The Mystifying Present: Another Look at Tinker Creek

Everyone knows what the present is until you ask them.

When I learned of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, I was intrigued, not least because she did so well so young (29) and because she had studied at a nearby (then) women’s college, Hollins (now University). When I learned she had written about the very creek that bordered our house I just had to read it. Except it was ten years before I began.

This year marks that year and happens also to be the 50th anniversary of its publishing. So I set the helpful, if rather pedestrian, goal of reading it through the year and writing on it month by month. I have yet to know if the book’s depth — or mine — is up to that task, but the creek is wonderful thus far.

The book is comprised of fifteen chapters, a journal of sorts, most of which were previously published in various magazines. No particular method of approach presents itself so in this round I am going to look at one chapter. Chapter 6: The Present.

Everyone knows what the present is until you ask them, just like we know what to do with it until we realize whatever we are doing we already did. Time is such a mystery – who can know it? The Psalmist says to number your days and so we try to have a sense of how many we have left and how we should use the ones we have.

But how do we use the present?

The beginning scene of the chapter is exactly right and earthy, a simple stopover at a gas station- a reprieve from the weary highway miles on her way home. I love it for the implicit mix of space and time. When you travel by modern means, present takes on a whole new feel as it flies past at artificial speed.

Drive 400 miles in 7 hours and you feel hurled into your destination as if it were a backstop on a ball field. You don’t feel alive for a day or two as your body chides you for attempting to play god with time and space. The same kind of thing happens, says Annie, when you leave a theater mid-movie. Stepping from the imitation to the real, from time-suspended to time-absorbed – it shocks the soul.

This gas station is no ordinary stop. In her quiet waiting at the station Annie feels the surrounding Virginia panorama. “Shadows lope along the mountain’s rumpled flanks,” she says. Of course mountains have flanks, at least that’s what I’ve always said. And shadows lope. Yes they do, we just never stop to see, to know, to feel. Later on she says mountains are “hunched.” My thought exactly! Except not, because I was never sufficiently present.

Present. This chapter could theoretically be the whole book for Tinker is about being in time rather than marking it. When we are truly ‘present in the present’ artificial (clock) time is forgotten. Instead such moments know life by the moving sun, or as darkness creeps in beneath the clouds.

Clock time is construct, thief, imposter: claiming – tyrant-like — allegiance, devotion, and surrender. But it loses power when you learn to be with those around you; when you listen, hear, and see the very earth in all its expressions; when you dare to engage ‘the present circumstances’ as the simple and real stuff of life.

Annie says living in the present lets us “catch grace as a man fills his cup at a waterfall.”

And she lays waste, again, to self-consciousness as the enemy of the present: of life itself, one might say. It made me wonder if self-consciousness gets in the way like two mirrors facing one another. Self-reflection repeats itself until there is nothing left. Innocence is better than self-consciousness, she says: a wide-eyed openness and settled intent to receive the real rather than imagine we will re-make it.

Innocence for Annie? “At once a receptiveness and total concentration.”

But why, I wonder, serve and revere the present? Is this the dictum of one Ben Franklin that calls us to treasure time? Surely it is more. The present is life and let’s not reduce life to a clock. How much time do I have left in this world? I don’t know and I’m not going to trouble over what I can’t know. In fact, knowing is oversold: living is better.

Living- that is – in the present.

Platitudes like this are worn but no less true for that. Some cultures, wiser, tell us not to look forward but backward, for only there can we see the countless points of presence that make us who we are today. Look forward and there is nothing to see. It is too much for me, but before I die I want to learn to love life by loving the present.

Tolstoy has a famous short story about how much land a man needs. A man is told to circumvent as much acreage as he can, and it will belong to him if only he arrives at the starting point by sundown. He runs hard and fast to encompass as much as possible but his ill-prepared body succumbs to the exertion and he dies upon reaching the starting point as the sun is setting. There he is buried and we are told he had all the land a man ever needs: enough for his own grave.

How much time do I need? The present is all. The past is no more and the next moment does not exist. To say I need the present is simply to affirm life, for there is no life outside of the present. The present is the only place we live.

Even if I live to be one hundred years my whole life will be described (inadequately) as a compilation of moments. And whenever I missed the moment, I wasn’t really living. The present is enough because it is all I can hope to manage, and learning to manage it is a lifetime endeavor.

Presence is a kind of anchor that transcends time. It is presence that rightly demands “allegiance, devotion, surrender.” Presence is the central gift of life: existence, wonder, scintillating joy and discovery. Whatever life is, it is the present. I think this is true but it is too much for me.

Though this is a second reading, I’ll not finish the chapter. Annie holds forth beautifully on trees, and it is enough to know those trees, the trees along that bank where I once mowed, are all but certainly long gone. At one moment they were no more and so shall be with all things in this life. We know, we are aware, we are present. And then, in some moment as real as all the others, we are not.

I wonder if that is what some theologians call “the eternal now.” And I dare to believe that must be a right conception, and that in that day, a moment never ending, we will finally know that for which the wonder of presence is a clue.

Puzzling, heart-breaking, stupefying: but a clue nonetheless.

That’s reason enough to learn to live in the present. Figure that out. Rather, let it figure you out, for the reality is vastly more than you and I. But if we go there, game on! We become more than we ever imagined.

For we only learn to “hold” the present when we let it hold us.

Praise [10'TH]

Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. 

While I live will I praise the Lord: 

I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. 

(Psalm 146:1-2)

These last five Psalms are all about praise. I have been puzzled by praise all of my life. I think we conflate praising God with exhortation to praise God, but I don't know what this does to us. Perhaps it does not matter.

What do I mean? I remember a particular evangelist speaking of going throughout the house saying over and over, "Praise the Lord!" But is that actually praising God? No. It is admonishing one's self or others to do so. So the question is, "What would we do if we did that which we are admonished to do?" That is, "What exactly is praise?"

Another preacher once preached so well I sent him a note of thanks, expressing my appreciation for the excellent sermon. He responded saying, in part, "I think some of your praise is over the top." Praise, of course, means simply to tell someone how good they are.

When we praise the Lord, as the Psalmist urges us to do over and over again, we are reveling and recounting how great He is, how good, how amazing, how awesome. In my experience this is something that is hindered, not helped, by simply saying "praise the Lord" as if that expression, in and of itself, is praising God.

I do not think this is over-thinking, but since my 10 minutes are up I will lay this on the shelf and resume in another week. 

Now is time to pray.

Distress? [100WW]

David cries out in typical fashion in Psalm 141:

"Lord, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee." 

Urgency and pleading: the man feels his need and cries out to the only One who can help. On full reading it seems clear David's life was in peril. He seeks relief from distress.

What distress do you feel today? Pain of heart or body, broken family, deep sadness of soul, lost time and opportunity, fear of peril?

Cry out to God. He hears, He cares, He is able for your need.

Little League Lessons for Life

Baseball in western Kansas was better than anyone knew. The Little League had eight teams and each team had plenty of players – it seemed there were four or five friends on the bench at any time. Our little field had real dugouts in 1973. You would actually step down a step or two and watch the game like you were in the big leagues. A year or two later they got rid of them and put in easy-maintenance chain link at ground level with a roof over for shade.

I missed the real dugouts. New isn’t always better.

There was always the wooden fence in outfield though, and some years we had infield grass. Someone worked really hard to make that happen. We were in Ulysses after all, a place on the prairie where very little grew unless you put water right on it, and lots of that. I loved that field. Sometimes after my afternoon pre-game ritual my Mom would drop me off early and it would be just me in the stands and the grounds guy working with the chalk marker. He would bring that batters’-box-shaped metal frame out from the maintenance shed, drop it by home plate, adjust it a bit, and then run the chalk thingy over it. Then he’d do the other side, and then the foul lines. Nothing better.

There are a thousand things and more to say about those days, and someday I hope to write a book about it. It went deep in my soul and the sights and sounds are ever with me. If I were to write a book, one chapter would be about my coach, Bob Heath. What a guy. A person never knows how he or she may be a hero to young’uns. And the young ones seldom are aware how much the coaches mean. The good ones – and Coach Heath was certainly that – become a point of reference, the one who knows everything and can be trusted. He tells you what to do and you do it just because. He’s Coach.

It must have been hard – of course it was. I vaguely remember a parent complaining because her son was not pitching. And there was the constant pressure of who gets to play, how much, and when. Coach Heath had to take it in stride, try to please everyone if possible, and teach these young men about life and baseball. Of course we’re always quick to say “in that order” – life before baseball. But I think you can’t teach baseball without teaching life. Whatever the case, we all knew baseball was great fun and we should play with all our heart. And we knew if we played it right, with a good attitude, we’d have a win no matter what the score was. That was Coach Heath.

A chapter on Coach would be easy, but I also wonder about a chapter on Joe. Joe Garcia. We had a lot of Mexican-American friends in the League – which was another happy chapter. One of them, however – a young friend named Oscar who struggled in life and baseball – died tragically when a car hit his go-cart on a country road. I was a pall-bearer at his funeral at the tender age of eleven. Another teammate was named Johnny Sosa. When I heard about the Big League star with that last name I wondered, because Johnny was really good.

But I was thinking about Joe Garcia. In my memory he was kind of like Bo Jackson. Big and strong for his age, intimidating on the field, a very good athlete. I was pitching one evening well into the game. I would guess I was almost 11 years old and Joe was all of 12. Joe came to bat, probably about the 4th inning. There may have been a few on base, I don’t remember. But I remember Coach Heath coming out to talk to me.

“What do you think, Randy? Should we walk him?” Joe was a far stronger hitter than any who might follow him.

“No, let’s don’t walk him, Coach. I can pitch to him. I’m sure I can. I think I can get him!” I heard myself say it, oblivious to the youthful zeal that carried my certainty. I just knew, somehow, I could do it.

Coach looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure?” I nodded my head.

“OK,” he replied. “Give it your very best!”

He went back to the dugout and I watched Joe come to the plate. He was strong and seemed to have no fear. It has been over 40 years and I’ve never forgotten what happened next. I wound into my typical Little League pitching form and let loose the hardest fastball I could muster. Right down the middle, right over the plate, about stomach high. Joe swung and the ball came straight back toward me as a slow grounder.

Joe was fast mind you, as you’ll know in a moment. I had to charge the ball and when I swung around and threw to first he was almost there. My throw was straight and hard and I watched as Joe sped through first and hopped the sideline fence in one quick bound as the umpire yelled, “Out!” I had done it!! Somehow I faced my fear, barely knowing or caring about the odds, and gave it everything I had. My Coach knew what mattered most and gave me the opportunity to face possible failure. And I won!

I’ve had many a mishap in the years since, plenty of times I should have pitched but folded instead. And there were times I insisted on pitching and was hopelessly over-matched, outwitted, or simply defeated by unforeseen circumstances. But the life lesson is still in my soul: the mix of risk in winning, the fear of knowing you may lose, the joy of giving your best and finding it is enough to win the day and get the job done.

I doubt if Coach knew all that meant. He was just trying to help a kid do the right thing and help a team win a game. But his guiding word and giving heart meant he was in a place of influence that has made a difference all my life. So to Coach Heath and all the coaches across the country in Little League fields in unknown places, baseball is better than you know. When you teach baseball well, you teach life. And I think the two go together just right.

Empty Boots

Those who gave their all made our life possible and showed us how best to live it.

This is a day to remember those who died, to honor their memory, to consider that for which they gave all, to ask ourselves if we are living worthy of such a gift.

While few things are more certain in this broken world than than the awful scourge of war, it is vital that you and I remember the cost. We must remember the boots, leaving cherished homes and villages; marching away from family and friends to serve the fatherland and preserve freedom. In the last century those boots in trains and ships, half-tracks, trucks, airplanes and submarines, in tents in Iraq or colossal buildings like the Pentagon – those boots numbered 10's of millions of our friends and fellow citizens.

• WWI saw 9 million register to join the cause, a stunning 9 percent of our population.

• WWII engaged over ten million souls in the global struggle on behalf of our great nation.

• The Korean conflict enlisted well over 3 million soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors.

• The Vietnam struggle pulled 9 million of our best into the conflict.

• And the wars since Vietnam, especially in the Middle East have sent millions of our men and women around the world to serve in circumstances stifling in every way, while others dutifully leave family and other life loves to serve at home and other posts.

The toll of this commitment is unspeakably hard, a steady faithfulness that requires diligence and perseverance beyond knowing. Most of us know little of it – it defies experience and comprehension.

But today it is for our good to remember those boots. And we are especially here today to remember the empty boots – the ones that left full of life and vitality, carrying courageous, devoted souls and returned empty or not at all to loved ones heart-broken.

We remember them today to let their loved ones and all of us dare to believe that the loss was worth it, that their loss gains for us a continuing heritage of freedom, that we rightly honor those who gave, in Lincoln's words, “the last full measure of devotion. It is fitting and proper that we do this.”

Let us remember today with gratitude, with honor, with devotion: receiving the gift they gave and pledging anew to earn it by living a life worthy of their loss.

Let us remember the empty boots.

• The 117,000 that never returned from the ghastly two years we fought in WWI.

• The 417,000 dead in WWII – nearly 300 soldiers a day for the duration of the war.

• The 54,000 who never returned from Korea

• The 58,000 lost to the Vietnam conflict, 61% of whom were not yet 21.

• And let us remember the nearly 8,000 who have died in conflicts since 1990.

It is good to see again the transforming power gained when we are willing to give all. This willingness means some will indeed fall, they will in actuality make that ultimate sacrifice. And the countless crosses on so many hillsides are testament to the greatness of those who laid down their lives so we could live, and live free.

Today I want to remember, and pray for grace to live in such a way that brings life-changing strength for all I know and love, and for our great nation in the hard days ahead. 

Those who gave their all made our life possible and showed us how best to live it.

Overthinkers Not-So-Anonymous

There's a social media group called "Table of Misfits" and I suppose something like "Overthinkers Not-So-Anonymous" would be in the same broad category of human proclivities. The very name carries the intrinsic acknowledgement of irony, a constant shadowy presence for all over-thinkers. Countless things are said to allow for too many shades of nuance until the over-thinker would be exhausted if sufficiently self-aware, and the listeners are faking it like pros, which skill, if the listener is well known to said over-thinker, they have perfected to a pure art of friendliness. Whole books could be written while listening to various adjustments, explanations, considerations, rabbit holes to consider intent of various ideas, basis for the ideas behind the ideas behind the ideas and so on. I exaggerate a bit.

One could argue this is a sheer matter of analytical bent and not learning how to draw boundaries. One would be right, it seems. Analysis is important but so easily eats itself, or tries. As Muggeridge says so well somewhere, "Accuracy can be the enemy of meaning." The overthinker pounces of course, missing the point: "We can have both, can't we? Do you wish for IN-accuracy?! What good is meaning if founded on a lie?!!" And on and on. Whether spoken or not it reverberates in the head. 

Perhaps an example will help for those who are peaceable and yet have the remarkable ability to care and engage with an overthinking person. I read Psalm 116:1 this morning: 

I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

Allow me to give you an overthinker's version:

• Do I really love the Lord? (I do try.)
• You mean it is ok to have a cause for loving God? What is this, a quid pro quo; God does something for me and then-and-only-then will I love Him? That violates all norms of free will and loving relationship. What is David thinking? This IS Scripture isn't it? I guess it is OK to love for reasons, as a response to the amazing love of God. [Grace sneaks in the back door.]

And grace, always grace, delivers. Of course over-thinking comes along and steps in, and grace redeems it. What is grace you ask? [Overthinking is already there.] Grace is the goodness of God expressed in redeeming the life of all who look to Him for help and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace is a gift of enabling, helping us see a better path, revealing the very reality of God to us in what is very often the direct ministry of the Holy Spirit to our heart and mind. 

Overthinking is normal mental faculties over done. Overthinkers need all that is involved when Paul says to "take all thoughts captive." Submit all of life -- this includes the mind -- to Christ. He is good, He knows what we need and if we let go the reins, "lean NOT on our own understanding," we will find a miracle is at play everyday. The grace of Christ helps us learn to keep the monster of overthinking at bay and to learn the joy beyond knowing of this lyric: "Like a river glorious is God's perfect peace; over all victorious in its bright increase."

I love the Lord and am able to do so because He first loved me, showed me the way in, and walks with me daily. This brings gladness to my heart and puts overthinking in its place.

Alleluia!

Wait becomes Weight

Waiting is weighting if we let it. Chafe, complain, look for end runs and quick fixes and you'll find no weight in the wait. Oh, there will be weight alright, but not the kind you want, not the gravitas that makes rich and strong and whole, but the millstone that drags down. If you abandon the pain of waiting you will compound the problem and prolong the pain, trading what might have been for far lesser than.

Waiting develops weight when we learn to be still, to trust that God is at work, to give way to the vision of faith which always says the work is now and it is also not yet. It is ongoing. This is the crux. This is the cross.

The work Christ would do in us takes time and “when that which is perfect is come,” when “patience has done its perfect work,” we will see the trials of this life worked in us “an eternal weight of glory” and we will know the wait has given way to weight, to reality, to glory. When we are forever joined to Christ we will share in His glory, full of grace and truth. We will finally see that which is eternal, we will be “perfect and entire lacking nothing,” and “that which is in part” will be forever done away. And we will know without a doubt that it was worth the wait.

Miracle of Grace

It fell my lot, as we say, to be the preacher for a small camp meeting. This was new to me and, for reasons hard to understand much less explain, I felt inadequate, even flatly unable. I have served as a pastor for almost 9 years, but the learning curve has been oh-so long and slow and bewildering at times; and of course, painful, for nothing truly good comes without pain. Sigh.

So I accepted this responsibility knowing I couldn't do it at all without the help of the Helper. And since it is His business, my part is to be available, willing, open and walking forward as a lamb to the slaughter. :)

One mentor stressed to me that I must simply be myself. So I kept that in mind. I can't be anyone else – hard enough to be at peace in my own skin. And I have to leave the results with God. It seems this is the perennial struggle of a preacher and it is normal. Who wants to fall flat, in public no less? And who dares to do something as heady and impossible as speaking for God? Anyone is a fool to do it unless he dies to self, walks through the crucible, lives in the crucible, relies on the Word, and rests in the ministry and aid of the Holy Spirit.

My overly self-conscious bent means I have to abandon worries about all of that, throw myself on God, and ask for mercy. Truly this is the case and I have normal reluctance in sharing all of this. :/

But I share it with joy to help myself remember. On the 3^rd night one of the ladies stood during testimony time and said, “I have a miracle to report.” This caught everyone's attention, and I turned around from the front row to listen better.

“One of our friends [she called his name] who is new in his walk with God had told me he wasn't really keen on the camp meeting this year.” It was clear she meant he wasn't sure he would gain much from this unknown visiting preacher, but she was being discreet and didn't say it like that.

She continued. “I replied that he would just have to pray for the camp and be open – who knows what God might do?” Then she gave the miracle. “He called me last night and said he had listened to the live stream from the first night. 'I was so wrong,' he said. 'It was like every word was from God.'” And then the friend continued to say that as he listened to the second service he couldn't stop weeping for the help the words brought to His soul.

Now dear reader, this is indeed a miracle, a sheer miracle. Of course God gives abilities and uses all that he gives us to bless others. But it is He who does it and we are vessels. Personal pride over such a thing would be folly of the highest rank. Rather, by the great grace of God, I find myself quite humbled, aptly shocked, and deeply grateful. God still moves and I will keep walking with halt and limp, but gaining strength as well, delighted in the goodness of God and His willingness to use even me.

Alleluiah.

Relief Valve of the Soul [100WW]

The wonder of life increases with gratitude. How do we forget so easily? “He who has forgotten to be thankful has fallen asleep in life” said Stevenson. And Chesterton goes to the heart: “Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” But whence the wonder? 

The window frames trees across the way, rich in Alaska spring green, shades from Birch, Alder, Spruce. It is fullness for the soul, a grace of life beyond all joy and knowing. How does one receive it without heart bursting? By giving thanks. Gratitude is the relief valve of a soul overwhelmed with the goodness of God.

Disincarnation (Wendell Berry)

Take a moment to consider this poem....

Disincarnation

Looking at screens,

listening to voices
in nonexistent distance,
seeing, hearing nothing
present, we pass into
the age of disincarnation,
the death love finally
realized as we become
our pictures adrift,
homeless in deplaced
space of the mind only.

(Wendell Berry)

Berry gets it. Disembodied-ness is ever tempting for reasons I cannot plumb, though the Manichees give us a clue. This Gnostic business enabled by ever-present technology lets us imagine our bodies are secondary, if anything at all, as determining factors. Whatever we decide the body is to be, it is for our pleasure rather than our instruction. Thus we can be "born into the wrong body" and must conclude that human-ness is supra-physical. Otherwise how do we know what the "we" is? What is the I when someone says "I was born in the wrong body." The "I" is a person but the body is secondary to it, subject to it.

But this can never be. It is the same as saying we live in this world but it has zero actual effect on us. A human person is not a person without a body. With our bodies we do all things necessary to life. This is why Orthodox Christian theology insists that God took on flesh: "very God of very God, very man of very man." He would not have been fully human without taking on the body. And because he did become embodied, the human body -- not just the soul -- can be saved and restored for all time. All created things are good, and that "all" includes the body.

This is no trivial consideration. It is at the heart of any true theology of the body. And we desperately need this reminder in our disincarnated world.

The Merit in Random Writing

 A friend told me a writer needs to be able to write about his shoelace. Indeed. Chesterton once quipped, "I was going to write about the contents of my pocket but the age of epics is past."

What is this thing of writing about anything, finding some comment worth the effort, seeing what is unseen, imagining that which is otherwise unknown? I'm not sure I know. Some people have no penchant or desire for "making talk." If, on some ingrained metric, there is nothing worth discussing, don's say anything. As one proverb gives voice to a thousand like it, "Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

So I'm left wondering if there is any good cause or purpose in writing about anything -- anything. The window, the rug, the lamp; Birch, Alder, Cottonwood, Spruce; art, flowers, candles, couches, books, carpet, shelves, smoke alarm. Of course I am making a cursory record of my surroundings, general scale, not very particular.

There is more: light on phone, untied dress shoes, wreath through door glass, passing Chevy, dimming sky. In each and all of those are ideas to mine, questions to ask, lessons to learn or at least imagine.

If there is merit in discussing the random, one point of light may be the exercise in thought, of being an amateur metaphysician, asking what makes the thing what it is, what properties are essential. In doing this one learns to think better and that is never a bad thing. 

Along with that, some of us -- maybe most -- find it necessary to talk things out if we are to 'see' what we think more clearly. and of course if we receive feedback from listeners or readers, we may find a better path. If we listen.

Old Books

Old books sometimes more than new,
showing wear of tried and true;
Used books sometimes more than mint,
handled oft by unknown friends:
Bring truth and joy in ways unseen,
the wells so deep and very clean,
quench thirsty souls whose patient search
leads them to unexpected ends.

Thoughts So Soon Forgot

Thoughts so soon forgot are lost
and "found" is thinnest hope, for when 
they come around again they won't be known.

"Nothing's new," they say and so
I know. Though new to me, the thing
has been a notion old to countless minds.

"Best to write it down," they say

before it wastes away and dies

for sweet and happy notions oft retreat

and make the learner open eyes

and ears to wonder what is there,

and finding thoughts are treasure to be held.

A Home Lost

Dear World,

No this is not a suicide letter, though it could be like one because it reflects on the death of life. 

Social media – that nutty phenomenon that connects us all in virtual space – tells of a friend. He loved her, she loved him. High School sweethearts, soon married. Both working very hard. Planning future. Church? Some. Jesus? Some. Parents? Yes. School, midnight oil, soon a baby!

Three years in, he is gone. Wife on the arm, delightful companion, no longer with. Happens all the time? Maybe. But why this couple? What does it say about me and mine? Is anyone safe? What makes safe? Does 'God' make safe?

I have friends and friends of friends who tell stories that drain the soul. Man leaves family for another; family in poverty for years. Mother of three faithful no more, lost and wandering, husband wondering. Mother of two, leaves in God's name; husband wrong, distraught, perplexed. Listening in I shake my head and despair and cry. Mother of 4 lost her way, husband more, no way to say what happened except family now gone. She struggles. He's lost, deserving, not sure what or why or how. Children together, looking good for now. For always? Is anything for always?

Here's the truth. God may not be enough. Oh He always is, but He can't help us as He wants if we rebel and ignore Him. Proverbs is right. Seek Him paramount. Don't seek ultimate reality in people. People are just people, unable to bear the weight of being god to you. Love God first and always, then love the one He gives you.

Any other lessons for my hurting soul? The best appearance can hide disaster underneath. This young couple was all that -- and not. Get face to face with God your Maker. He deals with the real you, the inside. Before Him bow. This is what is ultimate. It gives meaning to staying together. It makes possible. It sustains in disaster.

What makes a marriage crumble? I do not know. I hug my wife and I weep inside. Can we make it? What hidden cancer would steal our love? Can I steward the pain we've known to help others weather the storm? Is it enough to possess zeal to succeed? No. Is longing for real love enough? Almost. But only God makes real. Only He deals with the brokenness of soul that would destroy the best of friendships and marriages. What is the mystery here?

All I know is a young friend's marriage went out the door, gone, shattered, baby in tow. And the explanations are oh-so modern:

• “He left, no good reason; it doesn't really matter after all – this is very common now days.”
• “I can get a job; family and society will hold me up. We tried.”
• “He just wanted someone else more than me;" or, "I just wanted baby more than him;" or, "I got tired – a person can only take so much.”

Does desperation matter? Simple loyalty? Dying for the other, giving up every hope and dream you ever had for the supreme hope of keeping the vow? Ideas matter, desperately so. Good ideas, valiantly obeyed, will save us. Wrong ideas, blindly pursued, will ruin us. And so we may not know whence came the cancer that destroys, or why so soon or why waited so long.

Platitudes and urging mean little. I know all the right words, or most of them. What can I say to soon groomed, hopeful bride, thrice wed? Joy, angst, anger? I do not know. Others fail, why not me? Why not mine? I can only appeal to fundamentals, faithfulness, “do not leave!”, “no matter what!” Can this be done? Yes. Any guarantees?

None.

I have no platitudes. Pride and desire to succeed may make a marriage surface-strong, but what of the soul? Corrode from within and suddenly all are shocked and heart-broken. The love they saw collapsed on an empty inside. There was no there there. Who knew? Does it matter? This happens all the time. She will get a job. Kids will cope. He will work harder. There are no tears, no lament because nothing real is left, nothing real was gained.

But what was the hope, the dream, the wish, the possibility? A home: that eternal, elusive bastion of happiness? A place of rooms and hearts and beds and sorrows and forever? Is it worth it at all? Does FB have a clue?

Facebook would be life if we could create reality by pictures and tirades and well-crafted descriptions. Which brings again the question of truth. Are we real? Can we survive? Am I honest with myself? With my spouse? With my God? A home is not a digital presence but a presence together in bricks and mortar, walls and front door, locked when needed, left when must but always returned to. Social media, for all its jaded value, is a thread of constant pictures, a poison elixir that hooks the mind and heart with nothing. It is the ultimate truth decay, a metaphor of this broken home that has shattered my soul.

There was something there, but the pictures could not sustain it. And even as I write about it I am lost.

Seeing, Knowing, Doing [100WW]

“If you overstate your case you undermine your cause.”

How easy it is to fall in this trap. Passion for the right way, the good path, the known facts and obvious truth: the passion carries the day but, for reasons, won't overcome objections. 

I've felt this failing painfully, oblivious to the reasons. though I think I've learned some reasons. A mentor once told me, reluctantly, “You have to prove yourself in task planning and performance before your opinion has weight.” That was true for me, but others, smarter/wiser help us know and see without performance. It's a thorny problem.

Of Waiting and Joy [10'TU]

"Less is more" the saying going, conceding quietly that we always think "more" is better. This is a bane of my life, perhaps of all people in measure. For one of countless examples: "If one chapter a day is good, five would be better. Wouldn't it? Of course it would, who could think otherwise!" 

And so it's off to the races with nary a question as to why or whether, by some odd and wild chance, the assumption could be wrong.

"Patience is a virtue" I always heard, but I never believed it. My disbelief was a mix of incredulity and simple denial. "How could waiting be good in any life, on any planet, for anything, anywhere? Really, how could it? Tell me, tell me now!"

This business is at the core of life and the right answer offers keys for life well-lived. A happy life is a good life and goodness is not easy in the early going as habits are built and desires denied. Suffering is required, sometimes suffering for a long time. But it is a trade off -- suffer now and odds are you can avoid suffering later. This is also known as the ability to wait, the willingness to delay gratification.

Life is in the waiting -- one might even say life is waiting. Waiting for what? The better, the good, the joy, the eternal. Bearing with the weight of waiting now is wisdom distilled. It surrenders to reality, that more is not better, that being underlies all good doing, that eternal good will come, will come, in time.

So wait and sing and dance, for joy -- eternal joy -- comes someday and it will make the pain of waiting seem as nothing.

A Musing on Wendell Berry and Sabbath

What might the heart and mind know when we finally rest?

  

Wendell Berry will be ninety this year. What an amazing guy. You should read A Letter to Wendell Berry by Wallace Stegner. It reveals two gifted men, depth of friendship, joys of life that call us higher and make us feel the sweet pain of tasting the best and knowing there is even more and better. There are secrets to seeing and being thus.

Wendell comes to mind today because for some decades now he has written poems on Sunday. This hints at how much can be done with regular effort over time. He writes more than he can use and he doesn't use a laptop to enhance quantity. His life-long habit is to write long-hand and then his wife, Tanya, types it out for him.

I would wish for such a record. It would grow a writer, though few will be in league with Berry. I began with a stretch for free verse because I like the idea of Sunday poems. Weekly Sabbath is a gift and discipline. Who needs it? All of us do, and very much. What might the heart and mind know when we finally rest?

Wendell Berry

Today

I write because it is today, a day when I am supposed to write. No one cares, I suppose, about said rumination, especially since it is only to fulfill a task. And yet, tasks are committed to pull us forward, or in some direction.

There is always, always, the question of worthiness. Are all tasks equal in value? Hardly. 

Comes to mind the old word,  first heard from my beloved pastor during college years, G. R. French. He said, "Big people speak of ideas,  average people speak of events, small people speak of people." He was quoting someone. I took it to be true in the main, and still do.

Yet, many people are unable to speak of ideas, perhaps quite literally so, and we should not look askance at them. Nor do all who speak of ideas do so well, with clear-headedness, thoughtful rationale, devoid of fallacy or severe bias, etc. 

In a word, we need help with all kinds of talk, and writing blogs is no exception. I love ideas but such hardly makes me a "big person." (A too easy fallacy sticks its head in here. The pastor did not say all who speak of ideas are big, but that big people do it.)

The only answer for me, really, is prayer, though I easily and often fail it. Seek the living God, ask His presence, ask His forgiveness, ask for wisdom and good sense. Pray for your loved ones: yes, because they need this or that, but more because you need to learn to love them and praying for them is non-negotiable if you would be successful in that forever journey.

Enough for today. I fulfilled my task. No, not that task, my pesky writing goals. But the greatest gift of life,  i.e. to hear the call of God and to kneel in heart and life before Him.

I hope you will join in that eternal joy and pursuit. 

How do we meaningfully ask adult males to be men?

How do we meaningfully ask adult males to be men?

There is no end run on life which is another way of saying there is no end run on character.  The only way to ask adult males to be men is to be men ourselves.  This requires first of all something which should not need to be said:  it requires we believe there is such a thing as manhood, as masculinity.

The very need to define this is without doubt universal and old as time, but we cannot pass without mentioning that feminism has been no friend in this arena.  I mean clearly and plainly this: insofar as feminism and other sex/gender ideologies have made masculinity wholly subjective -- to that extent it has not been good.  That seems axiomatic to me, though I would of course listen to rejoinders and admit freely that it is -- as are all things in our current life-of-mind -- all but impossible to prove. (Which indicates it is premise level knowledge -- you either accept it or you do not.)

So, assuming there are universal and identifiable aspects to masculinity, if I were to give a minimalist answer to the above question it would look like this:

1. Men should always be honest, hard-working, provide for their own, and do their best.
2. Men should be sexually responsible.  This means saving sex for one woman, and that after marriage; and then keeping it within marriage with that one woman until death.  Singleness is a sound option, to be seriously considered as preferable for some men.  But it is not honorable unless chaste.
3. Honor really matters. Honor means to do what is right, reward rightness in others, look down upon un-rightness in others.
4. Men should use their gifts to the best of their ability to serve their loved ones and communities.
5. Men should cultivate and promote a willingness to protect their homes, communities and fatherland -- with force as necessary -- with the goal of protecting the more vulnerable and assuring that maximal life is preserved and prolonged.

That's my best effort and I hope it helps someone somewhere, just as I was helped by my own Dad, Uncles, Grandfathers, brothers, and other male examples.  Which underscores the main point: the best way to help boys become men is to be faithful to those we father by loving their mother and staying home; and by living faithfully otherwise as an example to sons not our own. For after all, when we adopt a modicum of C. S. Lewis' moderate realism about masculinity, we know that it is an innate characteristic in all men, to be cultivated, enriched, and strengthened.  This, as they say, quite literally "makes the world go 'round."

These simple truths, lived out though in weak vessels, give solid foundation to any community and nation.

Cross

“It's really my cross,” he said, “This thing I did not plan.”
Nor would he, nor would he know why it could ever be good.
How do we know what is good and what is not, when
our best is known to be otherwise by the Eternal God?

“Be careful what you pray for” the elders say, an echo of the
ancient text: “God gave their desire but sent leanness....”
We strive and wonder why we have not, forgetting that
which we are sure is good may be nothing of the sort.

Are all crosses good, all burdens beneficial if borne with
patience and faith in He who does all things well?
What of self-caused burdens? What of eyes washed with tears
so we see the beauty and joy that make the cross all worth it?

If I knew I might not say for would be too much for me.
But I pray for grace to bear my cross – whatever it may be – with gladness.
For if, as we hope, there is good in the very bearing,
then imagine the joy that awaits when we lay our burdens down.

Dealing with Life as it is [100WW]

[I've long wondered about the role of motives in life: how easily we assume them, how painful presumed motives can be, how easily we are wrong about our own motives and those of others, yet can scarcely be dissuaded in our opinions. It is a minefield of pain and difficulty. I thought I'd try to address it week by week with a few of these 100 Word Wednesdays. It is all fictionalized, drawing from life as I've seen it, experienced it, and thought about it.]

“Why didn't you let me play baseball?” Father and son were in my office. The son, age 30, was trying to heal a divide with his Dad. “Didn't you want me to succeed? Didn't you want me to have fun?” The son continued with questions that put his dad in a corner of assumed bad motives. It was, to say the least, painful. Parents do what they do for all kinds of reasons, and they don't always get it right. The son's face was more pain than anger, but both were at play. I wondered how this would go.

Revisiting Woods and Bears and Women and Men [10'TU]

I've thought much on this woman-meets-man-or-bear-alone-in-the-woods meme, and I tried to write on it yesterday. Among other things my effort to understand is an example of visceral reaction clouding judgment.

If you know the meme it says something like this: Women say if they were on a walk in the woods alone and had the choice between meeting a bear or an unknown man they would choose the bear. Who knows the evidence for this claim? I do not know, but I have seen where women claim that, yes, given the choice they would take their chances with the bear.

Truth be known, meeting a bear in the woods is very seldom dangerous, as hard as that is to believe. Who knows how often a woman alone in the woods meets an unknown man, or how dangerous that indeed is? A woman would have to judge by her past experience with unknown men she meets alone away from any possible help. Barring that experience in her past she would have to rely on ideas she has gained about men in general.

What might her dad have taught her about men and how she should feel if she met an unknown man in person. Hard as it is to accept, I think an average father might say odds may be better for good treatment with a bear than an unknown man.

Wow. This just feels so wrong! And when I wrote about it as best I could I ran into the ditch on both sides. If I take the meme at face value I have to say I see the point. But I just can't stay there. The visceral reaction won't let me.

What do we do when things don't feel right? Sometimes our mind can't function for the feelings; sometimes the feelings need to set pause on the best conclusions of our mind.

In this case I know I am reacting to something that feels like an unjustified and damaging insult. Men get enough belittling -- lay off already! The problem is, what does a woman do if she meets an unknown man in the wilderness alone? It is a difficult hypothetical. Are men as bad as the meme suggests? I do not think so. Can we demonstrate objectively the inclinations of women in the meme? No.

Such is the nature of hypotheticals. The set of encounters alone in the woods with bears is vastly smaller than that of encounters with unknown men alone. I wager it would have to be something like 1 to 10 million throughout human history, but no one knows.

And perhaps that is where it ends. This is based on normal human fears and an hypothetical that is virtually impossible to quantify. 

The mind can't do much with it. Feelings reign. 

Maybe admitting that is the hardest thing for me. And possibly that is true for the "other side" as well.

Of Bears and Meeting in the Woods

Of Bears and Meeting in the Woods

Sadly, the meme, while giving voice to fears of women, added insult to injury instead of healing.

I've seen of late the assertion that a woman meeting an unknown man alone in the woods makes for an uncomfortable situation for the woman. So much so that, given the option of meeting a bear instead, she would prefer the bear. I've dutifully tried to perceive the sense of this on its face without whataboutism, defending the integrity of manhood, or other visceral objections.

If alone in a wood, a woman prefers to encounter a wild animal rather than an unknown man. Perhaps it is right to ask why. Why?

• A woman, most of the time, is physically weaker than a man. The man may overpower her and abuse or kill her. Or he may do as a man should do: greet her with respect, and leave her alone unless she asks for help.

• A woman, all of the time, is weaker than a bear. The bear may overpower her and abuse or kill her. Or the bear may, as often happens, readily run off. It is simply not the case that all bear encounters result in attacks. Most do not.

  
  
  

This fictional situation deals with setting, nature, fear and hope: given certain settings what are people most prone to do, what should they fear, and for what can they reasonably hope?

• Setting: alone in a wood.

• Nature: 1) Man is a man. 2) Woman is a woman. 3) Bear is a bear.

• Fear: 1) Man will act like a beast. 2) Woman will be vulnerable. 3) Bear will act like a beast.

• Hope: 1) Man, may act rightly. 2) Woman, vulnerable. 3) Bear, he may run off and do no harm.

Conclusion: Odds are greater the man would misbehave. Take chances with the bear.

What may be said beyond this? A look at implications seems fair. A few that seem true would include:

• Vulnerability is the key issue. How must it feel to know you are at the mercy of another person or a wild beast? We have all been in both situations on some scale, though death is seldom one of the possible outcomes. Vulnerability is not comfortable, to say the least.

• It is a matter of odds: What are the odds the man would kill the woman? The whole thing is necessarily hypothetical so it is very hard to say, but I would think odds of death are very low.

• Abuse and harm, but not death? Odds could be slightly higher that the man would do actual harm.

• It should go without saying that any woman would have cause to fear meeting an unknown man – or a bear -- alone in a wood.

Difficulties?

• What's a man to do? Be a good man. Of course it is awkward to meet alone. Respect that difficulty, act with discretion and utmost respect, and move on unless help is requested.

• If help is requested, be a man and offer it if possible but, as a matter of principle, avoid any relational entanglement. Merely talking about this is difficult but it is the reality of life. No blame, just reality. It is highly likely the woman will respect that and all will be well. The man: do right, help if needed, move on.

• Does it feel insulting to men that women would prefer a bear? Yes, but so what. Some men have earned that fear for the rest of us. Women are more vulnerable than men in some situations, and this is one of them. Forget the offense and be a man which means you always treat a woman with honor.

• Are men sometimes vulnerable to women? Of course, but that is another discussion for another time.

• Should the woman have been in that situation? We all encounter situations we could not anticipate and we learn discretion thereby, or not. Since this is hypothetical, it is a teaching tool and certainly it is possible the woman could have avoided the scenario without undue constraints on freedom. In our world we have no guarantees of good conduct by others so we have to plan accordingly and we will sometimes misjudge the possibilities.

The perils of male-female relations are ever with us in this fallen world. It does no good to malign all men as beasts, nor to slander all women as irrational. Both are capable of causing and receiving incredible hurt.

Happily, both man and woman are also capable of incredible love, self-giving, meeting the need of the other in ways we were designed to do. Such a path is the answer to the painful problem, and if odd discussion of bears and men and meeting in the woods can help us remember that, so be it!

Sadly however, I conclude the meme, while giving voice to fears of women, added insult to injury and did not improve the situation. Perhaps my effort to take it at face-value has merit – and I tried, I really did. But at the end I cannot overcome the insult. It helps nothing to malign men this way.

In every man is a yearning to be all he should be. Encourage that, dare to believe that. We already feel hated and ridiculed in countless cultural voices. It is not helping. Calling us less than beasts only piles on. Encouragement to true manhood is a better strategy, but the morass of immorality we currently suffer only makes it worse.

We have lost our way and there are ways to find it again. We can start with a cease and desist on messages that demean men.