My heart leaps up when I behold

As an adult born with heart defects, I can't begin to explain the boundless joy of hearing our baby's heart beating for the first time. I am beyond elated to hear that my child's heart is beating normally. In fact, until I am able to come up with the adequate words, if this will ever happen, it's probably just best to hear my reaction.

Thanks be to God.

Hadiya Pentleton Made a Video

"Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage." Those are lyrics penned by Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. It's kind of how I felt yesterday after reading about the killing of Hadiya Pentleton. Then the Trib posted an anti-gang video she and some of her friends made. 

When I see this, it's hard not to feel sickened by the irony. Or even wonder if this somehow played a role in her death. I don't think that's likely. She and her friends saw what was happening around them and made a video. They did something. 

While I don't believe I am a rat in a cage, I often feel that way, especially as a rather sheltered, white, middle-class man. I was relating this sense of helplessness to my wife. I really have no idea what to do other than pray. I don't want to say "just" pray. I hear people say, well, there is not much you can do other than "just pray." This diminishes the efficacy of prayer, as well as the power of God. I will pray. But yet, I want to do more. I told my wife I was thinking about fasting until the violence stops. I believe there is power in prayer, but there is amazing power in fasting and prayer, especially when you think of hunger fasts from the past that were geared towards social injustice. 

But with my personality (I love attention) I felt like all this would do would draw attention to myself. However, I acknowledge much good has come from people using the Internet to share their stories, someone else's story and/or give much needed attention to a cause.

So far, the most original thought I have had was to shock everyone. To unnerve everyone out there. Consistently. The Internet is chock full of shock videos, pictures, etc. We are practically numb to them at times. I've seen some of them, and I've always been more intrigued with the videos that show how people respond to these videos. Their facial expressions and their physiological response. As someone who has seen a few of these pictures, I can tell you, the mere mention of a name calls forth that image very quickly.

I don't want to do this to make people sick or fearful, but I want to do it so they don't compartmentalize the death of a young child into that part of our brain where we store statistics and unrelateable information. If we learned anything from the mass shooting at Connecticut, and all the others for that matter, they shock and terrify us and our sense of security. We don't feel as safe anymore. Not at work. Not at school. Not our place of worship. We become desperate to find some means of safety and protection for our children and loved ones. But in truth, this is how some people live all the time. It just doesn't make headline news. 

It's only January, and Chicago has already had 42 homicides. This matched a record last set in 2002. And this is after a year of over 500 murders. 

So, dear readers, please pray. Pray I would know how to rattle cages.

 

Enough!

I just don't know what to say anymore. I feel like I finally understand why angry prophets ripped their clothes and wore sackcloth and ashes. Not that I'm a prophet, but I feel that angry and saddened by the continued violence in Chicago.

Headline from Chicago Tribute website: Boy, 10: 'It's very painful to see your big sister get slaughtered'

Her name was Hadiya Pendleton and she was killed while taking refuge during a storm. She had just returned from performing with her band in Obama's inauguration. Last year they played in Mardi Gras. This year they had plans to go to Dublin and Paris.

Some things said about her by family and friends:

She wanted to be a pharmacist or journalist.
She was one of those people everyone loved.
She loved Coldplay and Maroon 5.
She had two left feet.
She will be missed.

Please pray.

Spoiler Alert!

Are people more upset about spoiler alerts today than they used to be? Or do we just hear more people whining and moaning about spoiler alerts? Recently some event happened in the very popular British import, Downton Abbey. For awhile I was chuckling at all the reactions of people on Facebook. Most of them were managing to express their anger and shock without mentioning names or exact events. 

And then I was noticing some people reacting strongly to others, presumably on Facebook, that had spoiled the actual events for them. And these people were ticked. Once again, I chuckled a bit at them and scoffed. These are clearly first world problems, and we seriously need to get some perspective on things. 

And then it happened to me. Today. It was so sudden. So quick. So fast. Like a tiny ninja sneaking up behind me and slitting my throat. I barely had time to process what happened. I was scrolling through my feed over lunch break, and then I saw four simple words, "Oh no, not name!" I was stunned. Sputtering. Shaking my head. 

That's all it took. Four words. I tried to keep my cool, but I did respond in this person's comments saying the person should get an award for the best or worst spoiler alert ever. And now I know who not to get too attached to as I soon will be starting the second season. The friend responded that I (meaning me) don't know what exactly happened. True. But I am pretty sure that the recent words used such as "tragic," "shocking," etc, indicate that this character didn't simply fall in the mud while dismounting a horse.

I think this is all just more collateral damage of media saturated culture. We have all these avenues of watching shows at our leisure - DVR, streaming, downloading to your hard drives, etc. And we also have a social media that has almost become extensions of our brains, so we can immediately express our reactions to events. We no more think a thought than we then put it on Facebook. We are shocked by a turn of events in a show, and we all do this collectively shared gasp on Facebook or Twitter. It's almost as if the tail is wagging the dog now.  We don't know how to experience something without convulsively and immediately vomiting it up for everyone to see.

Yeah, I said vomit. I think the distance between our brains and Facebook is becoming as short as our mouth and the puke bucket. I'm not entirely above this. When my wife says something funny, I immediately want to share it with everyone, and sometimes I do. I suppose that's not a bad thing, but what would I have done before Facebook or Twitter or...uh....Google Plus (Bahahaha, bless Google Plus's heart )?

What would I have done without Facebook or Twitter? Cherished the moment? Wrote about it in a journal? I really can't remember anymore. I think social media has effectively rewired the way I think. And that really frightens me.

Okay, this post started off talking about spoiler alerts and has hopped, skipped and jumped into the perils of social media.  

What I really wanted to say is so what? So what if we know that Luke Skywalker's dad is Darth Vader? So what if we know she's really a man? So what if we know who Keyser Soze?  

I contend if the story is good enough, the characters are well developed, and the dialogue is rich, those spoilers will not diminish the enjoyment of a good movie or TV show. In fact, sometimes those twist endings or big reveals often overshadow the greatness of a good movie. And in some cases, no matter how amazing the twist at the end is, your movie or TV show could still suck. Yes, I'm talking to you M. Night Shyamalan, specifically in regards to The Village and to a lesser extent, Signs. 

Oh, and: Spoiler Alert! You will die at the end. Make sure your life is more than a sad ending.

New Sensation

I had a new sensation this morning while waiting on the train. I felt my left eyebrow freeze. Well, I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I should say that I've also felt my nose hairs freeze. Apparently not everyone has experienced this sensation. If you've played with tiny magnets and felt them pull each other. It kinda feels like that, except in your nose. It kinda tickles too.  I must admit I kinda liked it.

The eyebrow thing is new, though. It felt like there was cake icing in eyebrow. I always figured my eyebrows were pretty dry, but I wonder if some residual shower water was trapped in my eyebrow hairs. At any rate, it was a new sensation.

And I kinda liked it.

Image(s)

Leaning my head against the train window,
closing my eyes to try and get a short nap,
the morning sun and shadow flicker violently against my eyelids
and I remember why I hate riding on this side of the train.


------------------------------------------------------------
Driving to catch the 7:46 I project my own desire
for quiet time with God on the man in a suit with a pepper beard,
floating through the mist, wearing a Taqiyah and weaving
his prayer beads around his wrists and hands.

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.