Lean Not On Your Own Understanding

What to do when the list is longer than the day?

When the dream is bigger than the reality?

When the hope loses wind before it can even breath?

Now it sounds pretty down and one knows the task is owning the time.

We can scarcely just be, else we talk about it, which is doing.

How does one shut off the mind?

How does one "lean not on my own understanding?"

It is a letting go, a living into the questions, even a remembering

that the effort to understand may be another enemy in disguise.

God understands and He holds me in His hands.

If that is true, maybe the small sign on the refrigerator says it all:

"If you listen closely you can hear an angel whisper, 

'God is taking care of everything.'"

I believe, I stop, and in a minute I will go, trusting, being, doing.

"Lean not on your own understanding."

Tinker Creek: What to Make of all this Life?

I've been writing this year about Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, the 1975 Pulitzer Prize Winner about life on a Creek in Roanoke. It's a tall order – not the book, but the writing about it.

All stories share in one another and this one more so than most. The author, Annie Dillard, sees the story of life right up "on the nose" one might say. She sees things most of us never think about or read about, nor would we ever imagine seeing them.

She speaks of “the mantis's abdomen dribbling out eggs in wet bubbles like tapioca pudding glued to a thorn.” See, I told you. No one sees this stuff. She tells of termites licking eggs to keep them from molding, of various insects producing countless eggs and eating them almost as fast as produced.

In her observation she tells us things beyond imagination. The microscopic root hairs of a rye plant within a single cubic inch of soil measure 6,000 miles.

Six thousand miles.

A lone aphid, breeding for a year could produce so many .10-inch long offspring they would stretch for 25 million light years.

One lightyear is 6 trillion miles.

We can be sure she didn't observe these infinite aphids, but her vast knowledge of such vast things relied on the work of scholars like Edwin Way Teale and his book, The Strange Lives of Familiar Insects. This book, says Annie, “I couldn't live without.”

The chapter for all of this Annie calls “Fecundity.” This word was new to me but I gathered its meaning soon enough, something like this: life and the making of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, the mind-boggling abundance. This fecundity, for example, means those who provide goldfish for the retail market, “Produce, measure, and sell our product by the ton.”

Tons of gold fish in everyday business? A cubic inch of root hairs measuring 6,000 miles? Aphids stretching a distance our mind can't imagine? Fecundity.

But Annie asks the questions observation brings forth. Why all this life in immediate proximity to death? Is my life worth more than the trillion aphids or barnacles or root hairs? How could breeding be such a mix of “utter spirituality and utter degradation?” And why does evolution breed death at colossal scale?

The finesse of her answers is brilliant, not least for the fact she doesn't belabor them. Annie asks if individual human life matters more, hints “yes,” and gives clue to the conundrum of death like this: “If you want to live you have to die.” Life is worth it, fecundity seems to say, in ways beyond comprehension. But death is ever there and we best make peace with that.

If you know the book you know the truth: just read it for yourself and find more, far more, than this review reveals. But if you read it you will know there is an unspoken answer in all of it, without evangelistic zeal. Such zeal would be redundant.

All stories share common ground and this could never be more true than when writing a story about the 'ground' as Annie has done. It is the ground of life and the ground of death. Grounding if you will. And I couldn't help see the story of Job, that timeless true drama in the Old Testament.

Citing Job here is no religious overlay. Job is a font of deepest wisdom, and Annie's story participates in it. It is the story of abundant life and abundant death, in Job's case real live people of his own loins. They all died at the hands of “nature and nature's God” and one wonders how on earth fecundity can be wedded to death and dearth and sorrow and loss.

Annie's answer was much like Job's. “That something is everywhere and always amiss is part of the very stuff of creation.” We could conceive it differently, but our “plan would never get off the drawing board.” She knows “this is the way the world is. And rage and shock at the pain and death...is the old, old mystery, as old as man, and completely unanswerable.”

Unanswerable. That was Job's conclusion in the face of God and while Annie says it far better than I convey, she lands in the same place. Life is marked by conundrum, and much of our natural emotions boil down to mere squeamishness. Returning to the Creek helps restore sanity and lets us know there must be something beyond that makes sense of it all. And if not, what were we going to do about it anyway?

Learning to Write

"Write, write, write," said Twain, advice on how to learn the craft. One wonders what matters in this thing, how readers are captured, or not. Is writing for the writer most of all? Perhaps.

Bacon, I think it was, said writing makes an exact man. Often when I hear a public commentator who seems especially articulate in a given subject I learn she gained that facility through writing a book. Immerse yourself in material for the length of a book and you will speak it well.

What of stream of consciousness, the sort of speaking on page thought after thought? Is there a place for this? Teachers call it free writing and it helps a writer get it down so he has something to work with. One of my better-ever pieces was more or less free writing, edited after the fact of course.

One can enjoy success with pieces written in a flash of insight. Similar to what another teacher taught: take that central insight, jot down several related ideas and segues, and put the thing together.

Learning to write means finding your voice and your most natural structure. Inspiration -- whatever that is -- helps, but as in all of life I am learning that 1) if you wait for inspiration your output will never be what it could be, and 2) working without inspiration leads to surprising quantity and the inspiration often comes in the plowing through.

I'm still learning this thing. Writing with little "want-to" is hard but I am slowly gaining that basic discipline. Toiling with an idea until I can say it well is no easy task for this impatient man. But I love the journey and someday I will write a book, if God is willing and I live long enough.

"God willing." 

I am learning to love that happy prayer in writing and in all of life. He does all things well.

Summers Die [100WW]

This year I heard the beautiful song from Les Miserables, “Bring Him Home.” Valjean pleads with God to spare his daughter's boyfriend who is determined to fight for revolution. Tune and lyric blend to perfection. My favorite line: “summers die one by one, how soon they fly on and on.”

Summers die – exactly true to life. Our Alaska summer is ebbing. Today, one of the last glorious days saw the sun still high in a clear sky. But summer will soon slip away, autumn will enter for a moment, and the long onset of winter's longer stay will be here.

Turned Again [10'TU]

 When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. 

(Psalm 126:1)

This Psalm has been a favorite of mine for many years. I've been in a habit of reading only first verses, then stop and wonder.

One feels the subtle "when" and "were." Subjunctive with anticipation. The verb shouts quietly: "turned," the reader looking for the exclamation mark. And "again" is loud.

But long weary expectation makes one cautious and wise. When deliverance comes you may barely believe it. Dreamy. Exhilaration mixed with fear: "Can it be real?"

Hope and humanity go together. When one is lost so is the other. It is human to hope, expression of Creator's latent mark. As sparks fly ever upward, as the soul longs for eternity, so we believe the time will come when all is made new and it will be a dream beyond all knowing.

Only God can do it. Some day He will turn again.

Moon Monday

Monday, I'm told, is the "day of the moon." The Sunday moniker made it easy. But the lazy mouth of word evolution gives us one less "o" in Monday and folks like me don't see it.

It makes sense to name primary markings of our lives after other primary markings. Nothing is more defining than a day, and few things are more fixed in cosmology than a moon. So we have a day for the Sun, one for the Moon, and one for Saturn. We'll see if I ever get to the meaning of Tu, Wed, or Fri. I know Thursday is after Thor but know not why the vowel changed.

In our world Monday brings a new week, though the traditional beginning was Sunday. Now we skip Sunday and pay homage to the work week as the beginning of all that matters. Or something like that. Much could be said about the difference between traditional Sunday and the first day of the work week for most folks. But it can wait.

What does Monday mean? It gets nothing from "moon" as far as I can tell except the already mentioned shared significance. 

Monday means, for most, the beginning of another week of work, a day to arrive a little out of sorts, and a day when less gets done, in the main, than the other three before Friday.

What will I do on Monday? Write this bit of reflection and go about seeing my Grandson -- (I must write about him, and soon) -- and attending to many chores in this day that already approaches wane. Now who knew that would happen? Wane is a word joined at the hip with the moon. A waning moon is one beginning to fade from full to new, just as this day will go from full to midnight in 10 hours or so, all of which will increasingly (though figuratively) demonstrate wane.

I wrote all the way to find that, subconscious at work. And you read all the way for the same!

Happy Monday! 

Saturday

Saturday is Saturn-Day, or so say the folks who know such things. The cause of words -- referents and some such which linguists and Webster's ilk know with nerdly skill -- pass beyond most imagination. We just say what we say and know what we mean, or think we do. To think is enough, as is to speak. To think about thinking -- yikes! I don't even want to think about thinking about thinking.

But I say Happy Saturday -- if I do -- and acknowledge some ancient god who was named after the planet. Or was the planet named after him? Who first contrived the sound arrangement contrived in English and presumably -- (I won't look it up!) - Greek?

In any case the planet is joined at the hip with a Greek god.

No, that's not quite right. The planet is not even in the picture but rather the name of the planet. This word -- Saturn -- is the referent. Okay I had to look that up. The planet is the object to which the word refers, thus the word referent.

So we really have no-thing, only a word and the words are only sounds in the head, though quiet. We could play this reductionist game until we die, quite literally reduced to nothing.

I was just trying to know what I mean when I write or think or speak "Saturday." This rabbit hole is way longer than I care to travel, so I will take this detour. If Saturday refers to Saturn, what does that mean? I see two options, for which the reader awaits with 'bated breath:

• It means nothing -- it is just a name. This is complete nominalism and is never really true. It must be forced onto reality. Everything is more than a name. In this case, at minimum, the name has sounds and is associated with days in the calendar and habits of life. It refers to more than a distant planet.
• It means everything "Saturn" means -- the planet, not the god (I still refuse to look that up.) Distant, large, unknown, bright in the sky, mysterious, beyond.

Saturday is that sometimes and sometimes not. This is a case in which we make of it what we will. Saturday is a day at the end of the week and I am weary from trying to learn anything about it.

Mother Lode

The village is Alaskan gold -

not like Nome's.
That glint spends easy:
traded, lost, squandered.
Village ore runs deep,
the mother lode, mother's love.

But cities have their place, they say.
Factories making people pay
their bills for homes and cars and life.
Cities have their place, they say.

Place is fine. I'll make mine
where city's far and home is close.
The village owns the heart and soul.
Not made, it simply is.
The village is.

What of the town, the people place,
where shops with quiet enterprise,
steady hum of lesser ways
than city wild. What of the town?

Less is fine. I'll have mine with lesser still.
Near coast or river, tundra, mount;
village, hamlet, heart, the home;
birthing, living, dying.

Can souls be free in other place, if village gone?

Can father's son his manhood make,
elder's wisdom give;
moose and potlatch, river, stream, 

lake and salmon find their place?

Lesser place spawns lesser souls, or so we think.
But sparks of knowing light the dark,
shades and shadows coming clear.
As home is best of all that is,
so village makes its perfect nest.

The heart longs for what it doesn't know and
cannot have, but longs some more.
The village is the unknown wish,
the place where life and earth are one;
and babies, brides and graves and feasts
are real, and loved the more because.

On Truth: Beautiful and Compelling

"That which is true, will also be beautiful and compelling." (Aristotle)

I have little to add, but find this instructive. Why do we fear the truth? We fear it, I think, wherever it crosses our will. But truth never changes. Our will suffers from an impossible battle and our person slowly decays.

So embrace truth. This is more than propositional, cognitive processes. Indeed, way more. Truth is personal and we find it most when we open our lives -- through the classic disciplines -- to the person of Christ, who Himself is truth. Rational acceptance and explanation have their place, but they are not primary. Until I bow to truth itself I will never ascertain what it actually is.

That seems true, and I am slowly learning to take the knee in this matter, and learn from the Master to be at peace with truth, indeed to embrace it. I want the beautiful and the compelling and so I surrender to truth.

The Real is the Romance [100WW]

What to make of 35 good years in 100 words? I speak no difficulties for they fail the memory. The good and joy and happy fills the mind. It is all there, real as ever. Real. 

What else does marriage do but ground us in all the right ways? Fake it and you are done. We've all tried, none with success. Grace is real beyond words in this most sustaining of relationships. Intrinsic, involuntary, natural, supernatural, otherwordly, impossible, real. None of that sounds romantic, I suppose. But it is. Romance is the real and the real is the romance.

Grateful.

Shoelaces and Shoes [10'TU]

"You should be able to write a column about a shoelace if necessary." So said the editor, never explaining why it would ever be necessary to write about such a thing. Of course the point is, I think, that in the publishing world copy is the name of the game and if you don't write you are out of the game.

Of course a shoe lace could be used for all kinds of on-ramps for writing. The first shoelace I encountered is lost in my memory except for foggy recollection of learning how to tie. The shoes that go with the laces, however, come to mind much easier.

I was always hard on shoes, who knows why. Probably because I was very active and cared very little for my clothing as long as it functioned. Shoes were expensive. I remember buying a pair of canvas Nikes in 1982 at a mall in Wichita for all of $20 and change. They were on sale -- probably regular price $26 or even $30. In those years I remember a friend who paid $99 for a pair of fancy sneakers. It seemed an impossible sum for shoes.

Both shoe stories deal with my dear Father but I'll only share one now, and it had to do with those Nikes. I was a very sensitive boy, not to be mistaken for well-behaved. When I bought those shoes I was no doubt wearing thin on the good graces of my Dad. I had money of my own but $20 was still alot and I had hindered things by general misbehavior and a large-sized contribution of annoyance.

Suffice it to say I was not contributing good vibes to the relationship with my Dad, though I loved him with all my heart. Teenage years can melt the brain and I was no exception.

When I bought the shoes we were at church camp, a place I dearly loved on Water Street in Wichita....

And I can't finish this in 10 so will have to come back to it next week.

Good 35 Years

We stay the course set for us by happy abandon. It is not for constant joy or pleasantries, for what lasts forever in this world? Nothing.

But love.

Love alters not, says the Bard, in face of altering. Love is fixed forever.

Love refuses the so-called easy-out, the grievance ditch, the what if? -how come? -I just can't take it anymore! A thousand easy excuses find no ear with love.

Hope sings, faith anchors, love is forever. Love makes possible a home, a happy home, a family story: joy, forgiveness, happiness.

On this anniversary day I give thanks for the love God gives to me in Jane.

An explanation of sorts seems only right, realizing very few will ever read this. I wrote the above not in a dour mood about our anniversary, though neither Jane or I did over-much to celebrate the milestone as it deserves. Rather, I wrote it on reflection of a childhood friend whose marriage was failing and news of such had just crossed my path. I had seen a picture of him in the loss of youth, somewhat disheveled, less-than-pleasant to look at but very human. I had learned of his marriage failing -- do not remember how I heard -- and I wondered at the cause. Weariness, neglect, disgust, boundary loss.... I do not know but as I saw his picture I realized how naturally any of us can let go of our love and commitment when we see failing humanity. If we are not careful, a version of "I didn't sign up for this" sneaks into our heart. This gave birth to my, less than romantic but no less real for that, expression: "we stay the course." 

What else does love do? Much, but nothing more important. Or so seems to me.

Grateful.

Sunday Morning Meditation

To establish strong and healthy families in a world that has lost its way: someone said it is like lighting a fire in the rain. Perhaps an apt analogy.

One sees lives unravel. One reads there is no such thing, that any chosen path is ok and if in some sense we say some action is wrong the causes are beyond control. Such analysis is incoherent and yet we all weary of the linear rational view that leaves the spirit choking for breath.

"The letter kills the spirit gives life." To ask if that is true is to literally beg the question. We are stuck. We need both letter and spirit. 

I could give detail of broken lives that have crossed my path. But most of us have seen it, or engaged it, or known it up close and personal. The pervasive reality of the Fall is ever with us. Yet there is hope.

Recently a friend expressed it something like this: "God sees the fallout of the Fall, how it touches all of our lives with pain and bewilderment, suffering, loss, tears. He is touched 'with the feelings of our infirmities.' And he does everything in His power to alleviate our pain, to the very extent of taking it all on Himself at the Cross."

Yet we live in the "now and not yet." He walks with us now, He has conquered sin, death and the grave, and some day in Him all will be made fully new. What to do with pain and suffering now? How to answer those who continue to embrace the way of the Deceiver? Offer Christ. If He is not the answer, there is no other.

"Christ have mercy."

Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy (Ps. 86:1)

Saturday Blog

Is it right to write about writing? 
When writing is right 'round the bend;
And all that is said in the biding,
of time can be worthless instead?

Whatever we should have been saying
is waiting to get it's soul breath;
to speak-of instead of real speaking,

contrasts all the kitchen with bread.

Unless what is meant to be saying

(to work with the chef analog);

is process and thinking and playing,

enough for this Saturday blog.

Voting for Loathsome People

Josh Cohen


Donald Trump

“Donald Trump is a loathsome individual whose political values are fundamentally anti-democratic.” So said one Josh Cohen, a seasoned political philosopher and Prof Emeritus at Stanford. He was reasoned and thoughtful and serious, in civil discussion with one Glenn Loury, a man who, likewise reasoned and etc., defends Mr. Trump.

I found myself befuddled at Cohen's remarks, though I have heard similar before.

"Loathsome?"

All of this is weary territory and one wonders if minds ever change. Brilliant people make their cases for one candidate or the other, and the rest of us look on. Are there any guiding marks? How can it be that a man loathsome to so many is admired and loved by so many others?

"Loathsome?"

One of my best teachers once spoke of five mysteries of life: birth, death, marriage. Yes, that's only three. Try as I might, I can't remember number four but the last always challenged my imagination. The fifth mystery, Dr. Ury said, is condemnation.

Condemnation. I always took this to mean the idea of no more hope, consigned to the pit, crossing a line beyond which there is no return. None.

Condemnation doesn't happen without judging and judging happens all the time. One could say it is the lingua franca of human relationships. We cannot relate to ourselves or others without constant judgment: "Is my hair ok?" "Should I buy this?" "Which street does he live on?" "How dare you!" and on and on and on.

I'm always bemused at the cul de sac of judgment. We take a turn in conversation and miss the "dead end" sign. Something like this:

"You are a loathsome creature."
"Who are you to say, you judgmental creep?!"
"Oh, yeah -- so who's judging now? Judge not!"
"You started it!"

This is playground stuff but it never leaves us. And we always take the dictum "judge not" and leave off the second part, "that ye be not judged." Yes it is from the Gospels and it is Jesus getting right in the middle of our lingua franca. Any one who thinks Jesus was just nice isn't reading for comprehension. Jesus was brilliant. He understood life as it really is.

Why shouldn't we judge? Because when we judge the same judging will come back in our teeth. Always. It's the constant whataboutism: “I said, he said, she said.” Indignation shouts "WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE?!" all the while missing the fact that in judging the person for judging we ourselves become judges.

Is there a way out? Who am I to say? That was a joke.

But perhaps it makes the point Jesus made, showing us how to leave the cul de sac of constant judgment. Jesus said the way to avoid all the "you too!" of judging is to judge ourselves. It is the famous "get rid of the log in your eye and then maybe you can see clearly to help your friend with the speck clouding his vision."

So where does this leave us with our friend Mr. Cohen? Do we judge him for judging? Or do we just listen and try to consider what he means? Self-judgment would mean, at minimum, we refuse to be defensive. Truth can handle itself. It is for us to try to see clearly, and honor it when we are able to see.

Should we ever call a person loathsome? Do people ever act in loathsome ways? How does one wrap this up? I wish I knew.

But if I were to try it would be something like this. I take Mr. Cohen to be serious, engaging in real world judgments. When he calls a person loathsome he knows he himself is in the mix, that he himself has not always been the lily of the valley. But he still has to be clear-headed and try to see things as they really are. And he thinks this presidential candidate is loathsome.

I find it provocative at minimum because, well, it is an ugly thing to say of another person. I can see why he would say it. He is judging, and it comes very close to condemnation. Ugly.

“Ugly is as ugly does” and we have to call it like we see it, or at least try to see the truth. Mr. Cohen sees it that way and I try to understand. I remember it means roughly half of the electorate is willing to vote for a loathsome creature and I am left thinking maybe, just maybe that should give us pause. It should cause those voters to fear and ask, “Is Mr. Trump really loathsome?” And it should give Mr. Cohen related fears in turn: “Why would so many fellow-Americans vote for a loathsome creature? Does that make them also loathsome? Who am I to make such a charge?”

In the end we have to make a judgment and cast our vote. But it should be the most humble thing we ever do.

A Poem That Wants To Be

I heard an acclaimed poet say poems seek their own metre, shape, rhythm, style. Anything can be a poem, I guess. Every life is a poem.

Of course we imagine poems are always beautiful. Not so. What makes a poem? I wonder.

Words, but no. Ideas are first and only. Poets existed before writing.

But words go first with ideas, not writing. 

True.

Maybe it is easier to say what poetry is not. (This is work!)

Poetry happens when supple minds give concepts a voice in words. And the words are worthy of the concept. 

Architecture is poetry without words, as is music. Perhaps all art is poetry, just with different conveyances.

"Conveyances?" "Embodiment" works better but fails still. Poets seek the right word for the idea.

But I'm stuck on architecture. Brutalist architecture of the late Soviet Union revealed the soul, words of steel and concrete and blandest color. Function determines everything. Hang form.

Hang beauty.

What is the architecture of my boyhood? Geography, necessity, and chance, all sub-categories of one another, inspired it all. The veranda of Spanish progeny spoke Mexican proximity. The boring bungalows of endless variant spoke necessity and geography and back again.

Who knows what the common ranch spoke, except ranch. This was prairie and cattle, wind and snow, cold and blazing heat. Not a place for overdone finery. 

Function.

Poetry must be more than overlay. Poetry is what reality speaks if we can hear it and give it voice. What did my boyhood architecture speak? I only know, on glance, what the people gave to it, or lived in it.

Happiness. 

The shape of the door, the old stuccoed garage, wooden shingles, plain additions and concrete porches without railing. All of this had a voice I could not hear. It just was. The empty yards of dirt, the scarce grass, the square street layout and drainages. It all had a voice and I still know it. I can even hear it.

Happiness.

I would say the happiness came from the people, and this is true, for I loved my family and they loved me. And I loved my teachers and friends, church and school, neighborhoods, paper route, ballfield. The good leaves any bad in the far background. Love, and happiness.

Were others unhappy? Surely yes. But I wonder if happiness is really possessed. Or is it, rather, something deeper and beyond, something we can all know regardless of circumstance. Poetry, architecture, all of life might be hearing something deeper, something that encompasses -- and gives birth to -- all.

I know my happiness came from family, but they were merely channels, poets, conveyors. They embodied it, unknowing.

Medium matters, thunderous understatement that. All is medium in this world: the world itself.

Poetry reveals what is, and the best and plainest and most beautiful leave us wondering, knowing the something, or Someone -- it must be personal -- gives voice from vastly beyond, yet deep within, our very soul.

Fleeting Thoughts [100WW]

Fleeting thoughts often land in oblivion. Who knows how the mind conceives, sublimates, conjures, remembers – and why? Now I write with random genesis, adding be-verb refusal to the effort. Which brings happy memory of a 6th grade English teacher who rang a bell with me. I still recite the be-verb list she taught and refusing them in this writing helps me avoid passive voice, among other benefits, something taught by others. It engenders use of active verbs like land, rang, and recite. And I see – duh! – how be-verbs, though unavoidable, tend to passive voice. Good to know.

Truth and Faith and Reason [10'TU]

What is the premise of this discussion?

What do you mean? I just want the truth.

OK, but if I am unable to see the truth what will that mean for our relationship?

Don't you want to see the truth? 

I think I do.

What do you mean think? You should want to see the truth no matter what!

I'm not sure I have that much confidence in my character. I want to be that way.

What keeps you from it?

My beliefs about reality.

You mean your faith, like where you go to church or some doctrine or something?

No, just what I believe. Like 2 plus 2 is four, that people matter more than things, that murder is wrong. My beliefs about reality shape how I approach everything and so you could claim something as true and I would not automatically accept it if it contradicted my beliefs.

OK. I think I see. Let's try this truth on for size then. "Trump is a racist."

Why do you think that?

Because it is true.

If I say Trump is not racist, would you accept it as true?

Of course not.

Why?

Because I know the truth.

Why would you say you know?

Because it is what I believe comports with reality.

"Believe." Is this a church faith or something?

You know, I'm done with this conversation. You just won't listen to reason.

If that's what you believe.

Real or Wannabe?

If stories seem untrue to the world that is, perhaps they are true to the way one wishes it to be. Stories shape our understanding. But if they are not true to how life actually is then they cause confusion.

I have seen a few episodes of "The Rings of Power."

I know I am late to the game and few will read my thoughts on it anyway. I am a fan of Tolkien and believe his LOTR is true to the world as it is. Not so much this Amazon re-telling.

I am aware of fantasy as a literary genre. I am no literature expert, but I believe reality is not up for grabs. Even fantasy is anchored with points at least analogous to life as we know it. Deny reality and there is intrinsic loss of meaning. Fixed things must be assumed and built upon.

Which brings me back 'round to TROP. An early scene of the army commander (Galadriel) shows her climbing a vertical ice-covered mountain in a snow storm. Very few men -- if any -- could do it with the speed and success depicted. If a woman could do it ever she would be one in a billion. I know Galadriel is an elf with special powers, so maybe that explains everything. And yes, movies often show exploits impossible in the real world.

This still seems wrong. She presents as a real human woman and thus tells a flat lie about how women and men respectively engage in the world.

It is an agenda, not altogether bad for that. All novels, presumably, try to strike the balance between realism and "how could the world be better." TROP writers are likely saying the world would be better if women and men were more or less equal in military endeavors, and we can shape that by shaping the story that way. Thus Galadriel, while clearly a woman, fights distinctively yet still much like a man. This intermingles the meanings of woman and man, and that shapes our understanding.

Except the world is not that way. As I watched, my mind was strained and I knew there was a propaganda going on. Propaganda, I propose, is what happens when we go from reflecting what is to shaping what is into what we want it to be.

This, ever and always is the rub. TROP writers err on the side of messing with reality about human nature. They, and all of us, do so to our peril.

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning quiet is a gift few know.
This seems true because it reflects what it is to be human.

We learn, too often too late. We go, we do, we fret, we anger.

We seldom rest.

Sleep is a gift of course that lets us know we do not rule all.

Letting go and trusting: what -- who -- do we trust?

Trust happens in sleep and maybe the many sleeps of

many years finally sink in and wake us up to our

complete neediness, contingency. Life on the edge.

That is what is real and the most real is the best lesson.

It is Sunday morning and I remember the need:

to be quiet, to receive, to lay off doing so being can breath.

Love and Losing

Typing words is no solace. One wonders how people for ages dealt with loss. Context matters, suffering relative to shifting needs and priorities.

But mind does not win this game. It tries, and should. But it can't, and this is no game.

One watches and feels. A beloved pet is "just a dog" some say, and they are barely right. Reducing does just that. Reduces. This dog is more -- was more, vastly more -- to us. More than "just," though I have no words for what that is. Not quite.

I watched him near the end, helpers good as can be. When he was gone the so many years, the life deeply shared, the real presence of an animal friend now gone -- it all came flowing in and tears rushed out.

There is real love in this world: felt, pursued, given, received, faulty, heroic, romantic, stoic. There is love and the most real is the most lived and the most learned. Real love takes real time. Love would rather die than lose its object. Yes? 

No.

"Better to love and lose than never love at all" is true. "The greatest of these is love."

Even love of a dog for us and of us for a dog.

It hurts to lose him. The feeling will long be with us. Home is not the same, daily routines have something missing, his being-with is no more and will never be again.

But we'd never know this love without the risk of losing. As some say, "Grief is the tax we pay for love." 

We will always miss Oreo. His loss reminds us love is real.

Lost Things

My desire for more is really a primal desire for God.

Lost things are seldom found, sometimes we don't even know they are lost. The common junk drawer in most houses holds things long forgotten: often duplicated in other places, shelves, cabinets, also unknown and forgotten. It is a funny way of life to accumulate and I have often wondered why we do. Is it only an American thing? A thing for places of plenty? Or is it in the human spirit to hold things close, to imagine it lets us keep our place in this world, until, hopefully before we lose our senses, we see how every material thing so easily clutters the spirit.

Yet I'll not go gnostic, suggesting all is spirit and things are zero. The material does matter, it is good, we should even celebrate it. This is true of the body, profoundly so, but I would argue is no less true of the 17th torque bit I'll never find but is somewhere in the back of that garage-counter drawer. Should I have more than one? I guess not. But I am human, after all, in a human body with a faulty mind. I live in a world that is good and yet needs constant fixing. And I can celebrate the too many tools that help me do that. I can also celebrate too many books that help me love the human spirit, the too many vehicles that tacitly honor the extraordinary ingenuity of the human mind and body, the too much food that speaks the wonder of plenty, not exactly a human blight in itself.

The good and sensible folks who admonish simple living are surely right, and yet accumulating is not some intrinsic sin per se. One can accumulate for the wrong reasons, one can accumulate without direct need, one can even hoard, which seems as much psychological weakness as moral flaw. And when I acknowledge too many tools, books, cars, or food items I suggest there is a line beyond necessity, if not common sense. But is it wrong to have more than necessary? Is having somehow a tainted reality?

Perhaps no one suggests it is, but I sometimes wonder.

I think I can feel the temptation to idolatry of things, to letting any material item be the most important thing in our lives. But pitting things against goodness or God is, to use a dreaded cliche', a false dichotomy, for how can something God gives be wrong to possess per se? All created things are good, and this goes for that which we in our own turn create, when reduced to their essence. Food sustains, cars transport and allow freedom, books reveal and sustain life itself, tools help hold things together. All of this is good!

But what, again, of quantity? How much is too much? I've toyed for years with the idea of owning or committing to (much the same idea) only that which you can manage peacefully and with excellence.

That's a tall order, way taller than me. I've always wanted more of everything though I never thought it wrong. More food, more fun, more friends, more music, more joy and life, more time with my wife, time with my sons, daughter-in-love, and grandson! I want to live forever, I want to ponder everything those book titles suggest, I want to hike the Alcan, travel to Svalbard, fund Alaska Highway adventures, lead a college, build large and enduring buildings, own my own house, live in a cabin by a lake, own a beach cottage. I could go on. And on. 

I'd love to own that idyllic mountain cabin we stayed in when I was a boy, live in and restore life to a dying town in my beloved Kansas, write books both fiction and non-, travel to places unknown and unheard of and ask questions for days of the locals. I want to travel the country and spend time with every family member and far-flung friend I can find -- people like my beloved great-uncle who still stirs the pot at 93 and counting. What could be better than that?! I want to help my sons build their lives, be a world-class husband, have wisdom for the tragedies around the bend, live so heaven would make sense.

I've always been blessed with friends who gently speak sense and peace to me on these points. My beloved wife, soul of common sense, is a gift from God, happy and at peace with the present, with what we have, with enough (or less). And of course I'll do very little of all the more my over-charged soul longs for. But it will always be there, an eternity in my heart, giving clue to all that is beyond.

The great and gifted British author, C. S. Lewis, spoke to it this way: 

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

Deep, unquenchable desires for things and places, loves and experiences -- these are a clue to something beyond? Maybe. Maybe that's why we accumulate. We know this world is thin at its most ample, and things become a stand-in for that which we long to have, for that which we hope will never go away.

I think there is a great trade-off that must happen and it is expressed in the words of another great man, Jim Elliot: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose."

All the desires of this life find their deepest reality in the eternal. The stuff is good in itself but is only a clue, and will not last. My desire for more is really a primal desire for God. And someday, I dare to believe, I will find it all in Him and be enthralled beyond anything my longings can imagine. 

Hurricane Agnes Visits Tinker Creek

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard's Pulitzer-Prize winning book published 50 years ago this year, draws you in. You should read it. And so should I.

And so I am. Few people are aware like Annie, few people have her imagination, and precious few can write like she does. When I read Pilgrim I decide my best prose is ham-fisted and my imagination dull. But I keep working at it, which is what she would likely advise.

This week in the chapter titled simply “Flood,” I read about a flood that struck Tinker Creek in 1972. She speaks in particular of the flooding around the bridge where Ardmore Road crosses the creek. If you know the neighborhood you know that bridge: it is a half mile or so southeast of Hollins University, one of two small bridges in that neighborhood before Tinker makes its way further along and crosses under Hollins road.

In the telling Annie even mentions various families: the Bings, Atkins, and Bowerys. The flood, says Annie, was a result of Hurricane Agnes which wreaked havoc along the eastern seaboard and far inland in June/July of that year. Roanoke received well over 10” of rain from Agnes and Tinker Creek swelled far beyond its banks. Indeed, the water was over the bridge as much as two feet, a good 10-12 feet above normal.

Annie is in full form seeing the flood. “The water is so deep and wide it seems as though you could navigate the Queen Mary in it.” “The floodwater roils to a violent froth...there are dolls, split-wood and kindling...whole bushes and trees, rakes and garden gloves. Wooden, rough-hewn railroad ties charge by faster than any express...I expect to see anything at all...Why not a cello, a basket of breadfruit, a casket of antique coins?”

It's mid-day and neighbor men are returning early from work to help where they can. There's not much to do though a truck comes to pump out the Bowery's basement. The other bridge, over on Clearwater Ave., looks to be in trouble with a large tree wedged against it. Road crews try to remove it to no avail. The Bings' house lower floor is flooded floor to ceiling. Neighbors come together on the Ardmore bridge, then gather at the Bings'; children play safely in adjoining yards, and all wait to see when the water will recede.

What does one say about floods but to stay clear if you would live? If you fell in, “You couldn't live. Mark Spitz couldn't live. And if they ever found you, your gut would be solid red clay.”

I've seen my share of floods. More than once the North Fork of the Kentucky River blocked our rural home's access to the highway. In the Great Flood of 1993 I crossed the spillway bridge of Tuttle Creek Reservoir before they closed it and saw the thundering waters claw out the hillside on their way to the sea. And in the western Kansas of my boyhood the rare flood found me wading knee-deep in drain channels or daring death in wannabe swimming holes gorged by the heavy rain.

I loved the flood somehow, and so did Annie. Her telling is simple and homey, families and neighbors, fear and trouble and wonder: even beauty in the terror. One comes away feeling the lead-up: hot muggy day, animals acting funny, plenty of rain but no real warning. And then it came and all was different, unpredictable, vulnerable. Few things speak reality like nature, and floods do it convincingly.

There's little to add to Annie's account, much like one can't add to a flood. It is all there is and it demands your attention. Ignore it and get swept away.

It leaves me, like all of the book, seeing better and feeling the beauty of life in all of its expressions. All of life is of a fabric – even something as mundane, natural, and scary as a flood. Annie's neighborhood stood by while the flood ran its course. The next day they kept putting the pieces back together, remembered the adventure, and hoped the floodwaters would stay away for many more years.

And over 50 years later we talk about it, wonder about the people and their memories, and can't escape a simple sense of the grace of life that, unlike the flood waters of Agnes, never fully abates.

Less Day Than the List [100WW]

There's always less day than the list.
What is it turns time into tyrant?

And time never waits it is true.
Life's end leaves dead hands filled with offal:

And all the deep loves of the heart,
Will fill us and ache us then break us.

But there must be greater than this.
One Day all the tears will be silenced.

What's more, our great heartache will see
Our longings made whole beyond wonder.



I tried nine syllables in both but it felt wrong. Now, first lines, eight; second lines, nine.
The stress falls on 2, 5, 8 in every line.

A Prayer from George MacDonald

 A favorite from the incomparable George MacDonald on this less than ten-minute Tuesday. 

Smoke

(George Macdonald)

Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altar
But cannot get the wood to burn;
It hardly flares ere it begins to falter
And to the dark return.

Old sap, or night-fallen dew, makes damp the fuel;
In vain my breath would flame provoke;
Yet see—at every poor attempt's renewal
To thee ascends the smoke!

'Tis all I have—smoke, failure, foiled endeavour,
Coldness and doubt and palsied lack:
Such as I have I send thee!—perfect Giver,
Send thou thy lightning back.

Ministry Remnants: the Value of Journaling

In last night's prayer meeting a friend and long-time parishioner spoke of using his journal in devotions: "It's kind of new for me but I really like it." He spoke of writing down his prayers and I could tell this was something that just flowed from his heart.

"One morning", he said, "I realized I was writing a love letter to God." At that point he began to weep as he reveled in the goodness of God.

Do you journal? Even non-writers should do it. Maybe especially non-writers should do it. And we follow a long line of distinguished people. Indeed, many say keeping a journal is key to ordering one's life and living meaningfully and thoughtfully.

I would suggest that one of our best examples of journal-writing is King David. The Psalms are clearly in the genre of something like a personal journal, David often telling us of the journey of his heart. Certainly there are many love letters to God in the Psalms.

As my friend shared the new joy of the journal I was thrilled. He is up in years a bit, learning, growing, strengthening. His journal is deepening his life with God.

How is your life with God? Write your thoughts and prayers in a journal. It really helps.

For Love of It

“For love of it” we try, with hoping to bely;
(Pentameter iam - bic keeping us from mum)

The ever present lure, in doubt forever sure;
The pulling ever out, the wishing self to flout.

The fear that should it come, we'll wish we had been mum;
and pesky errors hint, of time for lesser lent.

Yet joy and love combine, and give lie to malign;
In all the sentiment, the hint of what is meant

is more than rationale, that human spirit pall;
But draws from childish glee revealing more of me

A fearful prospect that, a tipping of the hat;
Abandon is the way, else never we will say

that truly in our heart, which pride can ne'r jump start;
But resignation wise, replaces truth for lies.

Asking for Mercy (Ps. 6:1)

O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, Neither chasten me in thine hot displeasure. (Ps. 6:1)

I always feel a need to justify texts like this, or at least make sense of them. Does this suggest God is fickle, vindictive, or capricious? Is God prone to lash out and so must we duck the head?

I think not, based on a simple implication of the goodness of God. So what are we to make of this.

God is not to be trifled with. This is true and we do well to remember, we who have all of our God-talk and so easily put Him in our little boxes.

But I think the bigger issue is simply our humanity. We know we are fickle, vindictive, and capricious. We know we ourselves cannot be trusted to keep our cool. And so we naturally project that on to God and have reasonable fear he will treat us as we treat others.

Of course there is truth in that and so this brings us home. God does chasten and he is displeased, sometimes such that we would feel the heat.

Yet it is ok to ask for mercy. If we have not shown mercy then there is slim chane we will receive. But if we have shown mercy, we can believe God will show mercy to us and so we can pray with the Psalmist: “Please, Lord, don't be too hard on me.”

“His mercy endures forever.” Alleluiah!

Ron Bailey: Man Among Men

Ron Bailey: Man Among Men

To borrow from an old saying (hopelessly paraphrased): “Give your roses while they can still be enjoyed.” Ron Bailey will probably live to be an hundred – he deserves it. But I don’t want to take the chance of never having tried to tell him how much I appreciate him and admire him. So, here it is.

Ron Bailey is a man among men, a pastor, father, grandfather, timber-man, business man. Perhaps his greatest strength lies in what his son, Keith, once told me: “He has this deep down determination to really make a difference; to really help people make it in life.”

I had the privilege of working for Ron and with Ron when Jane and I lived in Salem, Illinois. He was older than my father but always treated us in a way that combined father/boss/friend/mentor/sergeant. We loved the sergeant – who wouldn’t? Funny, determined, creative, free-spirited. He could contradict reason just to aggravate you, all the while with a hidden smile, moving, usually, in the direction that reason dictated. And then there were the many times when you thought he was against reason only to realize that he was the wise, experienced one and you best be quiet and watch him work.

Many memories come to mind that give a picture of this remarkable-ordinary man. I spent many a day in the woods helping him drag out timber. He owned this skidder – an amazing, powerful machine that could drag and winch and push and pull – whatever it took to get topped trees out of the woods. By the way, Ron, thanks for being patient with me so many times. I was determined to do well driving that thing, as much as I often hated it. I often did not listen, and you knew it – what a pain that must have been. In a convoluted sense my stubbornness was this effort to be out on my own – to learn on my own. But that was, as I say, convoluted. You were forgiving, and I thank you.

Anyway, one January morning the skidder had run out of diesel and for some forgotten reason Ron had to do some siphoning. Seems like the hose was stuck down into the fuel tank and Ron was sucking on it. Finally it came and Ron got a good taste. He spit it out and said: “That’ll bless ya!”

Well, I’ll never forget that. He didn’t cuss and yell and stomp – perhaps that is reason enough to remember this. But it was this life approach that stuck out – this determination to see life as it is and to accept it that way without either sugar-coating or whining. He saw no sense in being grumpy and complaining about reality – that wouldn’t change it or fix it or even help one deal with it. Nor did he think one had to be unreal about it, as in, after tasting diesel, sitting down on a stump and smiling about it so as to appear really “spiritual” or something. No, instead he recognized with mild sarcasm that tasting diesel is no blessing, and that the best thing is to see it as it is – something worth spitting out.

There are an hundred stories, and the Salem gang could keep them going for days. One of my favorites comes from one of his shenanigans at the saw mill. Ron’s son, Keith, owned and operated a saw mill and Ron would often stop and help us. His amazing wife, Dorothy, always sent a large thermos of hot chocolate and we always looked forward to the 10:00 break. One morning – another one of those January days – Ron took the normal thermos and filled it with dirty water. The thermos with real hot chocolate was hidden over by the shed. Somehow, Steve, my co-laborer, caught on to Ron’s scheme so we quickly hatched a scheme of our own. A few minutes before break time, while Ron was loading the log ramp, Steve and I quickly dumped out the dirty water, rinsed out the thermos, filled it with the real thing and put it back, ready to be served.

In a few minutes Keith shut the saw down and we gathered by the edger for break. Ron’s ever-present grin had a bit more sparkle that morning and we tried to hide what we knew. There was nothing in the world like watching his reaction when we began to pour hot chocolate out of that thermos. He couldn’t talk – rare indeed! He couldn’t do anything but go along – another rarity for this wonderfully free-spirited man. We carried on with break as if all were normal until finally, able to take it no longer, he spoke up, wondering what had happened. We all had a good laugh and he took it like a pro. Of course I remember it and enjoy it so much because it was one of the few times we got one over on him. He was a great one for simple, down home fun in the middle of all kinds of hard work, and that is probably why he enjoyed this one along with us, even though we had turned it back on him.

Last month I learned that Ron had an accident in the woods in which he lost part of his thumb. Being the kind of man he is, he drove himself to the hospital where Dorothy met him and he went through the rigors like a man should and would. He wouldn’t make much of it and neither should we, perhaps. Life is what it is with pains and joys and lost thumbs. Love and work and keep pressing on – what else is a man supposed to do?

Well, there are a lot of memories that bear recording and someone should write a book. But now is not the time for that. I simply want to close with this word from the heart: “Ron, you were very good to me, always a truly loving pastor, willing to do or say anything that you thought would help, and I thank you. You always made me want to be a better man. Thank you for the love that you and Dorothy showed to Jane and me. We are truly grateful. I hope you have continued years and blessings worthy of the investments you have made in so many, and I pray you can know how much I admire you.”

And now, it is a February morning and I am going to go have some coffee. No dirty water, no diesel, but plenty of memories of life in the timber and elsewhere with my pastor/boss/mentor/friend, Ron Bailey.

Comments:

1. Laura Says:
   February 14th, 2006 at 10:39 pm e

   Randy,
   Steve & Becca Hoard told us about this. I must say, tears flowed as I read your kind memoir. Thank you. I will print this out for Dad since he doesn’t have his own email presently.
   Laura

2. Keith and Rachel Says:
   February 15th, 2006 at 7:17 am e

   Randy,

   Steve and Becca Hoard emailed us and told us about this. Our hearts were touched by the memories and a renewed awareness of how our lives do affect people. Thank you for sharing your heart.

   Keith and Rachel

3. Ted M Reiley Says:
   February 23rd, 2006 at 3:15 pm e

   Ron’s daughter passed this article to me. Ron and I are now renewing our friendship of 54 years ago when we were both assigned to the Fleet Weather Central at the Naval Air Station, Agana, Guam. Whew!! It’s been a long time, but I see he is still at it. Ron used to torment me with his jokes. Thanks for sharing your thoughts of him.

   Regards, Ted Reiley, USN retired