love death and funerals and crime scenes. When I go to a place where I know someone has died, it feels holy, like a portal. All the seconds of someone’s life were counting down to this very place and maybe they, the seconds themselves, even knew it, watching sadly, or not, this human or animal do everything for the very last time. Maybe I am the only person in my life that doesn’t know when and where I’ll die, or how."
Dusty's Trail
"Up ahead is the trail Dusty told me about. I don’t think I ever would have seen it without his help. When you’re not looking for it, it blends in with the rest of the woods, but looking at it straight on it’s obvious. The new and old oaks rise and bend over it making the whole entrance look like a tall cathedral window so Dusty calls it Cathedral Trail. It’s religious for him, and it’s becoming that way for me.
I’ve been here to this field a hundred times. It never gets old because the seasons are always changing. Sometimes my feet drag the green grass and leave a light slug trail that’s visible when the sun is out. Other times the leaves crunch under my shoes and the sound of the rustle echoes for what feels like a thousand miles. I hate making noise out here. I feel like I’m disturbing all of nature, like laughing in church.
The air is a bit cleaner right here and it’s always windy. I have a theory about that. The trees trap this field on every side. The only breaks are the path I took to get here and the trail Dusty told me about. Sometimes it feels like protection and sometimes it feels like a lynching, but either way I think the breeze finds its way here because the trees open up like they do and allow the wind to fall to the ground pretty hard. I don’t really know that for truth, but I feel like it makes sense. But, I don’t guess nature makes a lot of sense. Like the trees – they’re here, I always see them, but for most of the year they’re dead, and I walk on the drippings of their death making all kinds of embarrassing noise.
There’s no time to be studying this place right now. I’ll be back soon enough. For now, I’ve got to find that stone-slab table he was talking about. Once I get to the trail it won’t be so loud and I think I can be to the table in about twenty minutes.
That table, according to him, either was or is a horrible place. Dusty said that a local Satan worshipping group used it to sacrifice their animals and do all their little rituals. Maybe I’m sadistic for wanting to go see it, but the thought of something like that being in these very woods is just haunting enough to be tempting.
I’ve never admitted this kind of thing to anyone, but I’m a little freakish like that. I love death and funerals and crime scenes. When I go to a place where I know someone has died, it feels holy, like a portal. All the seconds of someone’s life were counting down to this very place and maybe they, the seconds themselves, even knew it, watching sadly, or not, this human or animal do everything for the very last time. Maybe I am the only person in my life that doesn’t know when and where I’ll die, or how."
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Would You Like to Buy Any Oil?
"In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell."
-H. L. Mencken
-H. L. Mencken
Friday, January 13, 2006
Think About It
"CHRISTIAN, n.: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
"I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
The godly multitudes walked to and fro
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
While all the church bells made a solemn din --
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
'God keep you, strange,' I exclaimed. 'You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too.'
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied -- his manner with disdain was spiced:
'What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I'm Christ.'"
-Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
"I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
The godly multitudes walked to and fro
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
While all the church bells made a solemn din --
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
'God keep you, strange,' I exclaimed. 'You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too.'
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied -- his manner with disdain was spiced:
'What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I'm Christ.'"
-Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Books I Read in 2005:
Inherit the Wind
by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Based on the infamous Scopes Trials in a 1925 Dayton, Tennessee courtroom, this play offers an only slightly varied version of the happenings that summer. Considering the current battle over the issue, and the apparently blinded Christian attitude toward it, this would be a fine read lasting you barely two days time.
My favorite thing:
Hornbeck’s wit. Compare it to that of the great writer/journalist/philosopher, H.L. Mencken, the man on whom the character is based.
Searching for God Knows What
by Donald Miller
Donald Miller should be considered the most prolific Christian writer of our present day. His grasp on logic and reality is reassuring in that those who would identify will no longer have to feel alone in the world. He approaches the Christian life truthfully in the relational manner in which it was intended to be lived instead of the rule-oriented, broken down, throwback to the Old Testament idea of formulas and bullet-points. A must read for everyone who has grown accustomed to breathing.
My favorite thing:
Most of the pages of text found between the front cover and the one in the back.
The Auto-Biography of an Ex-Coloured Man
by James Weldon Johnson
Follow the life of a nameless boy, a child born to a white man from a black mother, into manhood. His countenance is so fair that he could pass as a caucasian, but doesn’t quite understand the power of such a thought until he lives a most extraordinary life worthy of any world class man of affluence, yet still finds that he will be limited by something as merely biological as pigment.
My Favorite Thing:
Notice the underlying theme music plays in his growth and how it affects, with great consequence, the outcomes of his life.
Prisoners Without Trial
by Roger Daniels
A very dry read about the injustice paid to the hard-working Japanese-American citizens leading up to and after the Pearl Harbor incident. Called “relocation,” the wrongful incarceration of over 120,000 citizens based on ethnicity alone fits in well with the history we have with African-Americans and Native Americans. While it will not be very entertaining, as if it should be, the material is “must know” information on the history of our country and the precedence on which the future may seek counsel.
My Favorite Thing:
I was quite intrigued at the parallels revealed between what happened then and what could happen in the future in light of the watershed moment that occurred on September 11th, 2001 in New York City.
Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
A world without books would be a true hell. Bradbury speculates with great imagination a world in which books are illegal and firemen are meant only to burn to the houses of those who own them. Intellect and wisdom have been forsaken in order to embrace mega-bytes and motherboards leaving professors and sages to exile themselves as homeless, train-track vagabonds reminiscing about the days when String theory and the enigma of time were worthy subjects.
My Favorite Thing:
The closing scene in which the hobos were actually banished thinkers who had apparently descended to the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. (Not that I like the idea, but the thought that that could be the result of such a society is alarming.)
Night
by Elie Wiesel
Wiesel, Nobel laureate, recounts his grueling discovery of the true meaning of life and purpose through his survival of the horridly rancid stain on our Earth that was and is the Holocaust. The details given were most likely nowhere close to the reality of the atrocity though what has been recorded is enough to turn your stomach and earnestly implore the mercy of our gracious God. This should be required reading for all humanity in order to educate the world in the hideousness of hate, exclusivism, racism and narcissism. So that these people will not have been murdered in total vanity, please read this account of the Jewish fate in World War II.
I shall not disgrace this book by providing you a sentence in which the word “favorite” is employed.
The World According to Mr. Rogers: Important Things to Remember
by Fred Rogers
This is a simple collection of quotes by the man we all envied for having a trolley and a traffic light in his living room. It’s nice, and a few things are actually quite thought provoking.
My Favorite Thing:
The author.
by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Based on the infamous Scopes Trials in a 1925 Dayton, Tennessee courtroom, this play offers an only slightly varied version of the happenings that summer. Considering the current battle over the issue, and the apparently blinded Christian attitude toward it, this would be a fine read lasting you barely two days time.
My favorite thing:
Hornbeck’s wit. Compare it to that of the great writer/journalist/philosopher, H.L. Mencken, the man on whom the character is based.
Searching for God Knows What
by Donald Miller
Donald Miller should be considered the most prolific Christian writer of our present day. His grasp on logic and reality is reassuring in that those who would identify will no longer have to feel alone in the world. He approaches the Christian life truthfully in the relational manner in which it was intended to be lived instead of the rule-oriented, broken down, throwback to the Old Testament idea of formulas and bullet-points. A must read for everyone who has grown accustomed to breathing.
My favorite thing:
Most of the pages of text found between the front cover and the one in the back.
The Auto-Biography of an Ex-Coloured Man
by James Weldon Johnson
Follow the life of a nameless boy, a child born to a white man from a black mother, into manhood. His countenance is so fair that he could pass as a caucasian, but doesn’t quite understand the power of such a thought until he lives a most extraordinary life worthy of any world class man of affluence, yet still finds that he will be limited by something as merely biological as pigment.
My Favorite Thing:
Notice the underlying theme music plays in his growth and how it affects, with great consequence, the outcomes of his life.
Prisoners Without Trial
by Roger Daniels
A very dry read about the injustice paid to the hard-working Japanese-American citizens leading up to and after the Pearl Harbor incident. Called “relocation,” the wrongful incarceration of over 120,000 citizens based on ethnicity alone fits in well with the history we have with African-Americans and Native Americans. While it will not be very entertaining, as if it should be, the material is “must know” information on the history of our country and the precedence on which the future may seek counsel.
My Favorite Thing:
I was quite intrigued at the parallels revealed between what happened then and what could happen in the future in light of the watershed moment that occurred on September 11th, 2001 in New York City.
Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
A world without books would be a true hell. Bradbury speculates with great imagination a world in which books are illegal and firemen are meant only to burn to the houses of those who own them. Intellect and wisdom have been forsaken in order to embrace mega-bytes and motherboards leaving professors and sages to exile themselves as homeless, train-track vagabonds reminiscing about the days when String theory and the enigma of time were worthy subjects.
My Favorite Thing:
The closing scene in which the hobos were actually banished thinkers who had apparently descended to the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. (Not that I like the idea, but the thought that that could be the result of such a society is alarming.)
Night
by Elie Wiesel
Wiesel, Nobel laureate, recounts his grueling discovery of the true meaning of life and purpose through his survival of the horridly rancid stain on our Earth that was and is the Holocaust. The details given were most likely nowhere close to the reality of the atrocity though what has been recorded is enough to turn your stomach and earnestly implore the mercy of our gracious God. This should be required reading for all humanity in order to educate the world in the hideousness of hate, exclusivism, racism and narcissism. So that these people will not have been murdered in total vanity, please read this account of the Jewish fate in World War II.
I shall not disgrace this book by providing you a sentence in which the word “favorite” is employed.
The World According to Mr. Rogers: Important Things to Remember
by Fred Rogers
This is a simple collection of quotes by the man we all envied for having a trolley and a traffic light in his living room. It’s nice, and a few things are actually quite thought provoking.
My Favorite Thing:
The author.
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