Water'd heaven with their tears

I do not understand much of anything in this world. And I can't even begin to understand the madness and evil that led the despicable act in Connecticut today. It's clear this world so unsafe and dreadful at times. I don't get it. I know there is hope. I believe in the hope found in Christ. I still can't make sense of this insanity, though.

For some reason it all made me think of the mad man, poet, philosopher, prophet, artist, and visionary, William Blake. He seemed to see paradoxes in the world pretty clearly. Some would say he was nuts. Maybe that's the same thing.

At any rate, here are a few of his poems that echo some of my feelings on the event.

Holy Thursday

Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduced to misery Fed with cold and usurous hand? Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty! And their sun does never shine. And their fields are bleak & bare. And their ways are fill'd with thorns. It is eternal winter there. For where-e’er the sun does shine, And where-e’er the rain does fall: Babe can never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall. The Lamb Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee, Gave thee life, and bid thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little lamb, I'll tell thee; Little lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For He calls Himself a Lamb. He is meek, and He is mild, He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little lamb, God bless thee! Little lamb, God bless thee! The Tyger Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Explanation

So this is my first blog post since November 20. I'll be honest, I'm on hiatus. At least I hope it's a hiatus. I have no plans for this silence to be permanent. I'm just, well, mentally tired. And a bit overwhelmed. I enjoyed writing every day, but it was not easy. It was hard to think of something to write about every day for forty days. It's one thing to write something whenever you feel like, but writing every day is a bit like exercise. Well, it's a lot like exercise. So, right now I'm reading, thinking, praying listening to new music and playing games. Seriously, I got some gift money and gift cards for my birthday, so I downloaded some new iPad games and some music as well.

I will be back. Really. I will. Don't give me that look.

I saw that.

What She Said

Great author and blogger, Rachel Held Evans, wrote an excellent post about the same issue I discussed in my "I Told You So" post. I highly recommend you read this article, especially before you sit down with family and friends for Thanksgiving meals that could involve political discussions.

Here are a few quotes from the post:

This, I believe, is the real evangelical disaster—not that Barack Obama is president and Mitt Romney is not, but that evangelicalism has gotten so enmeshed with politics, its success or failure can be gauged by an election.

Beautifully written:

And no matter what happens in the halls of power, we will never be part of a disaster. Instead, we will be part of a stubborn and relentless movement of hope—the kind of hope that can heal the world.

Check out the rest of the article here. She has a great blog I don't read often enough.

40

Somehow I made it to 40. I suppose it's not really that big of a deal. But then again, considering a few of my near misses, well, I am immeasurably grateful. And those are just the near misses I'm aware of. Who knows how many times God has saved my hide while I was just daydreaming.

I guess that's part of my first forty years. Daydreaming. Sure, I feel like I've done a fair bit of things, but I felt like I was biding my time, waiting for the arrival of some one or some thing. If you read books on being single, a lot of them tell you to not spend too much time trying to find someone. Enjoy life. Live life. Use the time wisely. These books tell you not just to sit around and wait for someone.

That's relatively easy to do from around 21 to 30ish, but after that, you are as anxious about finding someone as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Sure, you may lick your paws and butt, fall asleep, and pretend nothing is bothering you, but somewhere in your mind and heart you know the score.

But there is wisdom in not waiting. By that I mean, do life. Get involved in your church or religious community. Travel. Enjoy your friendships. Enjoy your family. Be a great uncle or aunt. Just don't sit and watch the clock. Another benefit of getting involved is that you have more opportunities to meet people at said volunteer events. That tip is free of charge.

And one thing I've learned or at least I'm still learning is that most of life is not lived in the huge or dramatic events. There's a lot of sitting and waiting. There are a lot of mundane things that are just a part of life. At least it's a part of our lives in prosperity. I have read books and essays about my favorite writers, poets, film makers, and others, and you never read the boring bits. You never read about them cleaning gutters, raking leaves, or getting the oil changed. Between the major events in your life, there's usually quite a bit of time. It's all about what do you do with that time. 

I used to keep this framed letter from the Lloyd's Bank of London about my favorite poet, T.S. Eliot. While I was visiting London, I tried to visit some of the T.S. Eliot sites. He worked at Lloyd's Bank for around 8 years before becoming an editor at Faber and Faber. 

A nice lady at the bank took time to meet and talk with me about Eliot's time at the bank. She then gave me a letter that had information about his time at the bank as well. I had it framed. I used to keep it up in my cube at work. It was intended to be an inspiration to get out of my career as a tech writer. That I wasn't going to be "stuck" there forever in software. 

And later, as my first year as a writer turned into five years, it became a source of pain. It was like a magnifying mirror that brought out all the areas where I felt I had failed so far. The poems I couldn't get published. The Master's thesis I never completed. My endless attempts to reboot my writing life. I started to dislike the letter and what it represented. 

Over a decade later, I stopped putting the letter up in my cube. I had taken a position with another company. I started getting involved in my local church. I started volunteering for care giving ministries. And I started to develop meaningful relationships with people again.  I kept journalling infrequently, but it was something. Writing began to be about more than honing my skills for a career. I wanted to keep a record of life events, things I'd read, lines of poetry, books, scripture and dialogue from movies. It was a way to keep that poetic spirit alive in my soul. 

I don't know if it's accurate to say I abandoned my dream of being a poet or novelist. In fact, if I were entirely honest, I would have to admit I still hold onto that hope. And yeah, I still daydream. 

So, what's my point? Well, my point is not really about my writing career. 

My point is that I really began to live life when I stopped focusing on where I wasn't and focused on where I am. I put down the telescope and focused on what is in front of me. I'm learning to live in the now. And it feels so good. Most of the time. Sure, there are disappointments. I do still feel the sting of dreams or hopes never achieved. Those original hopes and dreams fade away like precious silver coins dropped in the ocean. I mourn for them as they disappear into the murky blue. But then I remember I'm not tethered to that coin like a millstone. In fact, most of the time I drop the coin because I'm delightfully distracted by a new hope or dream that floats to the surface. And sometimes they are the same dreams I dropped before, but they come back with greater clarity and resplendence.

At least most days I feel like that. There are evenings when my wife and I are sitting on the couch and I will tell her this amazing idea for a story or novel. She will sit patiently and listen and encourage me. And there are days when I don't feel like a good fit for my job at all. And I think, what am I doing here? Am I living too safely? Should I be daring, quit my job and start writing a novel? 

And then I think of the Quaker proverb: Proceed as the way opens. It means to undertake a service or course of action without prior clarity about all the details but with confidence that divine guidance will make these apparent and assure an appropriate outcome. To me this implies that we don't need all the details about our future to make those steps forward, but we can move in a certain direction with confidence that the way will open if God intends for it to.  

So I will proceed as the way opens. I try to hold onto my hopes and dreams lightly. I try to keep daydreaming because it's just so much fun. But I also know I have to wake up and go to work. 

Ramblin' Rose Part 1

I am going to try and write about this topic in one post, but I don't know if I will finish it. Or if it will end up being a two parter. I will try to add comedy that will not only hopefully make you laugh but also help me laugh and alleviate some of the sadness I feel. And maybe it says something about me or my emotional state that simply writing about this will probably illicit strong emotions. At least stronger emotions than I've allowed myself to fully feel and/or embrace. This also has potential to be incredibly sentimental.

My Aunt Rose is in the hospital with pneumonia and a urinary tract infection. She wouldn't really want me to share her age, but I will say she was born in the late 20s. Before the hospital, she was in a nursing home. And as far as nursing homes go, it's a fairly decent one. While we had no intention of her staying in the nursing home longer than a few weeks, she has been there for over a year now. And it's been sad to watch her decline.

And her first name is not really Rose. But I won't tell you what it is because she wouldn't like that either. She never really liked it that much, and that's why she goes by Rose. It is a cool first name, though. It begins with a Z. That's all I'm going to say. 

Rose grew up as the only girl in a poor tenant farming family with four older brothers. She told me that she would often have to wear hand-me-down overalls to school. And because of that she got made fun of.  That is, until her older brothers beat the tar out of who ever made fun of her. They were pretty protective of their little sister.

Later in high school I think she was pretty popular at school and had a good amount of friends. About the time she was ready to graduate high school, all of her brothers were already married and had kids.

And also, her family wasn't really that anymore. My Grandpa owned a plot of land north of St. Elmo. He and his sons built a house and farm on a plot of hilly land north of St. Elmo. Much to their good fortune, Exxon Oil arrived in area in search of oil. And they found it. Lots of it. More importantly, they found oil on my Grandpa's land. With the permission of my grandpa, they built oil rigs and started drilling for oil. Grandpa reaped the financial benefits of having the oil rigs on his land. Grandpa saved quite a bit of the money, but he also used some to help Rose as well as my dad (who hadn't been born yet). Later they replaced the rigs with pumpjacks (see below). See-sawing pumpjacks peppered the country north of St. Elmo for many years. And many of them are still pumping. And my family still gets checks. But they are much, much smaller.

At any rate, just as my Aunt Rose was leaving the homestead, my Grandma developed a tumor. Well, they thought it was a tumor. It turned out to be my dad. So now my Aunt had a little brother to fawn over and spoil. Since my dad pretty much grew up as an only child, my aunt came home often to visit, and I believe she always brought gifts.

While my dad was growing up in the "house on the hill" north of St. Elmo, Illinois, my aunt worked for Western Union's telegraph service. I believe her first job was wiring money and messages from a Western Union shop in a hardware store in downtown St. Elmo. At the time, St. Elmo had a lot of oil money coming in and had a pretty lively downtown with a movie theater, department stores and street dances on the weekends. It wasn't Times Square, but it was lively for a little burg. 

Rose quickly...um...rose in the ranks at Western Union. She was eventually asked to travel and fill in for other operators that were on vacation, sick or let go. It was through these travels that she meant many people that she would visit later on in life. When working for Western Union, she often stayed in a mother-in-law apartment or some small room with a local family. At some point during her travels she met the man who would be her husband many moons later, Robert McGuire. Bob was a salesman and traveled quite a bit as well.

Due to the increased popularity of the telephones and computers, Western Union changed its focus to primary wire transfers and Fax transmissions. I never really fully understood this when she talked about it, but she was a part of the beginning of Fax machines being used to send messages and important documents. In fact, she was eventually promoted to a position that involved closing some Western Union offices and training others on how to use the new Fax technology. She was always pretty proud that she was involved with that. 

I found out recently she worked in Western Union offices close to where I live now in Skokie. I believe it was while she was working at Rockford that she started taking Arthur Murray dance classes.  While I never saw her dance, I know she loved dancing. Before she entered the nursing home, she watched Dancing with the Stars religiously. She was pretty much the only reason I knew who the contestants were. 

While Rose was doing well at Western Union, she saw the writing on the wall. She knew it wasn't going to last much longer, so she made a plan to go to a Beauty Salon School. I think that's what they called them then. I don't recall where she attended the salon school, but I know she used the money she saved up from working Western Union to pay for her schooling. When she was finished, she asked her father if she could borrow money to start her own shop in Springfield, Illinois. He agreed and soon after that she started "My Fair Lady" on South Grand. It was right across from a Sears store. A really great place to be situated at the time. At the beginning she had no other stylists working with her. She would often go to the Sears parking lot and put flyers in the car windows, or she hired a young kid to hand them out in the neighborhood. It was tough getting started, but she made it. 

Over the years she was able to bring on other stylists. Her salon did pretty well. She also paid her dad back every bit of the money she borrowed. She would want you to know that. 

When I was around five or six, I visited her a few times at the salon. I remember she had an office in the back with a safe. She was once held up by a drug addict looking for some cash. I remember her telling me the thief shot his gun into the floor and herded her and her stylists, and their customers into the tiny wood-paneled office. She said he told them to stay in the office and not come out or he would shoot them. I also remember Rosie telling me the thief asked for everyone's money, but she didn't tell him about the money in the safe.  They eventually caught the guy a few days later.

I think it was then she was driving one of her many Cadillacs  I believe this one was gold-colored. It was a boat of a car that required a large berth anywhere it went.  It fitted how she thought of herself, I think. A Ramblin' Rose.  

It was during this time she also traveled the world with Bob McGuire, the man who she had met while working for Western Union. He was an incredibly wealthy man at this time. He had owned some Christmas stores in Indiana. He also owned some restaurants. I believe he sold most of these businesses and invested in some property in Monterey, California. Specifically, the famous Monterey Bay Canning Company building (seen in two images below) in Monterey, California. It was the cannery featured in John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.

My Uncle Bob owned the lease on that building. He also had a lot of money in Swiss Bank Accounts. He was a shrewd business man.   

They used their wealth to travel to Egypt, Australia, China, Japan, Ireland, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, and other places. She always brought us gifts back from these far away places. And pictures. Pictures of her on camels. Pictures of her holding a koala. Pictures of her near the Straits of Gibraltar. Pictures of her in front of of the green valleys in Ireland. I lived in a town of 700 people, so these places she visited might have been on Mars as far as I was concerned. They were so exotic and otherworldly.

Well, I hope to continue this post later. It has turned out to take longer than expected.

Etc.

It's Sunday evening. Sitting on the couch with my wife. She is laying down and falling in and out of sleep. The Ravens and Steelers are playing. The Steelers are wearing these horrible looking bumble-bee uniforms. I guess they are throw backs, but I think they are throw ups.

We got back from "down home" around two hours. Heather and I visited my Aunt Rose before we left home. Aunt Rose is my last living sibling and his only sister. She is in the hospital now due to a bout of pneumonia. She did not look well. Over a year ago Rosie (what we really call her) went into the nursing home and has never left except to go to the hospital, occasional doctor appointments and my wedding. She had started falling at home. It got to the point where she would fall down and just stay on the floor and sleep. Dad would often find her still on the floor the next day. We thought it was a side effect of some medication. It turns out it was part of a bigger issue. She was having some major memory issues, I guess. And apparently she had just developed a lack of interest in many things.

Since she was falling so much, we thought we should put her in the nursing home. To keep her safe. To provide better monitoring. We were really concerned she was going to have a disastrous fall.  We had no plan for this to be a permanent thing.

And now here we are, over a year later and she's still in the nursing home. Her decline seemed to happen so rapidly. She was talkative, lucid and seemed somewhat responsive to physical therapy at first, but after a week, she couldn't walk and she was unable to maintain a good conversation with anyone. I want to say more about Rosie, but it's later and I'm getting tired. And to be honest, this is not an easy thing to blog about.

After this entry, I have only two more days of daily blog entries. I can't believe I've really kept this up. Forty days. Wow.

Thanks for reading.

Rest

Nice sleep last night. Had hot coffee, cereal and a nice visit with family this morning. Heather and I went to visit my Aunt Rose in the hospital. She has pneumonia. A nice short visit. I hope I can talk more about her later. Now we are getting ready for an early Thanksgiving meal with family and later a birthday celebration for me. Maybe more later but doubtful.

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Permanent Place of Residence

So I'm home home. This is what I now call my parent's. It's strange for me to not just call it home, though. Sometimes I call it "down home," as in I'm going down home to visit the family. It's a strange thing when your parent's home is no longer really your home. My home is now really wherever my wife and I live. And right now we live in the suburb just barely north of Chicago called Skokie.

I love the name, Skokie. I love that we have an El line called the Skokie Swift. It click clacks and whistles through Skokie, and when I hear it from my home I think it sounds like the trolley in Mister Roger's Neighborhood. I love that we have nice backyards in which we can lean over the fence and talk to our neighbors.

I'm home home this weekend after not being here for a few months. I miss it down here. Even though my parents no longer live in the house I grew up in, this still feels like it was my home. I guess that's what homey means. It must be the feeling all Bed and Breakfast's hope to achieve.

My parent's newer home feels like a home for a part of my life, though. That weird stage of life that's more common today called being an adult child. Sure, we're always our parents children, but if you are single up into your late 20s or mid-30s or beyond you enter a different stage. You have a home, but sometimes it is hard to have call it your permanent place of residence. it was hard for me to ever make my current residence my main address on forms. What if i move into a new apartment? What if I finally buy a home? And usually my emergency contact was my mom or dad.

And now I really have a home with my wife. I fill out forms now with that address as my main address. My wife is my emergency contact.

And look forward to going there the way I used to look forward to going home to my parent's. Don't get me wrong, I still love visiting my parent's home, but it feels more like visiting now. Visiting a place where we are always welcome.

And now that Heather and I have a place, I look forward to creating that space in our home for friends and family. It's hard sometimes because we covet our time together. We love hanging out just the two of us. But we also know we were blessed with a home that can and should be a blessing to others.

Well the coyotes are out tonight yelping and crying. Gonna go listen. Down home.

 

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I Told You So

Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody in "The Mist," directed by Frank Darabont. 2007

Just finished reading Stephen King's novella, The Mist. It's a part of a larger collection of short stories called The Skeleton Crew. He definitely owns the horror genre, but I think a lot of that is because fills his stories and novels with real people. Beautiful, sweet, innocent, mean, boring and ugly. All kinds. And in The Mist there is an ugly character. Not necessarily physically ugly, but spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. Just ugly. Here name is Mrs. Carmody (see image above). Or Mother Carmody. She lives in this small town in Maine where The Mist takes place, and is known as the local religious, superstitious, nutty woman who runs a store of festooned with cobwebs, taxidermy and antiques. She always has voodo-esque cures for things. And she also sees demons and angels in doorknobs and broomsticks.

She's also quite charismatic. And despite her lunacy, her charisma is magnetic and pulls people to her, and some even follow her. When the mysterious and dangerous Mist rolls into town, it strands several people in the local grocery store. The main character, David, and his son, Billy, are two of those trapped people. And when things get really bad, Mrs. Carmody, also trapped in the store, feeds off the fear. She starts to chant, scream and accuse the others of bringing this abomination in on themselves. She says there is nothing but death lurking out the doors of the grocery store. And well, she is not really too far from the truth, but her solution? At its most annoying, it is to wail, scream, cry and at its worst, it involves offers an unwilling blood sacrifice to the malevolent Mist.

She reminds me a of one of Flannery O'Connor's grotesque characters. She is so insistent upon her rightness. And she is so insistent that you almost get this feeling she wants her doubters and detractors to die. She wants to gloat. She wants to say, "I told you so."

After this recent election, I have seen a lot of vitriol on Facebook, heard it in real life and have seen it reported in the news. CEOs are threatening to lay off people due to Obamacare. States are petitioning to secede from the Union. I can't believe I just typed that last sentence. A lot of people are screaming and cursing about the end of the world (again). They say, Obama will bring our country to its proverbial knees. Destroy our economy. Dismantle our military. And by the time we reach 2016, our barely two hundred year old country will be on the brink of utter ruin. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on speed, I guess.

And when these prophets and prophetesses of doom and gloom hear about CEOs laying people off or states wanting to secede from the Union there seems to be this collective impish squeal of delight. A self-righteous smugness about the decision they made. They cup their hands over their mouths in anticipation of that moment, even if it takes four years, to say, "I told you so."

But I wonder, have they thought about how this same disaster will effect people? The people possibly laid off from their jobs and lose their source of income and health care. The people who may lose their homes. The lives lost if, as they say, Obama dismantles our military and we are attacked again. The loss of life. The wrecked lives. And after all that, when we finally reach 2016, will these same people be waiting to say to someone out there who wants to hear, "I told you so"?

It's like the man on the street corner wearing two-sided sign and ringing bell yelling "The End is Near." Yet around him people go to work, take care of their families, and possibly even try to fix this broken world. But he can't hear anything over the ringing bell.

I don't think any of these people would ever admit they want to say "I told you so." No. In fact, overall I'm pretty sure they are good people. Except when they open their mouths. Or share their feelings on Facebook. Or write a two page jeremiad against the recently elected leader and the fresh hell that awaits all of us.

And frankly, I don't have a problem with people thinking that things are significantly worse in our country. And that we need to do better. Things are not great at all. But do I think a newly elected leader will make changes within the first week much less four years that will heal our nation and world? Do I sincerely believe this so much that I think if the other person is elected that I am willing to fight about it?  Would I be willing to preach the coming gloom and doom over the next term to my friends and families? Am I willing to lose friends and families over this matter? Am I willing to die for this belief in a political system and its rightness?

For me, the answer is a resounding: No.

I mean, really, what the hell are we talking about here: faith or politics? Lately, I think I have seen and heard more Christians evangelize about their politics than they ever did about their faith. And I was taught it was taboo to discuss religion, politics and sex among strangers.

Our nation is incredibly polarized right now. I don't think that's unfair to say. It is true we are mainly divided along our political views.  And in a strange way, that's fine. That's the beauty of this country. But I consider myself a part of a body as well. A body of Christ. It's made up of a lot of imperfect people. Beautiful, sweet, innocent, mean, boring and ugly. Lately it seems I've seen a lot of ugly, and I've seen it in myself. I've responded to harshly to people at times because of their "extreme" views. I spend time arguing over things that really don't matter. I've endangered friendships over what I perceive as extremism in others. In fact this blog post is in some ways a tirade against some extremism I've witnessed. Maybe I need to repent for this whole post.

I do believe in righteous indignation, though. Christ chastised the pharisees over their hypocrisy. He was bothered by how the poor, sick and widows were treated by the current religious community. He was deeply upset by the lack of faith by those who called themselves pious and devout.

Honestly, we don't need to sacrifice our unity on any alter in order to serve God and others. Christ's sacrifice has united us as one body. If the next four years are as you have predicted, please don't spend your time waiting with pursed lips to say, "I told you so."

And please feel free to keep your political opinions. No matter how extreme or moderate you think you are or aren't, you will always have a political opinion.

I'm pretty sure G.K. Chesterton understood how divisive political opinions can be. I think it's probably what inspired this quote:

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

Joy Comes with Mourning: Hope Floats Cont'd

I have been mulling over my post from last night. Actually, I started thinking more and more about it while I was in the shower this morning. I realized that since that day (yesterday) is done, I don't want to go back add anything to the post. I don't mind correcting mistakes or removing some small bits of information, but I think what I wanted to do required a new post. In fact, my last sentence, "Joy comes with the morning" is really what triggered my desire to follow up. 

Joy does not always seem like it comes with the morning. Or at least in my experience. And it's not the joy I saw illustrated on Sunday School felt boards. Back then joy always looked like some ancient middle-east man or woman dancing with a tambourine in a long gown. If that's joy, I'm pretty sure I didn't act that way all the time. Fortunately, I don't really think that's joy. Maybe  we should work harder at redefining what joy looks like. 

Then there is sadness. 

There was a time when I was going through serious depression, and I hated morning even more than I normally do. It reminded me that I had a whole day to endure. As some of you who have had depression know, getting out of bed is a herculean feat much less doing anything else. 

And when you are grieving the loss of someone, the morning seems to serve up Polaroid instant images in your face of this loss. There are a few seconds of amnesia, and you forget the loss, and then all of a sudden it floods back in. And it feels like it will suffocate you.

While I think the Psalms might have been speaking figuratively of joy arriving in the morning, it implies that joy does eventually arrive. And I do believe that. However, I should clarify that statement.

Happy and sad events in our lives do not equal each other out. You don't get a bout of sad events followed by a super jolt of happy events. This may have happened to some people, and I'm sure it's happened to me, but it never really feels like that. It's not an accurate way of looking at these natural reactions.

No, I think sometimes sad events happen one after another until a flotation device still won't keep you from being eaten alive by sharks. 

But I think this illustrates a distinction between sad and joyful events and a deeper sense of joy and sadness that follows us daily. There can be a life event that triggers a joyful response. And this response usually looks like happiness. I don't really consider happiness and joy on the same level, though. Happiness is fleeting. Joy lasts forever. 

Unless of course you have no joy. And then you are acquainted with despair. And that makes me sad. 

I prefer to call this type of sadness melancholy. It's a sadness for the darkness and despair within our world. It's a sadness for poverty, injustice, sickness and death. I feel intense sadness when I think of the many homicides here in Chicago. I also experienced quite a bit of sadness when reading about the event in Rwanda back in the 1990s. 

I don't think of sadness as really the antithesis of joy. Actually, I think that's more appropriately called despair. Despair is a monster. It's an abyss. Depression forces you to look into despair, and if you don't get help, I believe you can plunge into despair. 

I think most of the Psalms illustrate this balance between joy and sadness. In the beginning of a Psalm, David will usually begin praising God, then he may move into wailing about his enemies, but usually at the end he comes back around to praising God again. Some have said he might have been bi-polar. I don't know about that, but I do believe that Psalms show us that joy and sadness are not completely separate experiences. 

I have joy. I also have sadness. They both reside in my heart. That sounds a bit like a Sunday School song, doesn't it? Anyway.

The joy I experience seems to be more like the older term, mirth. I love that word, mirth. I also love the word melancholy. I believe God has blessed me with a sufficient amount of mirth and melancholy in all events in my life. This doesn't mean I don't get sad or even depressed, but during those dark times I still sense mirth. It's like a warm ember deep within my body and soul. It's like when you hold your breath and feel your heart beating. You can't always feel your heart beating, but if you get quiet and still yourself, you can feel it, sometimes even hear it.

My joy comes from God. Despite my failings, hypocrisy and utter selfishness, my relationship to Christ is my only reliable source of mirth through all things. Yes, I have the love and happiness from my marriage to my wife and family. My friends. My church group. But honestly, all of these people could disappear one day. I hope that day never comes, but it will be a true test of my joy in Christ. 

Yet in some ways, we have all started to lose those sources of happiness. We lose loved ones. We lose our health. We lose our jobs. We lose our sense of innocence. These are sad and tragic events. And at those times, that ember of hope may seem snuffed out. It may hard to feel its warmth. I know it's there. It's a knowing that is hard to explain. To some it sounds like cyclical logic. I will say, it's never really made much sense to me, but it's always seemed right. 

I really wanted to have a follow up to my original post because I felt like something was missing. I felt like my sincerity may have been lacking in parts. I am nothing if I'm not authentic about who I am and my struggles. I fear I may come off as knowing it all in this post. I don't. I really don't. This is me working things out. 

And I want to be clear that if it seems as if I am proselytizing, it's because I am just sharing who I am. My faith is intrinsically bound to my being. I don't really see my spiritual life as separate from my emotional and physical life. 

All I know is that despite the many times I've experienced such sadness and depression, somewhere inside me there was a deep sense of joy. There was mirth. And with confidence, I can say my joy comes with the mourning. 

Hope Floats

Within the past two years I have made a very strange realization. I think it's been something I probably should have noticed earlier, but I didn't. Maybe it's because I couldn't stand back and look at the events or my feelings. Or maybe I never experienced such emotional highs and lows so close together before. I don't know.

So here it is: good and bad things often happen at the same time. Or at least they overlap. And because good and bad things happen close together, I believe that joy is never too far from mourning.

For the past 15 years, I have not been good about expecting good things in my life. In fact, since my open-heart surgery in 2000, I have had this sorta negative positive view. By that I mean, I hoped for good things but always expected bad things to happen. I was grateful to be alive every day, but when I went to bed at night I was never really sure I would wake up. I hope I have a job tomorrow, but if I don't, this is how life is.

I never really expected things to last very long. Relationships, spiritual highs, great times, etc. I just thought at some point the wave I was riding on would crash. And I had better damn well appreciate it while I was on it.

There's a problem with that thinking. When you are focused on the end, you can't appreciate the present.

Don't get me wrong. I appreciated life. I loved my life. I remember attending my sister's wedding shortly after my surgery and being authentically happy. I didn't have this "woe is me for being the older brother and still not married." I mean, I was really celebrating her happiness like it was my happiness as well. I was filled with such amazing joy. I danced my butt off at the reception. I had a great time. The times I spent with family and friends were wonderful.

Yet at the end of the day there was still this awareness of my own end. That it would come some day. And more than likely, it would come soon. I've always been able to find support for this perspective in the Bible, too. Scripture talks about our lives being like a vapor. Ecclesiastes goes on and on talking about how our lives are so short and that worldly things are meaningless. In some ways I really thought I had a healthy perspective on my life. On my mortality.

And then just over a year ago my best friend, Joe,  died. Right in the middle of all these great new life changes. Barely a month after I married the love of my life. And over two months after I had moved to the Chicago area, got a great new job in the city and began a new era in my life. How could he?

And I didn't know how to feel about my life or...well...just how to feel. I was confused. To be fair, I had been going through a whole freight train of emotions since I transplanted myself near Chicago. As I've said before, I was a small town guy and then in a matter of two weeks I went from commuting through cornfields to taking a train to downtown Chicago to work at a company on the 21st floor of a high rise. I left an amazing church and close friends behind in Springfield, Illinois to live close to my fiancee. And then we get married a month later and there all those new life adjustments.

Then Joe dies. It was pretty much the final life-changing event for me in awhile. There were other things that happened, but this loss truly shook me up.

All of these life-altering events happened within 3-4 months. I was not sure how to deal with the changes. I mean, there is one side of me that said I needed to be thankful for my new wife, my new job, a new era of life with surprises. Then there is this other side that says all these changes have got to be rough on you, Jason. And on top of that you lose your best friend. It's understandable if your sad or angry or stressed out.

When I was in high school and college, I think I believed big life events happened like TV seasons. One major event per TV season. It seemed like happy and sad events in life didn't occur right next to each other. Maybe I don't remember things correctly (and this would not be the first time), but it seemed there were long periods of time in between each event.

Does this mean that later in my life I will look back on my wedding, my move and the death of Joe as completely separate events that seemed far apart? I don't know. One thing I'm pretty certain of is that regardless of how we remember things, it is a sweet grace that the good events seem to overlap with the bad in real time. It may be confusing at the time. It may even be overwhelming. But I think that hope is like a flotation device in the middle of shipwreck. I don't think we could handle the tragedy without a dash of hope. At least I don't know if I could.

I'm starting to believe that things can get better. In fact, I believe hope isn't just in the future, it's in the present. Even if things get worse, and they always do, they still get better. Joy and sadness overlap. And joy comes with the morning.

Girl, 16, fatally shot: 'She was my little baby'

Fighting back tears, he said he had taken Taylor shopping just days ago. “She was my little baby,” he said. “She was doing so good."Speaking by phone from Highland, Ind., the grandfather said he was having trouble finding words to describe his feelings."She’ll be very, very missed by everyone in the family,” he said.

Girl, 16, fatally shot: 'She was my little baby'

Please keep praying.

Severe Weather Alert

For most of my young adult life, I have had a somewhat unhealthy fear of tornadoes. Unlike Helen Hunt's character in the movie Twister, my traumatic tornado experience did not fuel a passion for tracking tornadoes. Just the opposite. I run from them. Drive from them. Hide from them. Sacrifice other people to them. But like her, I have obsessed over them, and it's taken me awhile to have peace in the storm, too.

Let me take you back to the day where it all begin. It was November 9, 1984. I was a young pup living in a small village in the south-central Illinois called Brownstown. It was a Friday. I had a haircut that afternoon after school, and it was so warm outside I rode my bike to the appointment.

On the way back, I remember really struggling to ride my bike in the strong winds. I was quite wobbly and had to stop a few times.

At the time I didn't know that two strong indicators for a strong storm or a tornado are unseasonably warm weather and strong winds.

I was supposed to go with the basketball team as their scorekeeper, but for some reason I didn't go.

So after I got back home, my parents went jogging. I think they stayed right in front of our house, just doing laps up and down the street. I think they were concerned about the weather. I remember mom having this sick look on her face.

We loaded up the car for a trip to Vandalia, a nearby town where we often went out to eat, did shopping, watched movies, etc. It was about twenty miles from Brownstown. We always took Route 40 until it met up with I-70. Towards the end of Route 40, it started raining hard. Dad could hardly see out the front window. We still took the on ramp and got on the interstate. We thought it was just another storm, I guess.

And then the hail started. I don't know if I had seen or heard hail before, but it seemed really new to me. It didn't necessarily sound like ice hitting the windshield. It sounded more like large bug splats smacking on our car windows. My mom started to get concerned. My dad nonchalantly said, "Hey kids, look at the hail." I don't really remember seeing the hail either, not like I did at other times. It was just this blinding barrage of water, almost like being in a car wash at 55 mph.

Then for some reason the hail and rain cleared up. It was still raining, but not as hard. It was as if the hail and rain were a thunderous beginning to a musical, and they had left the stage for the main act, the tornadoes. There were two of them. South-west of the interstate but seemingly far away. There was one thin and wiry funnel that hoped around the much larger sibling. I remember seeing electricity bursting around the edges.

Once again my dad told us to look at the tornadoes. As if they were wild life on a safari. And yet, they did seem far away. But my dad's lack of concern was offset by my mom's movement from worry to panic level one. She was urging my dad to drive faster.

And then it seemed like the rain and hail began again. And the cars in front of us slowed down. I remember seeing the back lights of cars. The cars seemed to be backing up, not speeding up.

And this is when we all shifted from mild panic to full blown hysteria. Mom told us to get in the floorboards of the car. She started praying the Lord's prayer over and over again. My sister was bawling. And I was praying every single prayer I knew as well as my own extemporaneous prayers. I couldn't really take my eyes off the sky in the direction of the tornadoes. My dad really couldn't either. I still think he thought it was an amusement park for weather.

And then we were at the exit ramp for Vandalia. The tornadoes had apparently crossed the interstate somewhere behind us and started heading east. As we drove into Vandalia, everything was sickeningly quiet. It's the kind of quiet I've always experienced during a storm, or right before one. And sometimes right after. This was because everyone in Vandalia was probably in their basement. The tornado siren was blaring over the town. We really had no idea what to do, so we drove to the police station. We were supposed to be taking shelter, but we really didn't know where to do that. So I guess the police station was the best idea.

The police let us stay downstairs in what might have been their older jail cells. There were a couple of other families there, including this one family who had a daughter about my age that was the worst kind of person you want to have in a crisis situation. She was full of peppy energy and excitement, and we were just concerned about people we knew in the path of the storms.

The sirens eventually stopped. The all clear was given, but there were still warnings and watches. We were told the tornadoes had headed towards are town, which was of course very disconcerting.  We began the drive back and after we exited the interstate to take Route 40 back into Brownstown, there were roadblocks set up. We were not allowed access from that direction. So we hopped back on the interstate and drove to a town on the other side of Brownstown, St. Elmo. This is where many of my relatives, including my Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, et al., lived, where my mom and dad grew up, and where my mom taught 4th grade.

We quickly dropped by my Grandma's. The doors were unlocked and some of the lights on, but she wasn't home. This set us into a bit of a panic. We then headed towards Brownstown again. As we got closer, all we saw were flashing lights amid complete darkness. Well, darker than normal for a small town in Illinois. We came to a road block again. Somehow we proved we lived in the town but were advised to proceed with caution.

I think we all started to cry again because we knew our little town was hit by the tornadoes. At the time it was the world to me. It wasn't a speck on a map of Illinois. It was still full of adventure. I was not bored with it yet. We had started to drive towards my Aunt's (mom's youngest sister) house. I guess my Uncle had picked up my Grandma and took her over to Brownstown after the tornado. I'm not sure why.

At any rate, we never made it to the house. Their were still power lines, trees and damage on the roads. So we headed back to our house. I think we had called a neighbor already to ask about the damage to our house. So we kinda knew what to expect. We had some shingles off the roof and one of our long, spindling trees was knocked over as well. Other than that, we were pretty unscathed.

We ended up hanging out at a neighbor's house who had a basement until at least 11 PM. We found out later the elementary school was pretty damaged, gym ceiling lifted off and put back on, water everywhere, and the basketball team was safe as well. They were in the school, though, and I guess the coach herded them into the cafeteria. He had all the boys get underneath the cafeteria tables. They were the fold up kinds that were bolted to the walls. Pretty sturdy.

There were no deaths. There were a few minor cuts and bruises, though. A guy that lived in a trailer near my aunt's was asleep on his couch when it struck. The trailer was lifted up and wrapped around the tree. He was spilled out onto the lawn, I guess. My uncle said he showed up at their front door in his underwear, covered in blood, screaming and asking what the hell happened.

A day or so later we took car rides around to survey the damage. The civic center in town was completely destroyed. In fact, chunks of the civic center was thrown through the stain glass windows of the United Methodist Church next door. We attended that church and didn't go to church that Sunday. We heard they did have services, though.

We were finding displaced items all over town. Lawn ornaments in the wrong yards. Slivers of aluminum gutter and roofing stabbing trees and fence posts.

We went by flashlights and candlelight for 3-4 days, and I believe we were out of school for a week. That was pretty awesome.

And for pretty much the rest of the school year, I felt the need to ask my sixth grade teacher for reassurances that we weren't going to have any bad storms or tornadoes that day. I had to come up with creative ways of asking so as not to sound crazy. I'm pretty sure I still sounded crazy, though.

But ever since that day I have always had this inner barometer for severe storms or tornadoes. Unusually warm weather in winter or windy days usually make me feel uneasy. And when I've lived without basements, I've been known to stay at my work way past quitting if they have a basement. Some of my friends consider me a canary in the gold mine for them regarding bad weather.

I felt like I was changed quite a bit by that experience with those tornadoes. And yet, I can't fathom how life-altering it must have been for the people of Joplin, Missouri or even those now on the east coast. The Before and After pictures of Joplin and New York reveal the awesome and destructive power of nature. There's really no better way of saying it than just showing those pictures.

I don't live in fear of bad weather as much as I used to. I like to think I have a healthy respect for its power. And in some ways, it seems so arbitrary.

I am not going to claim that the storms are directed by a higher power. Quite frankly, when I hear of tornadoes jumping one house and hitting another, I just don't get that at all. It seems so random and heartless.

I believe in a loving God. While I do believe in God and His ability to tame the raging seas and storms, I believe that He speaks in a still small voice. Reminds me of one of my favorite verses from the Old Testament:

And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 

1 Kings 19:11-13 

I hope I can remember to listen for the voice the next time I'm seeking shelter from the storm.

My favorite Amy Lowell poem

From the Academy of American Poets website.

Opal

You are ice and fire,
The touch of you burns my hands like snow.
You are cold and flame.
You are the crimson of amaryllis,
The silver of moon-touched magnolias.
When I am with you,
My heart is a frozen pond
Gleaming with agitated torches.

Image(s)

Sunday afternoon. The sky was a finger-painting mess of greys, blues, whites, and yellows. The clouds were moving fast. The wind was blowing hard but the air was warm. I was walking back from the garage after dropping off the trash. I paused to take it in. To watch the grass to ripple like small silver waves. Like a hand was strumming the grass.

And then there was the sound of a squirrel churring. I saw its nest in the skeleton of a tree. And then I followed the branches down until I saw the grey squirrel huddled on a branch. I decided to churr back and see its reaction. It skittered down the branches and then onto the chain-link fence that borders our yard on the south. 

It felt like a day where early Spring accidentally crossed paths with late Fall. Those kind of days that always signify an oncoming storm or at least an oncoming change in weather. A drop in temperature. And sure enough, there are threats of a little snow. 

Sunday afternoons are full of small gifts.

Good Day.

Well, today was a good day. I was up late last night at a show at a place called the Beat Kitchen. I saw the band Shovels and Rope with a few friends. Great band and great performance. The show started at around 11:50 PM and ended at around 1:15 AM. The place was was hot and sweaty. Seriously. Sweltering heat. Even thought it was 40 or so out side at the time.

I got home around 2:00 - 2:30 AM. I stayed up for awhile and fell asleep on the couch at around 3:00. I woke up around 4 AM and then went to bed.

Today we went to Best Buy and Heather got me my birthday gift. A small refrigerator for my man cave! Great gift.

We had a good friend over tonight for dinner and Settler's of Cataan. And I am so tired right now.

Signing off for this evening. Hope tomorrow's post is longer.

Joe McSwain, 1972 - November 8, 2011

It was a Wednesday morning last year when I got a phone call from Joe's number. As per our standard procedure, I answered the phone as a high-toned British woman (an ongoing joke). I had to quickly adjust my tone as I realized it was Joe's sister, Theresa.

It was then I knew something was wrong. This wasn't the first time I got a call from Joe's sister, though. Around a year before that, I believe, she called because Joe was in the E.R. At this time he was having excruciatingly painful back spasms. He had a history of back issues and had a steel rod inserted into his back as an adolescent. This was part of his ongoing health issues related to Marfan's Syndrome. At any rate, at that time she called because Joe needed support and someone to be with him at home after he was released.

So, naturally, I thought the same thing when it was her that Wednesday morning. It was not. In a rather soft voice, she said, "Jason, Joe passed last night."

I remember being fully aware and in total denial at the same time. Joe had told me stories of his sister's history of dark jokes, but this was not something she would do. This was real.

I remember predictably stammering as I said, "Wha-wha-what happened...how did it happen?"

She told me that they think it was an aneurysm, but they weren't sure. His mom found him at his computer desk slumped over. I tried really hard to imagine this. In fact, since his death, I have relived that moment many times through her eyes. I honestly don't know how I would have responded.

And then I remember walking near the windows of my floor. I work on the 21st floor of a building in downtown Chicago. The entire floor is lined with those huge windows, top to bottom. I walked back and forth in front of the windows, mindlessly gazing on the people and cars below. I had conversations on the phone with Joe while looking out these windows as well. The cell phone reception  was better, and we were likely to get into a heated debate at any moment. Or I would have to do some ridiculous voice for him.

But I was just talking to Joe's phone. I wasn't talking to Joe. I was talking to his older sister, Theresa. And we were talking about funeral plans, arrangements, and the like.

I barely remember telling my co-worker what happened. And you know, as a 38 year old guy, it sounds odd to leave work because you lost a best friend. I mean, I kind of wanted to defend it and say, "Well, we were pretty close." It's not unusual to have a close guy friend at my age, but it is unusual to lose a close guy friend at this age. Joe was only one year older than me.

After I left the office, I called Heather and said I would take the next train home. I then called my mom and dad. They loved Joe so much. In fact, I would often call Joe while visiting them. I would put the phone on speaker just so they could hear his laugh. They loved his loud, echoing infectious laugh. He was the best laugh track ever. Everything was funnier if he was laughing. His spit takes with laughter often left me rolling on the floor.

I had never noticed how much of a hell it is to be downtown and at the mercy of mass transportation when you are in the middle of grief. Or sickness. But at this time it was grief. I had a 40 minute train ride home. And then I had a 15 minute drive home. And for some reason, I felt the need to hold my crying in until I got home.

When I got home, I hugged Heather and laid down on the bed. And I cried. I cried the coughing cry. Most of you probably know what I'm talking about. You cry and cry and cry and make ridiculous noises, moan and cough. And sometimes you sound like you are going to puke.

The whole thing was so incredibly astonishing to me. I was just texting him. We texted daily. Almost hourly on certain days. He made my days go by faster. We had a reservoir of in-jokes, quotes from movies, and lyrics from songs that we volleyed back and forth in text. And if we were hanging out, we continued this trend out loud.

Ironically, I remember now one that we quoted back and forth was from this cheezy Final Fantasy game. With really bad dubbing, one character just said, "You cried." When we first saw that and heard it, we couldn't stop laughing about how odd it sounded. So, sometimes if I lost a debate or something happened in a game and I died, he would say, "You cried."

This time I really cried.

His mom and sister wanted me to speak at the funeral. To share stuff about Joe. Of course I would. Yeah. Of course I would. I'm a wreck, but I think I can do it. And I did it. And I feel like I barely touched the surface of how much Joe meant to me. I shared some anecdotes, jokes, memories, and the qualities of his character, but it felt so forced.

After a year has passed since he died, I have realized something. I realized you spend the entire first year after a loved one's death formulating a proper eulogy in your head. And so, here I am. I'm trying to give a proper eulogy, but so far I'm focusing on my reaction to his death. I guess it still seems so close to me.

I have had countless dreams where we hang out, play games, talk, etc. The dreams are so real that I often have a hard time convincing myself he is buried in a grave it Galesburg, Illinois. I'm serious about this dream stuff, though. They are hard to shake when you wake up. In fact, the dreams have been the most difficult part of the loss. And almost inevitably, in every dream, I can't just enjoy being with him. Instead, towards the very end, I start to realize, wait a minute, he died. He was dead. And I want to tell him that. I want to ask where he's been. And I want him to make sure he takes care of himself this time.

I could spend some time telling you about Joe's health issues. He had many. Marfan's Syndrome just sucks. Due to this syndrome, Joe had been through more surgeries by the time he left junior high than I have been in my whole life already. He wore contact lenses and bifocals. He had a metal rod in his back. And for the past two or three years I've seen him suffer more from worsening eyesight, hearing and his energy levels were not improving. He didn't exercise or really watch what he ate.

Still, I don't want to focus on this stuff. He hated that. He once had to walk or jog a mile in physical education. And Joe did it. And pretty much the entire school knew it was hard for him. So the coach uses Joe as an example to his sports team. He said things like, you guys need to be more like Joe. He has a bad heart or whatever yet he overcame it and finished the mile. I didn't even know this story until his mom told me. That's how much he hated it.

And I can appreciate that. He wanted to be evaluated and viewed like everyone else.

But he wasn't like everyone else. However, it wasn't for those reasons. He was just an amazing and unique individual.

We met in a junior college Bible Study my freshmen year. This was probably in 1992. We hung out often between classes and on weekends. I went away to a college in Kentucky and we still stayed in touch, relatively well. We reconnected over the summers and winter breaks. Watched movies. Played more video games.

We really started to reconnect after Joe's best friend died. Joe lived with him and went in one day to wake him and found him dead. I think he died of a heart attack. I went to the funeral and spent some time talking to him there. And then he moved back to Galesburg to live with his parents. A few years after that his dad died after a long fight with cancer.

These things took the wind out of Joe's sails. It was sometime during this period, and maybe even before, that he really started to struggle with his faith. We would end up having many conversations about this. Despite his doubts and struggles, Joe was a great flint stone to be sharpened upon. He always asked difficult questions. He never liked easy answers either.

Joe took me to my first football game. He was a big Bears fan and got us tickets for a Bears and Lions game. Unfortunately he got tickets for a game in Detroit. We still ended up going and having a great road trip. We even went to a casino where we played some games and saw a Canadian Elvis impersonator (our hotel was right across the border in Canada from Detroit).

The Bears lost, but Devin Hester got a touchdown on a kickoff return. That was sweet.

I took Joe to his first baseball game at Busch Stadium. We went with two other good friends of mine and had amazing seats.

Joe once evaded the police by driving into a parking lot for a factory and ducking down. To be fair, the cop didn't have his lights on, but Joe knew he was after him.

Joe had a cat that he loved. He changed its name at least five times. When Joe died, I believe the cat was named Captain Kitty. He was an awesome fat cat.

Joe had also had a budgie at one point. The bird and him were pretty good friends. He would just sit on Joe's shoulder all the time and nudge against him.

Joe's favorite football player was Dan Marino. I don't think he ever had a favorite player after him, but he loved football. He watched the NFL Network year round.

His favorite movies were Das Boot, The Big Lebowski and Aviator. I believe. He also loved Star Trek: Wrath of Khan.

He probably quoted The Big Lebowski and the Aviator more than any other movie.

He loved the TV show Breaking Bad. His profile picture on Facebook was from the show.

He hated wearing sweaters.

He loved to scare the crap out of me. After watching the first Paranormal Activity, he came into my room one night and started tugging on the blankets like in the movie. I pretty much freaked out.

He loved Mountain Dew. He also knew I tried to keep a clean house and car. His favorite thing was to leave almost-empty Mountain Dew cans in my car and at my house. He really wouldn't go out of his way to place them in certain locations, he would just make sure he left them behind. In honor of him, I will be drinking a large Mountain Dew can this evening.

We often fought and bickered like a elderly men. Or like the Odd Couple. We were kind of like the Odd Couple. Most of our friends would say they were entertained by just watching us argue.

He was an incredibly loyal, caring and honest. I can't define his care or loyalty in the normal ways, like, by how much he kept in contact, or how much he inquired about my life on a daily basis, but just was a caring person. I always believed he would defend me. The biggest compliment he once payed me was that I was not like other Christians he knew. Even though he might later turn around and say I was a bit too wishy-washy/touchy-feely in another area.

But that was Joe. If you gave him enough time, he would argue with himself.

That's why I loved him so much. I don't think I ever told him that either. If you know me at all, you know I tell almost everyone I'm close to that I love them. But that's just not how Joe rolled. And I respected that.

I know this is cliche, but there are so many things I could still share about Joe. So many ways he was a great friend. So many ways he was just an awesome human being. I still find it astonishing and truly unbelievable that he is gone. We joked about our deaths. We talked about our surgeries and shared war stories. I still thought he would be there for a long time, though. And yet, I knew his health was declining. It's a paradox. I think maybe all of us with best friends secretly want to get married and lose touch. Or at least, grow detached. We may not admit that to ourselves, but I think it's a secret desire. We never envision losing our best friends while they are still very close friends to an early death. Or maybe any death. I don't know.

I know my body and soul has still not recovered. I still find myself looking down at my phone, waiting for a text message from him. I find many things I want to share with him. And when I get a new game for console system, I think of how this would be so much fun with Joe. But that's how a best friend is. Everything is more fun with them.

I will finish with one of my favorite moments with Joe. It was my birthday. Joe, me, Joel and Nickie, and my friend Rod were out for dinner at my favorite place, O'Charley's. Joe said he had a joke. He looked at me and asked, "What's the difference between crap and a tomato?" Expecting this to be some sort of debate-worthy question, I then began listing off differences. When I finished, I looked over at him, and could tell he was perplexed. We were all pretty quiet for awhile. The entire table was watching Joe while he just say there, chin resting on his hands and smirking slightly while he his eyes said he had no idea what to say next. He finally said, "Uh...uh...I have no idea what to say next." We all just lost it.

Basically, we both ruined the joke, or at least I know I did. I think he was supposed to ask, "Do you know the difference between a tomato and crap." And I was supposed to say, "I don't know, what's the difference between a tomato and crap?" And then he was supposed to say, "Well, if you don't the difference between a tomato and crap, remind me never to send you to the grocery store."

So glad to have known you, Joe. So glad you have a permanent residence in my memories.

Buddy Cat

Several years ago I owned a big tabby cat. He had dark brown fur mixed with some splotches of gold and white. I got him at a animal shelter outside of Charleston, IL on a cold winter day. I think it was right after Christmas, maybe right after New Year's.

I also believe my friend James was visiting from Pennsylvania. He took a bus all the way from Pennsylvania. That is how desperate he was to get out of his home. I was in graduate school at the time and had recently broken things off with a girl. We were still close, though. In fact, close enough that I drove up to her hometown an hour-and-half away to pick her up and bring her back to Charleston after she got into a horrible fight with her family. I think James was with me the whole time, too. Man, he had to spend a lot of time on the road.

At any rate, the three of us drove out to the animal shelter on a cold and blustery day. We shouldn't have been on the roads. The shelter was in the country, so the roads out there were still covered in snow. In fact, I remember driving around a curve and putting the car in a ditch. We were stuck for awhile before someone drove along and helped us out.

When we arrived at the shelter, we took a tour of the rooms with cats. They were good-sized rooms with half-doors on each one so you could peer in and check out the cats. It was like a mix between a zoo and a prison cell block. Maybe those are the same thing, though. The unspoken message between you and the cats is the fact that they were all pretty much on death row.

I went down the entire row looking in both rooms. I remember asking for thoughts or opinions from my friends, but they kind of gave me the "Are you really asking me what kind of cat you should get and live with for the next five to ten years?" It's a confused and pressured look.

I remember Buddy was sitting in the back of one of the rooms. He wasn't overly social, but he wasn't completely stand offish either. I guess you could say that he was a typical cat.

We brought him home that day.  He would still need a good vet check up, and later I would find out that he had FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus). It's pretty similar to HIV for humans. The cats can live a pretty long time with the disease, as long as they are indoor cats. And Buddy was primarily an indoor cat with a few exceptions.

There were a few times I chased him outside, but he really just meandered. And then there was the time I  thought I would try to walk Buddy. Not sure if you have ever walked a cat, but it's just, well, it's just a stupid idea. Imagine walking a dog, but the animal is smaller, has greater will power and doesn't view "being walked" as the most awesome event of its life. In fact, I think the cat believes its walking you. When I have walked a dog, you jerk the leash and say, "Come on!" and the dog usually responds my moving on. Unless it senses that you have no idea what you're doing, then it just keeps on sniffing.

But when I walked Buddy, he, well, he would lie on the ground, growl and hiss, or basically twist himself in the leash so much that he almost asphyxiated himself. Cats are not meant to be walked. Cats are truly curious creatures. They are always exploring, prowling, and pushing the boundaries of known territory. If there is a room beyond a door, the cat wants in that room. The cat may have no idea what it's going to do there, but it will go for it.

A few years after I got Buddy I got another cat named Cynthia. She was a small female calico. She and Buddy were a good fit. A great fit, actually. But this post is about Buddy, so let's get back to him.

He was a great cat. I loved it when he walked across my legs while I was in bed. He would knead them for awhile and then lay across my calves. It was comforting. And then in the morning, he usually woke me up from my nice slumber by nosing me. I usually swatted him away the way I would hit the snooze button. But he kept coming back. He would meow and look at me. I would check his food and water bowl. Undoubtedly he almost always had food and water, but this was his way. Cats are mysterious creatures. They wake you up for no reason. They sit and stare at you for hours. They meow at doors and walls without any known reason. I can see why some of the puritans thought they were witches.

Then Buddy started to get sick. He started peeing everywhere in my apartment. He was even defecating in a few places as well. He wasn't coming upstairs to my bedroom either. I knew what it probably was. He was getting older, too. I took him to the Vet.

The Vet was incredibly nice. She told me what my options were. We could begin a grueling, weekly treatment that involved shots and intense hydration. And it would be uncomfortable for Buddy and expensive for me. And it still would probably only prolonging things for a few months, if that. I knew what I probably had to do, but I wanted to think and pray about it for a few days, maybe a week.

The vet gave Buddy some shots and fluids and sent him home with me. I was pretty upset. I knew how this was going to end, but I really wanted to give him a chance. I wanted to see if he would turn around. I didn't want to be a cat owner that gave up easily.

He didn't get better. He got weaker. So I made the decision to send Buddy to his Rest. I don't remember a lot about the day except that it was a normal day. I picked him up in the afternoon and took him to the vet. I felt sick about the whole thing. I took him into the patient room and waited on the vet. She brought in the syringe and other items she needed for this process. My first job was working at a vet clinic, so I was familiar with this process. Even then it was hard to be a part of the process of putting an animal down. You can't really communicate with the animal, or at least know if your words are getting through. They seem to look innocently the entire time. All the way to the end.

This is how Buddy was for the most part. The vet placed the syringe into his fur, petted him softly and laid him down on the table. I kept petting him and saying he was a good boy. Not sure why I said that. I told him I loved him. He started to growl, much like he did when I tried to walk him. Maybe he knew what was going on. Maybe he was raging against the dying of the light. I don't really know. I remember that I was crying. I remember the vet was crying. She was crying. I was really touched by that.

Buddy was a good cat. He had a great personality. He was a good friend to Cynthia.

The End.

Director's Cut Ending:

If there is a twist to this blog post, here it is.

I found out later that the vet who euthanized Buddy was involved in an apparent murder-suicide. Apparently she came home after work, shot her husband and then shot herself. The suicide note revealed there were some marital problems.

The End?

Love Drug

I'm pretty worn down today. I don't know if I'm coming down with something, or I didn't get enough sleep, or if I just feel rather emotionally drained from all the election stuff. And then there is a friendship that seems to be on the bubble. That makes me incredibly sad.

I'm pretty sure tomorrow will be a tough day for me. In fact, I'm pretty sure tomorrow's post will be difficult to write. It's one that's been forming in my mind for awhile now. Actually, it has been forming for almost a year now. And a warning, it will probably be sad. But I hope it's not depressing.

I've been turning over this phrase I read in a Stephen King short story called, Quitters, Inc. The character, Dick Morrison, has resolved to quit smoking. A friend passed a card to him about a company called Quitters, Inc. He guaranteed he would be able to quit with their help. Well, as Morrison finds out, their methods, while pragmatic and effective, are cruel, cold, and highly invasive. There is always someone watching him. If he slips once, his wife is kidnapped and placed in a room where Dick watches as she is shocked for 30 seconds. If he slips again, he is then in the room. And the punishments get more severe, including beating his mentally retarded child in front of him.

At one point in the story Morrison visits his son at school. He hugs him tightly.

Hugging his son tightly, realizing what Donatti and his colleagues had so cynically realized before him: love is the most pernicious drug of all. Let the romantics debate its existence. Pragmatists accept it and use it.

The phrase, "love is the most pernicious drug of all" really caught me off guard. I'm still processing it. I'm not sure why it stuck out to me, but I think it's because I believe love is always good. Love is not something that should be used or abused. Love comes from God, which is undefinable and unconditional. There is the love between human beings, but that is a different kind of love. As someone who has experienced and experiences this love, it's not necessarily appropriate to say it's a "conditional love. I think it's just human love. It's messy. It's broken. It ties us to one another.

The Walking Dead Voters

So it's the end of the world. You think you got bit by a zombie. On your hand. You believe it's only a matter of time before you become a zombie. But you aren't sure.

Do you cut it off? Do you do nothing and risk it? And you have two people with you. One of them is great with a knife, but the knife is dirty and rusty and could cause more infection, and they also seem pretty damn eager to cut.

Another one is more cautious; they don't want to do anything because they need better equipment, more time to assess the situation, and know there is a risk of bleeding out. So they tourniquet your arm to slow down the circulation.

And of course there is always someone who says you can just cut it off yourself, but you are not good with a knife and you will probably pass out in the process.

And this is what voting for a presidential candidate is like. It seems incredibly urgent, world-changing, life-saving and most of all, incredibly divisive.

But just remember, a zombie didn't bite you because zombies aren't real. It's not the end of the world. And no human being decides your future.

But still, you should vote.

Population: 438

From Chicago Tribune:

Late Sunday night, an intruder broke through the front door of Bariffe's Princeton Park residence and fatally shot him inside the kitchen, police said. His slaying marked a grim milestone: the 435th homicide in Chicago this year, tying the total number of killings for all of 2011 with more than two months still to go in 2012.

Less than half a day later and about six miles away, Carlos Alexander was returning home Monday from buying a newspaper and coffee when he was gunned down outside his apartment in the gang-infested South Chicago neighborhood, pushing the homicide total past the 2011 mark.

Two more slayings were reported Monday evening, bringing the total number of homicides so far this year to 438.

When I began this post on October 29, the death toll was at 435. Since that time this article was updated because the number of deaths escalated.

Since I have moved to the Chicago area, it has been hard to get used to homicides as a daily occurrence. I try to keep up on the news, so I review the Chicago Tribune almost daily as well as my local news in Skokie.  I even review RedEye's homicide map to see where these homicides are occurring. As you can see, most of the homicides are in south and southwest parts of Chicago. This really doesn't take into account the suburbs. I don't know if there is a map out there that does. In fact, I would wager that when/if murders occur in the suburbs occur, you hear about it nationwide. When many of the murders occur in the city, they usually, but not always, only make local news headlines.

The police are trying new tactics on dealing with neighborhoods that have a lot of gun-related violence, and I believe a lot of this involves working with the community, trying to oust the gangs. Chicago is still a gang town, though. In fact, I have done some web-related-research on the gangs. I came across a website devoted to Chicago Gangs, but I don't know how recently it's been updated. Here's a link to a map of all the gangs just on the north side of Chicago. If this page is old, the amount of gangs probably has not changed too much. Also, several police say there is a lot of splintering and in-fighting within the gangs.

I'm from a small town. It was like a cross between a John Mellencamp and Garrison Keillor vision of a small town. There were problems, but honestly, there was not a homicide rate to speak of. And usually any homicide was a domestic situation. Still tragic, but different from what I see or hear about up here. Now within the past twenty years, small towns are getting inaugurated into the drug world with meth. It has become the scourge and destroyer of small towns and small town families. Easy to make, cheap to buy, and completely and utterly devastating to the addicts, as well as their friends, families and communities.

With all that, any homicide in a small town is something that still stops traffic. It settles over a small town like a pallor of darkness for months and months. Hell, an untimely death of anyone in a small town is devastating to the community. I can still remember most people that died within the small town I grew up in. I even wrote a poem for the family of one of the victims.

So, when I moved to Springfield, Illinois, I felt like I was moving to a "big city." It actually had an annual homicide rate. I don't use this measurement for all things, but it seems to be a good if not macabre way to gauge the city you are moving to. There was actually more of every kind of crime in Springfield. More break-ins, robberies, vandalism, rapes, etc.

Yet Springfield was still a small town in many ways. Sure you had plenty to do, places to eat, places to shop and visit. But you still ran into people that you knew. Or if you didn't know them, you saw them often. I think Springfield also had a small town complex, but I won't go there now.

So, I get married to Heather who lives and works in Deerfield at the time. I land my first job in downtown Chicago. I was taking the train from Highwood to downtown every day. And every day I would visit the Chicago news websites and read about 3 or more murders a day. A day. At first everything was so incredibly overwhelming to me (read: small town guy in big city), that this sort of thing didn't stick out to me as much. It bothered me to read about children getting killed, but I don't think I fully comprehended it all.

But after we moved to Skokie, which is just a stone's throw away from the north edge of Chicago, I became more aware of the daily tragedy. Maybe it was because I was concerned for our safety. Or maybe it was because Skokie just felt like more of "the" city. I began reading about these incidents, trying to understand why or what was happening. Often feeling rather distraught or upset over the deaths. Many of these deaths may have been gang-related, but they were not just gang members that were killed. They were men and women just trying to live their lives who were shot in cross fire. I remember reading about a child sitting on his grandfather's lap. Both of them shot by a stray bullet. The other day a young man was shot by a stray bullet while sitting in his room playing xBox. Playing xBox! I play xBox!

It's easy to look at these events and see them as a number. A statistical problem. 438 is a high number, as the article says, even for Chicago. And it seems to happen mainly in certain areas of town. And for now, we live in a safe area of Chicagoland. So, I can remain safe and somewhat apathetic about this issue in Chicago.  And honestly, I really don't know what to do. To assume I could do anything is the height of middle-class arrogance. I think to assume that more legislation related to guns will help this is foolish as well. It's well-meaning, but it's foolish. I don't want to get into the politics of this, though.

I get angry, though. Anger at the gangs. Anger at the police who don't know how to stop it. Anger at myself for being so aloof about it all. Anger for my own prejudices and ignorant ideas about all of this. Anger at my laziness for not wanting to find out more.

So, I think it was back in March I decided to try something new. I often find myself praying for big things in the world, like peace in the middle-east, Afghanistan, for flood victims, etc., and my prayers often felt like I was sending a Hallmark sympathy card to the victims. They were nice and supportive, but I don't know if I expected them to do a whole lot other than to let them know "I was thinking of them." Well, God's been changing my heart in this area. I've seen some things and experienced some things that really show how effective prayer can be. And I was challenged by my minister to pray for something and not worry about how or if God will answer it. Believe He can and will, but it's not up to me.

So I decided to throw down the gauntlet to God.

I decided to start praying that there would be one day without a homicide. Just one day.

And then it happened. Actually, the first time it happened it was for three days. I asked for one and God delivered three days of no homicides in the city of Chicago. So I kept on praying. Later the number jumped up to nine days.

And then I read the above article about the number of homicides. On the surface I can look at it and say, well, the days that were peaceful were cancelled out by the days of multiple homicides. Was I not specific enough, God? I didn't mean for evil to work over time in order to make up for the peaceful days. I know that's not how it works, but it was disheartening. I am still thankful for the days God allowed peace in the city of Chicago. I will continue to pray for days of peace. For now. Just one day at a time. If more days happen, praise God for that.

I want to do more. And at the same time, I don't want to doubt the efficacy of prayer. God can and does perform miracles. I hope you can join me in praying for peace in Chicago. And if not Chicago, for the peace in your city or town. It may not be murder, but it may be domestic violence, molestation, rape, drug abuse, etc. Whatever it is, it's tragic and sad and someone needs a voice. We simply can't know or save all victims, but when we pray, I believe we give voice to the victims and oppressed. Jesus was brutalized, beaten and killed, and He suffered in silence.

Whether or not they threaten my safety or well-being, or if they live near or far away from Heather and I, or if they are perpetrators or victims, they are made in His image. Jesus is in all of them. He suffers with them and He dies with them.

I will leave you with this paragraph from the Tribune article:

In the city's 436th murder on Monday morning, Carlos Alexander, 33, a father of four, was returning from a quick trip to a local convenience store when he was shot from behind in front of his home in the 7900 block of South Escanaba Avenue, according to family members and police. Alexander's sister opened the front door and saw him collapse to the ground, gasping for air. He died later at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Please pray with an expectant heart.

Patron Saint in Her Personal Hell

Here I am sitting next to my wife on a Sunday evening. We had a good day. Church. Buffalo Wild-Wings to watch some football and then home for a nap. I love naps. Oh man do I love naps.

My wife is a saint. She ended up going to Cost-Co while I was still napping. She said it was the worst she's ever seen it. She even sent me a picture while in line. The caption was: "My own personal Hell."

To understand Cost-Co when it's busy, you really have to be there, but maybe the picture helps. And it's not even near noon and/or near Christmas?!!?!?  It's like driving in the worst traffic with absolutely no rules, more noise and more smells, but actually people seem a bit more polite. Granted, it's still an amazing privilege to buy some cheap food in bulk and get their awesome samples. But it's an introvert's nightmare.

Well, this is short, but I'm tired and want to spend more time with my patron saint, my wife.

And yes, she does read these posts.

Pelican Brief

Today my good friend arrived at our home with his fiancee. Not out of the blue. We asked them to stay with us while they were going to be in the area attending a banquet at the Chicago Intercontinental Hotel near O'Hare.

Heather and I took them to our favorite pub, The Candelite in north Chicago. Afterwards we went to Techny in Northbrook, IL. Techny used to be the home of the Divine Word Missionaries. Basically, it was a place where they trained men who were preparing to go into seminary for the priesthood. Now it's mainly a retirement facility for older priests and also a retreat center. We didn't visit due to our interest in Catholicism or the Divine Word Missionaries. We were visiting because several years ago I visited the cathedral located there and remembered that it was just an amazing place nestled in the suburbs of Chicago. And I wanted to share it. I also really wanted to see it again. It's such a visual surprise, especially as you are driving along in the repetition and monotony of traffic lights, gas stations, malls, and fast food restaurants.

We walked through the lobby area and into the narthex, which is kind of like a foyer for all of you protestants out there. The nave (the sanctuary) was incredible. Relatively simple pews, but along the right and left were statues of the disciples. Each disciple was on a column and spaced between each column was a station of the cross. There were vaulted ceilings had ornate curves that met at a center. And I can't think of what that center piece is called, but I think I used to know. There were also beautiful stain glass windows of other saints. Of course these stain glass windows are nothing like the ones I've seen in England, but they were beautiful nonetheless. Unlike most stain glass windows in Europe, American stain glass windows in churches were not really used to tell the stories to illiterate people.  That's not a judgement on the people, but it was a reality at the time.

Go to Techny Towers to find out more about the cathedral and area. If you would like a short primer on the cathedral layout, go here. The Techny Towers Cathedral was laid out very similarly to the one in the article.

Near the front of the Crossing or Apse (see article above), there was an image of a large white bird with two of its chicks. The adult bird was picking its breast, and the blood was dropping down to the open-mouthed fledglings. I remembered that that was an image of Christ, and I knew it was adopted at some point in the early church, but I didn't know when. At first I thought it was an ibis.

Well, of course I had to look it up. It's a pelican. During the middle ages, the pelican became a symbol for Christ, virtually replacing the image of a lamb and flag. The pelican was thought to be a sacrificial and pious bird because it looked as if the mother picked her breast to feed her young with her own blood. While the image of them picking their breast to feed the young their blood, is a potent Christological image, it is an incorrect reading. Pelicans have never been known to pick their breasts to feed the young.

So how did this come about misperception come about? Well, based on my limited research, there are a few reasons. First, pelicans have rather large pouches on the bottom of their bills. When they are trying to get their catch out of their mouth to feed their young, they often have to press the pouch against their breast to push the rest of the food out. From a distance and from an unscientific mindset, it might look like its picking its breast. The second reason is that the pelican is simply resting its head, and this also looks like it might be wounding its breast for blood.

Regardless of whether or not the pelican was picking its breast to provide brood droplets, or if it was simply pushing any remaining fish out of its pouch, it was providing for its children in a sacrificial manner. I have always thought the image was rather haunting and beautiful. When I hear all this language referring to God and my faith in militant or legalistic terminology, it's nice to see God compared to a nurturing mother Pelican caring for her young. It's not the first time God is compared to a bird, though. The Old Testament speaks of God and his characteristics in many bird and bird-related ways: doves, eagles, and hens; wings and pluck. I'm sure there are others.

I really don't have a point to make. Just some observations. God bless.