Curmudgeon Stew

Strained Synapse

2011-10-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

I'm really tired of Post-Modern deconstructionism. It's flat and tasteless; and attempting to make something of it is like chewing straw and ice cubes hoping that the flavor of steak and good Shiraz will come forth. The Po-Mo's think they are being clever and shrewdly insightful, but they have nothing to offer that brings any beauty to the life around them.

The Saint Louis Symphony performed brilliantly the other evening. Wagner's Flying Dutchman opened the program and Sibelius' Symphony No. 1 closed. While No.1 is my least favorite Sibelian symphony, it was a far cry better than the American premiere of Philippe Manoury's 30-minute violin concerto "Synapse", performed by virtuoso James Ehnes. Ehnes and the Symphony were superb in presenting the technical demand that the concerto required, but the piece itself was tedious and irritating and pushed hearer's endurance to the furthest boundary.

Hence my comment about Post Moderns. Whatever makes a Po-Mo composer think that he is producing anything of timeless value if there is no recognizable musical form to it? Music is a language that is intuitively understood, yet there was nothing in that piece that was speaking. It strained my synapses, reminding me more of traffic noise than anything else, and to date, traffic noise is not musical. If the Wright brothers had attempted to build their plane utilizing the principles displayed in the Manoury concerto, they would still have a collection of bike parts laying around on the floor, and nothing that had any hope of flying.

If they hope to have lasting significant influence, the Post Moderns need to start constructing something that points to the beautiful.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Maurice Ravel, Bolero
Stevie Ray Vaughan, Little Wing

Check

2011-09-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

I have a Bucket List.
Of course, I have a Bucket List.

You recall what a Bucket List is, don't you? It is a list of things you really want to do before you "kick the bucket", before you die. My list has included seeing the Olympic Peninsula, hugging a Giant Redwood, reading a portion of the Bible on Mars Hill in Greece, hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail, sipping a glass of wine in Tuscany, biking a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway, seeing the Book of Kells, taking Glider flight lessons, among other things. You might not actually get to do anything on your list, but that's not the point, really. It is intended for dreams and inspiration. And in my case, I've had the rare privilege of getting to do much of what's on my list.

I first moved to St. Louis in the summer of 1988 and became immediately captivated by hot air balloons. They weren't very common in the northern suburbs of Chicago from which I hailed, so there was something richly romantic about seeing a colorful balloon in flight in the early morning. Drifting along quietly against a clear blue sky, with the warming sun against the skin, and no sound except what is carried up from the earth gave me a sense of longing, a hunger for a kind of participation in the sky that an airplane doesn't permit. And so, twenty-four years ago, a balloon flight was added to my bucket list.

This morning, that part of my list was satisfied. What a morning! It was wonderful. The flight was everything I'd hoped a balloon flight would be. The sky was clear except for some river fog, quiet (except for the occasional burst of the propane heaters which kept the air in the balloon hot) and bright. The sun was warming on the skin and gentle. There were exceptional panoramas of the region. I cannot say enough how much confidence came from the skill, experience, and expertise of Balloons Over The Rainbow. They were phenonmenal!!

In addition, I learned about air movement, flight rules governing balloons and the peculiar circumstances that proscribe a life's calling. As an experiential add-on the passengers are "conscripted" to help in getting the balloon ready for flight and putting it away after flight. A ton of fun.

It may not be anytime soon, but I hope to do this again.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Michael Ward, Planet Narnia
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Organ Preludes to English Hymns
Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters, Grateful Heart

Remember Me?

2010-10-11T20:50:00.001-07:00

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
Quoheleth, Wisdom
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
Gabriel Faure, Requiem
Richard Souther, CrossCurrents
Toad the Wet Sprocket, Dulcinea

Summer Fling

2010-07-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't hidden it at all. It's probably nothing serious, but it's fun while it's lasting. Upon the first indicator in May, my wife looked at me, raised her eyebrow, and simply said, "Really?" Remembering an outdoor cafe near a cobbled town square, my only response was a smile, a sigh, an apologetic look, and a shrug of the shoulder.

You see, after 37 years, she knows me well. I'm a red wine kind of guy. I prefer Shiraz in general, but am also partial to Napa Valley Cabernets, New York reds, 2005 Merlots (not a lot of those left), and Argentian Reds. I really like Australian Shiraz, Italian Muscatino and an occasional rustic Tuscan Chianti. And I do recall a marvelous estate Compangolo that was so complex it kept my taste buds confused for a few days.

But when she gave me that look, I had just asked for a glass of Pinot Grigio with my salad and sandwich lunch. For three months now, I've had a fling with Pinot Grigio. It's just a summer time thing.

The seeds of this little affair were planted 3 years ago during an educational tour to Italy. We were wandering Florence for a day, migrating between the Duomo and Piazza della Signoria. Our group stopped in a little plazaside cafe for lunch. One of our colleagues ordered a Pinot with his pizza, and it sounded so good that nearly the whole rest of our group joined him. The sun glancing off the awnings in the piazza, the heat radiating up from the cobblestone walk, the constant bubble of water at the Fountain of Neptune, the red tile roofs, Italian men wearing classy Italian shoes walking lovely Italian women wearing flowery Italian summer sundresses, the David, Perseus holding Medusa's head in victory in a pavilion across the square . . . it was all so very intoxicating. We needed a glass of Pinot to stabilize our heady afternoon.

But that began an association which would grow into a summer affair. Pinot and fresh fruit. Pinot and sweetbread. Pinot and cheese. Pinot and good conversation. All mingled with afternoon warmth and jazz and the wafting fragrance of White Alyssum. Pinot and sweet memories.

Some of you reading this, will remember that afternoon. Just know this. I miss you today as I recall with deep fondness those few days traversing the cradle of Western civilization with you. I raise my glass of Pinot to you in love.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Homer, Odyssey
Stephen C. Meyers, Signature in the Cell
Goldmark, Violin Concerto
David Benoit, Heroes
Anna Vandas, All I Thought I Knew
Paramore, Brand New Eyes

Rummaging and Ruminating

2010-04-18T20:18:00.001-07:00

This warmer weather has my imagination on fire. I only own 6600 square feet of property, but I have envisioned all of it as garden. Last year the project was a pergola and trellis to enhance the little corner which is my token of Eden. Already I've moved some climbing roses, Clematis, a little Parthenocissus (which will look awesome this fall when it turns brilliant crimson against the wedgewood blue pergola) and planted a few Zinnia, Cypress vine and Morning Glory (little more than a glorified weed, but I love them.)

This year, my projects start with a Potting Bench (which I have desired for about 5 years) assembled from various and sundry scraps sitting around the garage. My container deckside gardening will be enhanced by the addition, not to mention the preservation of my aging back. This is largely an evening and weekend project accomplished in little pieces the way that a really good pilot builds an airplane . . . on the fly. I'm designing the thing as I go, drawing my ideas from 4 or 5 plans viewed on the internet; which will make for a fascinating finished product. All I know so far is that it will hold plant containers and potting soil, and be stained wedgewood blue to match the garden structures.

After this, I have in mind to build a couple Adirondack chairs for the deck. We had and enjoyed some for a few years, but they were made of pine and proved to be a banquet for some of the indigenous fungal and insect life. These newer versions will be made of Poplar, saturated in poison-laced primer of some kind, then finished in six layers of white lacquer enamel that will take the most determined pest a decade to drill through. Built to last? Yeah, its that important.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Saul of Tarsus, Letters to the Corinthians
Westminster Divines, Confession of Faith
Norton Juster, Phantom Tollbooth
Conni Ellisor, Conversations in Silence
Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
Gordon Lightfoot, Sundown

Trumpet, Cyclamineus, Triandrus, Split Corona

2010-04-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Visited the Botanical Gardens for while this afternoon, simply to spend time with my much better half and to get away from the house which contains more work than there are years remaining in my life. I frankly didn't expect to see much more than budding trees and greening grass since it's still so early in April. I was pleasantly surprised (and chagrined at my presumption) at finding color everywhere.

We were greeted by pink and white blossoms, as well as a heavily perfumed atmosphere in the Camellia House. This set the stage for the rest of our visit. As we left the Camellia House, we saw Tulip and Daffodil gardens with such variety and diversity to disabuse us of thinking in too small a way about the spring. Of particular interest were the small urban gardens with their creative use of space. I never cease to amaze over the ways which a small space can be crafted to be refreshing through the reminder of the First Garden.

Back to the Daffodils; such a simple flower, yet the variations speak of great diversity and, dare I say, Imagination. It got me to thinking how boring the world would be without the wide variations that are manifest in every kind of plant and person and thing. A million different flavors and smells and sights and textures and ideas should keep us from thinking the world a mundane place. I cannot help but agree with Samuel Johnson who declared that boredom is arrogance.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Louise Cowan, Necessity of the Classics
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Goldmark, Concerti for Violin
Puccini, Turandot
Chip Davis, Sunday Morning Coffee

A Latent Luddite

2010-03-20T21:27:00.000-07:00

It is in the unwitting technological commitments that we shape our world.

When America committed to the automobile as its primary mode of transportation, it made an individualistic decision that traps individuals in situations they hadn't expected and it creates environments that no one wants. Have you ever looked at Rte 141? There are sections that no pedestrian would dare to step out onto. I saw a man the other day trotting across Rte 141 keeping a constant eye on approaching traffic just to make certain he wouldn't get caught off guard by an oncoming car. The tragedy is that there are no sidewalks on either side of the road where he was. It's as though whoever designed this thing had no notion that someone on foot might actually need to cross the road. It's design has in view only cars and traffic, not people. This is a technological commitment that is inhumane.

All this to give you a context for my observations a few days ago that shout of technological commitment we have yet to think about.

The ordinary evening routine for my granddaughters is bath, read a book, sing a song, sleep. After her bath, I went into the 2 year old granddaughter's room to read a book to her and was suprised at the sight. She was sitting on a chair playing a coloring game on her mom's iPhone. She held the thing in her hand as naturally as could be, immersed in intense concentration, sliding her little finger across the screen to create a color pattern, tapping to reset the game, and doing it again. It was second nature to her.

On the one hand you have to hand it to Apple. The iPhone is so intuitive and entertaining that a 2 year old can operate it. It's also brilliant from a marketing standpoint. If the iPhone is so easy to use, why wouldn't anyone want one? In fact, why would anyone want anything else? The assumption will be that "this is the brand I use." Brilliant . . . Apple locks in the market at 2 years old. But there is another angle to this. As brilliant as what this is, it makes me wonder what expectations she will have in 8 short years when her friends all have the latest generation iPhone and unlimited Internet access to watch on demand movies, listen to on demand music, and read on demand teen webpages, which she of course will not have any income to pay for. And there are already ethical issues in schools and other settings with the prevalence of personal electronic devices.

But watching this little girl with an iPhone, I have to ask. . . what unintended consequences have we committed to? Which will be the servant of the other?

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Neil Postman, Technopoly
Chris Dawson, Dynamics of World History
John Tesh, Avalon Shores
Michael Buble, Michael Buble
Nightnoise, A Retrospective

It's Snowing

2010-02-15T05:06:00.000-08:00

Oh man. I hope this is one of those brief snow showers they were talking about last night. Because if it's not, my name is going to be mud for a long time...

Quivering Jello and Joy

2010-01-27T18:54:00.000-08:00

I'm strangely invigorated. I suppose what's strange is that the day has been filled with activity and being surrounded by teens who are operating full throttle, and it's basically overstimulation for an introvert. This is our Drama week and the whole school is involved in the production of Hamlet. It demands all my energy and attention, but the end result is typically enjoyable. Not only do we produce and perform a great play, but there is a coalescing of gifts and service that result in mutual appreciation, deeper respect and reliance, and lasting friendships. I love it even though at the moment my body has been "distilled into quivering jello." (I think that's a paraphrase from the play.)

But the point to be amplified is that however exhausted a week like this leaves me, I always walk away awed at the abilities people have and show when you give them half a chance. By way of a couple examples; a 9th grade student is leading and supervising a props committee of 8 that creates stage items such as jewel caskets, swords and thrones. A 7th grader is (with guidance) taking on Production management with budget considerations and activity coordination. An 11th grader is leading Lights and Sound, handling some fairly expensive and sophisticated electronics equipment, and directing others as they set specific stage lighting. How can one not be charged up when working with such capable young people?

You know what I especially like about all this? These are the next leaders who will step onto the stage of life to make their mark. And I get to say that I know them.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Samuel of Ephraim, Oracles
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Nathan Clark George, Words For Everyday
Michael Hedges, Aerial Boundaries
Mozart, Symphony No. 26

Who Needs Gold?

2009-10-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

The best of Life is a delightful compilation of the smallest seemingly inconsequential elements.

Two of my students gave oral exams today and awed me with their comprehension of world history, moral philosophy, literature and music. In both cases, they were intelligent, personable, fun and instructive. I walked away wiser than when I arrived.

My brandy tastes good tonight.

I'm gratified that after 5 days the rain has ended.

I don't mind the close, dark, autumn skies because they suggest to me that I ought to open a classic work and contemplate the condition of man or perhaps the condition of my soul. They ask me to start a fire and stare into the flames, and simultaneously to stare into my core commitments.

As the sky clears and the constellations beckon for my attention, I feel relief for the expectation of a bright and unclouded sunrise. I only wish the morning would be filled with birdsong. The season doesn't hold very much promise for that, however. "She's glad the birds are gone away/ she's glad her simple worsted gray is silver now with clinging mist."

My four-year-old granddaughter spends the night. Earlier, she sat quietly in my arms, leaned her head against my chest and watched a video, the warmth and relaxation of her little body a richness to my soul filling me with delight. At bed-time, she voluntarily scooted over and comfortably leaned against me again as I read to her the "Unbouncing of Tigger." What better expression of love and trust could one ask from a 4-year-old?

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Robert Frost, My November Guest
Robert Littlejohn, Wisdom and Eloquence
Fancis Thompson, Hound of Heaven
Sally Shapiro, Dying in Africa
Hem, Eveningland
Ludwig von Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral"

Give Me A Sign

2009-09-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

I stood wrinkling my nose at a brown sign that said, "Doggie waste is unhealthy for children and the community. Please clean up after your pet." It was kind of odd because the message didn't pertain to me, I don't have a dog, and I wasn't walking a dog ... but apparently this was exactly where I wanted to be. "Are you sure this is it?," I asked. My friend stared at his iPhone. "Yeah. But keep in mind, that it only has a twenty foot accuracy." This was my maiden voyage in geocaching.

Such was the outcome of dinner. My wife was out with her girlfriends this evening, so I met my friend at Chevy's. He's my age and we enjoy just getting together. Sometimes its for nothing more than to listen to a baseball game and burn a cigar. Tonight it was Mexican.

During dinner he asks if I've ever heard of geocaching. It turns out, that on his latest visit with the Oklahoma grandkids, they all went geocaching for the day and had a blast. For those of you who aren't in the loop, geocaching (check it out here www.geocaching.com) is a contemporary form of orienteering, but it's done with GPS devices rather than maps and compasses, and there is usually a little treasure or registration pad at the geocache site. We pulled out the iPhone to search for geocache sites within reasonable distance of the restaraunt and were surprised to find ten, one within a quarter mile. "Wanna do it?" I asked. "It's just over there."

Part of the geocaching fun is finding the hidden cache . It can be very small and subtly in the open (like one of those hollow rocks for hiding house keys), or it can be the size of a shoebox and cleverly hidden. So now you have to imagine a couple of old guys, who as far as anybody knows could be lost Alzheimers patients, wandering back and forth between three park signs at 6:30 in the evening. My friend has memory issues and I can't see. So I'm down in the grass looking at rocks through my bifocals and he's staring at his GPS, when a woman came out from her home asked, "What are you doing?" My friend looked at me as if to say, "I'm not sure ... what ARE we doing?" I just squinted at him and said, "You've got the iPhone." She shook her head and smiled knowingly. "If you are geocaching," she said, "then you're warm." and walked away. This was obviously something she's seen a few dozen times before. She's probably the person who set this one up. And she's probably hidden a camera and has gotten footage. Sometime soon I'm going to see myself on YouTube crawling around with my nose in the grass at the foot of a Doggie Waste sign.

Within a few minutes, we found the cache in a magnetic key box tucked away behind a frame 12 feet away from the original target. We autographed the tiny registration book, mustered our remaining dignity and called it an evening.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
James Thurber, The Thurber Carnival
P.G. Wodehouse, Golf Omnibus
Pat Metheny, Still Life Talking
J.S. Bach, Violin Sonata

Confessions For All

2009-09-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

Tonight its Silbelius ... all night long. So little time. I have 7.6 hours of music and only 4.5 hours until I turn into a pumpkin.

My introduction to the work of Jean Sibelius took place in high school when I participated in the symphonic band. For the Spring concert of my sophomore year we performed Finlandia, and being a trombone - baritone player, I got charged up by the opening bars. Ominous, brooding, imposing, anticipatory, dark and dramatic, they stirred in me some sense of adventure and called to life the expectation of descent from a stony vista overlook into a fog filled ravine with a defined notion of the goal. Sounds like a lot for a piece of music, but once you've experienced it, there's no going back. In fact, Allen Bloom (Closing of the American Mind) revels in such experience while detesting rock and roll because rock merely stirs juvenile passions with no context for the richer appreciation of achievement. While preparing for the concert I purchased an LP of Finlandia, En Saga and The Swan of Tuonela. I drove my poor mom crazy, because the high volume wasn't high enough.

Shortly after that concert, I found a recording of Symphony No. 5 and Pohjola's Daughter. That was it, I was hooked. The liner notes declared Sibelius' compositions to be nationalistic, anchored in his love of the Finnish landscape and the brooding shadows of the fjords. While I barely comprehended nationalism, I did detect that there was more. There was ancient story, legend, mythos, identity of people and their place. His music was a conversation concerning the battles of the gods and the kings. It recalls the stealthy approach of Beowulf to Grendel and the bloodletting that ensued. It reminisces about the Volsung and their exploits. It prefigures the ride of the Rohirrim against the amassed forces of the Dark Tower on the wide fields of Pellinor outside Minas Tirith.

It was ten years later when I stumbled upon yet a fourth recording of Symphony No. 4 that I actually fell in love with Sibelius. I had heard the 4th Symphony several times before and didn't like it. I don't know what it was exactly: ... sluggish, swampish, confused, a bad adagio, fairies dancing over a slime pit?? it was hard to put my finger on. These were probably the same kind of reasons that audiences hated it when Sibelius first performed it ...he was booed off of one stage. But he never changed it .. he was resolved... this is how it would be. The recording that captured me was by Paavo Berglund and the Helsinki Orchestra. Berglund interpreted the symphony with a clarity and vigor that I had not heard before. (This isn't really surprising since composers occasionally find someone else who do a better job at communicating their compositions; Samuel Barber for example relied upon Thomas Schippers to present his work.) Somewhere deep in the liner notes an aside was made regarding Sibelius' health; he wrote the symphony during a time when he was fearful of throat cancer and was awaiting the results of tests. That was it. And that's where I fell in love. The symphony was brooding worry laced with dark patience and the struggle for hope. No wonder he wouldn't change a note of it. It was his very heart and psyche. To the devil with anyone who didn't like it. His every composition was a letter, a poem, a diary entry, a confession. And thus with every other composer ...

Tonight its Sibelius. So much music, and so little time.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Jean Sibelius, Finlandia
En Saga
Pohjola's Daughter
Swan of Tuonela
Valse Triste
Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 7
Scenes Historique
Pelleas et Mellisande
Symphony No. 2

Lawyer Shaped Life

2009-09-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

Groping around in my daughter's kitchen this morning I stumbled on a package of Cedar Grilling planks. I perused the packaging while imagining the meal possibilities where they could be used when my eye landed on The Warning.

California Proposition 65 Warning:
Combustion of wood or charcoal products may contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and/or reproductive harm. This warning is required and issued by pursuant to California Health & Safety Code Section 25249.6

I cannot imagine living in a place where leaders were so hyper-concerned about death or perfect health that it was required by law to warn people that harm could come from burning wood. One would think that they had evolved in paradise and were suddenly introduced to the horrible reality of harm; that they never had an occasion to burn wood or get their eyebrows singed by the flame. When in the 10,000 years that we have been wandering around on planet Earth did we not figure out that life is dangerous?

Et In Arcadia Ego

Very soon we should expect to see the following warning on sidewalks and in fields:

California Proposition 721 Warning:
Walking in the upright position entails risks of loss of balance and subjection to gravity, and is known in the state of California and throughout the world to result in broken bones, contusions and even death. For best results, please crawl. This warning issued by pursuant to California Health & Safety Code.

Wouldn't that be a boon for Health Care lawyers?

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Tim Richardson, The Garden Book
Francis Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man
Will Ackerman, Past Light
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Orchestral Essays

The Path Out and Back

2009-09-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

I was asked during lunch conversation today who Wendell Berry is. What mostly came to my mind was his set of poems entitled The Country of Marriage. And so I picked them up this afternoon to linger over them again. Refreshing poems well-rooted in the soil.

I’ve been married 36 years. Sometimes I thrash and chafe, not wanting to be married. (I am certainly not alone in this occasional squall.) When it happens it does so for any number of reasons that all seem to be anchored in one; namely that I am profoundly selfish and truly ignorant of what I am. It’s a radically stupid attitude to have since to the best of my recollection, every blessing I’ve ever received has come to me in marriage.

As I write this evening, I am not writing out of that dissatisfaction. I am content in my marriage.

In one of Berry’s poems, he describes his marriage as a path that leads from a well tended garden into the unknown sections of a dark woods. The known allows him to strike out into the unknown with a fresh sense of stability and anchoring. But then being in the unknown produces a deep sense of longing to return to the comfort of the known.

This is true of my marriage. There are large portions of it that are a lovely, orderly, well tended garden with paths that thread through groupings of fragrant blossoms and nourishing fruit. Familiarity of those paths lead me into dark regions that I don’t know very well at all. (What man could not say this about his wife?) Those dark areas, while fascinating, become unnerving, being filled with peculiar vibrations and scents and movements that startle and keep one off balance. After a short while, I take the return path with deeper appreciation to the safety of the known, realizing that the dark areas are bigger than I suspected and what is unknown will only ever be known slowly.

In this ebb and flow of content and discontent, I concede that my marriage is not an end-all-be-all in the Romantic ideal, but a country to be explored and mapped, settled and sometimes left wild.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Wendell Berry, Collected Poems
J.S. Bach, Goldberg Variations, Cello Suites
Pat Metheny, Still Life Talking

Looking for Renewal

2009-09-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Tonite, all the old pains of a lifetime have come back to visit.

I fell down the stairs, about two hours ago, and every injury I sustained while growing up seems to have been renewed. When I was a kid, I was climbing an old pear tree in my grandmother’s yard and as I reached up I grabbed a dead branch. The branch gave way and I watched in wonder as 16 shades of green rushed upward to a blue sky just before I landed on my back. I couldn’t straighten myself for two days. Back troubles have plagued me since.

When in high school, I got into a psychological scuffle with a friend and kicked his books off the stage where we were practicing for a musical. He made gestures as if to reconcile and reached up his hand in order to shake on peace. When I grasped his hand, he pulled me off the stage, where I crashed headfirst into the orchestra pit. I broke my collar bone and had a concussion for three days. Another friend drove me to the hospital and he reported that the only thing I did was ask him every 20 seconds “What time is it?” for more than an hour. When the weather changes, my collar bone notifies me.

When living in New York, I fell off the roof of a house, shattered my elbow, fractured my hip and gave myself a concussion that lasted two days. In surgery, they removed the pieces of elbow because they couldn’t reconstruct it, and I spent 6 weeks doing therapy to get my range of motion back. The leftovers were chronic arthritis type weakness and pain in the right arm. but that is consolation when i think that I should have been paralyzed.

But deeper than these, I talked with a woman today who just gave her child to another for adoption and she is grieving over what she will not experience and enjoy; all those blessings of motherhood as he grows up. She won’t get the privilege of the first laugh, the first steps, learning to read and sing, t-ball games and puppy love. In addition, she has two other kids that she hasn’t been with in two years and is feeling the loss of motherly connection with them. Soon she will move to a new city, having been emptied of the common joys of life because of bad choices with ugly consequences.

My body hurts and my heart hurts. I long for the world to be renewed.

“Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.” -Princess Bride.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers.
Solomon of Israel, Proverbs of the Ancient Middle East.
Roy Whelden, Galax
Richard Souther, Cross Currents
G.F. Handel, Water Music

Good?

2009-04-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many people would look at this day as the most important day of the year? One of the deepest problems with western civilization in the heights of these days is its appalling nearsightedness. It has concluded that pop culture and mass culture, the acceptable production of our consumerist times, are the pinnacle and subsistence of existence. You know, rock stars, movie heroines, Abercrombie and Fitch, iPhone, and a myriad of other superfluous and silly things that we think we can’t live without. It assumes that man is the solution for all his stupid little needs. All of these amount to so very little in the larger scheme of reality.

There was a time when the calendar of western civilization was governed by the events of the religious year. Moreso, the calendar of western civilization was governed by Christianity. Not because of some religious hegemony, but because the culture as a whole really did understand that Jesus the anointed rose from the dead (by affirmation of Tacitus, Josephus and Saul of Tarsus), and as such it should shape all existence under his messiahship. (For the modernist who wants to wretch at this, I suggest reading some older history books; i.e., those written before 1900, and not modern. The new ones have been corrupted with the most insidious and self-absorbed scientism and revisionism. Man is so remarkably arrogant.) The calendar moved from Advent to Lent to Pentecost to Whitsunday and so on. The progression of time was marked by the significant occurrences in the history of mankind. Not those anchored in a scientific interpretation of the universe, but those that mark the promise and inauguration of renewal.

Today, the darkest and most difficult and most necessary of days, is the best of all. The Jewish messiah, the so-called anointed, was executed by civil determination, bearing in his person and body the terminal sentence of mankind as declared by the bar of absolute and perfect justice. According to Christian tradition, all things pointed forward to this day, and all things point back to this day. In exchange, mankind receives not judgment, but blessing and gifting which leads to renewal and hope. It is because of this that western civilization stands out from all others as being the most vigorous, the most creative, the most dynamic, and the most productive of all other civilizations. We have yet to see the endpoint and the fruit of such a hard and significant day of sacrifice.

Want to know why this day is declared “good”? Because, once, everything justice demanded was satisfied, and what was left in its place was undeserved and unearned love. How could anyone explain that?

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Micah of Moresheth, Oracles
Richard Gamble, The Great Tradition
Gioachino Rossini, String Quartets
Pat Metheny, American Garage

Dinner (revised)

2009-04-06T18:51:00.000-07:00

I'm in recovery mode in greater St. Louis.

I had a heart attack on Friday. But I’m not sure it was really a heart attack. The cardiologist who did the catheterization said it was a mild heart attack, but another cardiologist who works in a different hospital says its only a heart attack if there is muscle damage. I didn’t have any pain and there hasn’t been any muscle damage, but there was a plugged artery that they roto-rootered and put in a culvert. But in either case, attack or no, they did this procedure and now I’m in recovery mode.

My dad went through open heart surgery when he was 54 years old. He was six weeks in recovering from it. I had a heart catheterization on Friday (I was awake the whole time), walked out of ICU to the telemetry wing on Saturday, and was home kicking a soccer ball to my granddaughter on Sunday afternoon. I am awed and grateful for the day of medical arts in which I live.

Recovery mode has been a kind of paradigm shift, however. It's one thing when your general physician says you need to watch what you eat because there's too many cookies in your diet, and another when your cardiologist says, "Here's what you'll be ingesting each day for the next year."

When I walked out of the hospital yesterday I was given two sheets of instructions for my medications. This is the craziest stew I've ever had. Each day I get to take: Metoprolol tartrate, Lisinopril, Plavix, Lipitor, Niaspan, Centrum Silver, Aspirin, and these massive Fish Oil capsules (they are as big as olives). I also get to keep on hand some Nitroglycerin tablets. The weird part about that is the only thing I've ever known nitro to be used for was fuel in funnycars. For those of you who don't know much about dragstrips, I can't help you here. I keep looking for a warning label that says "Don't chew: danger of explosion" but I'm not finding it. After I take the meds, if there is room left over, I get to have food.

Have you ever wondered where fish oil comes from? Get this ... herring, anchovy, mackerel, sardine, menhaden, smelt, tuna and sand lance. These are things no one ever normally puts in their mouth, but I guess it’s okay if they’ve been converted to capsule form. And what is fish oil anyway? The polite language on the label says "fish ingredients". What do they do, put the fish in a press and squeeze the oil out? Hmm. Yeah ... that's like "beef byproducts". I've decided to never eat anything that is simply labeled "beef byproducts". We were surrounded by dairy farms when we lived in New York. I've seen the fields littered with cow byproducts. *sigh*... so I'm eating fish byproducts. Smells like fish byproducts. At least its promoted as Mercury Free. I sure wouldn’t want gain weight.

So, aside from listening to the Dove chocolate whisper sweet teases to me, I've been resting, reading, listening to music and harassing my wife. (I want her to be happy when I return to work). I went for a 1-mile walk today. Tomorrow I see my docs to find out what I can and cannot do for the next few weeks.

What comes of this though is the pointed reminder that, actually, today was never guaranteed to me. Now that it’s here, it’s a good day and I’m glad for it.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Solomon of Israel, Proverbs from the Persian World
Greg Mortgensen, Three Cups of Tea
Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation
Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Symphony No. 3
Diamond Rio, Completely
Jeff Buckley, Grace

Leprechaun Lights

2009-03-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

Unintentionally, my house was decorated for St. Patrick’s Day.

The only time I put lights on my house is for Christmas as I am still at heart a child. My deck has rope lighting as an accent and low level enhancement, but its not intended to be as obvious as Christmas lights. I hate Halloween lights because I think putting orange lights on your house for such a day is stupid. It’s a complete marketing gimmick and doesn’t make sense. Seriously, what’s to celebrate about dead things and witches? If that kind of stuff was really laying on our front lawn, we’d be rather freaked out. We’d call the police and want an animal service to come haul it away.

And electric hearts for Valentine’s? Flashing red and pink. How romantic.

But Tuesday morning as my day was beginning, I couldn’t help but chuckle. I was bombarded with the lights of the little people. There were green LED’s everywhere. Green LED on my stereo. Green LED on my clock radio. Green LED’s on my telephone modem. Green LED’s on my Internet modem. Green LED’s on my wireless router. Green LED on my computer waiting in standby and Green LED on its’ powerblock. Green LED’s all over the printer. Green LED on the microwave. Green LED on the coffeemaker. Green LED on the GFCI circuits in my kitchen. Green LED on the portable DVD player. Green LED on the automatic dishwasher. Green LED on the stove.

How did we ever get to the point that we needed Green LED’s on everything? It sort of reminds me of the “Check Engine” light on the dashboard of my car. What is it telling me really? Pretty soon I expect I’ll see a Green LED on my toothbrush (“… ready for brushing … thank you for your cooperation …”)

My house used to be dark at night. Good God! … save me from the electrical engineers!

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Solomon of Israel, Proverbs from the Persian world.
Chad Oliver, Rite of Passage
Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire
Jean Sibelius, Symphony No. 7
Bob James, Angels of Shanghai
Moby, Porcelain

Desperately Seeking Seclusion

2009-02-28T21:19:00.000-08:00

At one time I was a student of the forests. I’m sure I mentioned that somewhere. For nearly four years, I spent every other day in a Cypress-Tupelo swamp by myself measuring trees, listening to the wind in the branches and the barred owls calling to one another, avoiding copperheads, and gazing in wonder at a world that few get to see. I didn’t have to talk to anyone or see anyone or interact with anyone for 8 hours at a time. I delighted in Uvularia and Laportea and Botrychium and Dicentra, as well as hundreds of other wildflowers. I felt like the herbalist in “The Harvester”. When it rained I got wet, and when the sun came out I got hot, but it was never terribly trying ... well … maybe the mosquitoes were. I was periodically surprised by Great Blue Heron coming home to the rookery, or the sweet licorice fragrance of Ozmorhiza, or a covey of Woodcocks bursting from the brush as I made my way along the transition zones. I saw grapevines as old as oaks, and fawn still wet from being born not an hour before. I had a taste of what I thought paradise was like.

I’m an introvert. And sometimes I miss home.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Gene Stratton Porter, The Harvester
John Muir, Into the Wilderness
Franz Schubert, “Unfinished” Symphony
Jonn Serrie, Planetary Chronicles Vol.2

Gridlock

2009-02-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

I’m watching the rhetoric heat up over the 800-billion dollar stimulus package being promoted by some of our illustrious representatives. In one report it was said that the President has been compelled to remind Congress who won the election in November.

It humors me to see those who rode a wave of adulation into public office now get to work with the reality of a wisely crafted representative system. Winning an election to public office in the United States does not mean that one has now been given a mandate for the exercise of power. A President is not a king, but the chairman of the committee. A senator is not a Lord, but a State’s representative ostensibly promoting the interests of that state. A representative in the House is not a nobleman, but a messenger of the regional concerns. Election to office means that one has been trusted as a public servant. And the public has a mixed notion of what it deems suitable … hence the battle of ideas and intentions and language in getting a bill passed.

Our founding fathers observed first hand man’s inclinations toward totalitarian power. They built a system that would immediately grind to a halt if there was fundamental disagreement about why a law is needed or how it should be structured. And if some in office choose to be an obstacle for others in office because there is a disparity of conviction, then I’m all for it. There is safety in gridlock.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Founding Fathers, The Declaration of Independence
Constitutional Convention, The Constitution of the United States
Constitutional Convention, The Bill of Rights
Samuel Barber, Essays for Orchestra
Aaron Copeland, Appalachian Spring
Tony Rice, Backwater

Blessing My Pain

2009-01-14T19:20:00.000-08:00

Slumdog Millionaire is a painfully wonderful movie. If you have not made plans to see it, do so. This is a “must see” at about half a dozen levels. The crafting of this film captures one’s interest and builds a sort of expectation that doesn’t let go even after it ends.

I am not going to tell you much about the movie at all, except to say that there is not a single wasted scene. One scene in particular, representative of nearly the whole film, is the finest love scene in all of celluloid history. The protagonist gives a first kiss to the girl he believes to be his destiny. That kiss is not on the lips, but on a scar which had been inflicted by his brother. That simple act struck me to tears. It is one thing that I long for.

Smoldering in my heart is a strong and undilutable hope that at the end of all things, someone stands waiting who has remained true to me, who will kiss my scars, and affirm and consecrate them by love. My very being hungers for this.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Richard Gamble, The Great Tradition
Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark
Franz Schubert, Symphony No. 8
Tim Weisberg, Party of One

When Is It Really Bad?

2009-01-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

I was thinking this morning, staring into the frig looking for breakfast, reading expiration dates on labels and lids. It was more of an unconscious, glazed-over, passive kind of activity, until I came to the edge of the cottage cheese lid. The expiration date was two days ago. I stared at it. I sniffed it. I stirred it and sniffed it. But that evoked a related question. When does cottage cheese truly go bad? Could anyone tell anyway?

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Luke the Physician, Acts of the Apostles
Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth
Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark
Scott Joplin, Rags
Lyle Mays, Fictionary

LOTR

2009-01-03T21:25:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I watched the complete 12-hour, extended version movie trilogy of Lord of the Rings. I only do this once a year because it is such a huge investment of time. The only thing I’ve ever done in one sitting that took longer is traveling to Hong Kong, or driving from New York to Chattanooga.

What made the viewing so enjoyable this time was having an Atlas of Middle Earth open in front of me. The maps included timetables and paths of travel so that one could get a sense of the effort involved for the characters.

Tolkien created a world that is indeed a world. Geography, geology, seas, lakes rivers, topography, vegetation, peoples, migrations, languages, histories, battles, dangers, family trees and histories that cohere, purpose, prophecies, poetry, stories. It’s all there. What’s so impressive about this story is its remarkable internal consistency. All the things that makes our world so wide and rich are all present in his stories. It is genuinely inspiring.

Some might feel that the movies seem to go on and on. (I actually had a friend grumble that they are little more than a lengthy video game!) In the actual story, however, Frodo and Sam left the Shire in September and never made it to Mount Doom until mid-March. Six months of foot travel through tough circumstances. They didn’t actually return to the Shire until 13 months after their departure. The story is a quest in its rightful form, and thankfully the movies capture that sense of arduous, extended, demanding, hazardous, obstacle-filled travel through mountains, swamps and enemy territory.

Whenever I watch the movies in one sitting like this, my appreciation for Peter Jackson and company increases. I know he made alterations in the story line so that he could produce a watchable movie, but he was profoundly faithful to the story, to geography and to the movements of action, reproducing what the written story lays out.

Tolkien believed that what one creates continues as reality beyond this world (thus a strong motivation to be creative). He lived it out. The fact remains that Tolkien created a complex, multi-layered world of remarkable detail and if his notion about “sub-creating” is correct, then he (and hopefully others like myself) will get to explore it someday.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Patrick O’Brian, Fortunes of War
J.R.R. Tolkien, Leaf By Niggle
Karen Fonstad, Atlas of Tolkien’s Middle Earth
Vaughan-Williams, Norfolk Rhapsody I & II
Kaki King, Legs To Make Us Longer
Lyle Mays, Lyle Mays

Backward and Forward

2009-01-01T10:48:00.000-08:00

Like Janus, I face two directions at once this day. Usually when I do this it is with the intent to find growth, and to anticipate opportunity. The trouble with looking for grow over a single year is that the kind of growth I want will likely not be found taking place in such a short time. After all, it only takes six weeks to grow a squash; and eighty years to grow an oak tree. I want to be an oak. The trouble with looking for opportunity is that we can’t actually see any further than the minute that’s in front of us. To try to see further is like trying to see around a corner that’s a quarter mile down the road.

What have I learned from the past year?

Walk in wisdom today. It can be agonizingly difficult these days because there are so many voices telling us not to bother. But it is absolutely necessary because there are myriads of fallout consequences for doing the imprudent thing.

Good family relationships are to be treasured while you have them because they can change in the course of a few days through no fault of your own.

Your days are few and fleeting, invest them well. Invest your energies where the return will positively influence others when you have finished running your race here. Build a legacy that leaves the lives of others better off than when you found them.

To what do I look forward this coming year?

Simple pleasures, mostly. (I wonder if the years have beaten lofty dreams out of me. I’ve seen too much tumble into wreck and ruin; lives of young people, families, businesses, churches.) Teaching, serving, gardening, bike riding, writing, reading, good music, good conversations with friends over a bottle of wine. The kinds of things I can do on any workday or on a week-end or on a vacation.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Patrick O’Brian, Desolation Island
George MacDonald, Phantastes
Ben Bova, Orion
Dave Matthews, Under the Table and Still Dreaming
Pat Metheny, A Map of the World
Gorecki, Symphony No. 3

December Nights

2008-12-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

Cold weather is on the march. We’ve had snow twice in the past week and for Saint Louis, that isn’t the ordinary case this early in December. More snow is forecast for Tuesday. It promises to be a real winter. Oddly enough, for some it means coming out of hibernation.

Silence doesn’t always mean absence. Sometimes it can also mean insecurity, uncertainty, shyness or perhaps despondency, or maybe caring too much whether anyone cares what one thinks. It strikes us all sooner or later.

Snow is more noisy when it falls onto dried leaves, and with it comes the compulsion to be heard above the noise. Winter solitude can be healthy.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Hosea of Beeri, Oracles
Harold Best, Creative Diversity
Chopin, Preludes
Handel, Messiah
Bon Iver, for Emma, forever ago

The Hope of Home

2008-09-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

Home, Sweet Home. After a full and hard weekend, it’s so nice to be here. But now I know this is a matter of one’s circumstances. And those of yesterday shape today’s.

Nine of us stood on the doorstep, clad in a sort of recovery armor: baseball caps, goggles, gloves, mud boots, and fiber masks. In our hands, the weapons of healing: utility knives, wrecking bars, hammers, floor scrapers and shovels; we were ready for action. We were part of a reclamation team assigned to a house in the river district of Cedar Rapids and our sole purpose was to tear out the guts of what was once someone’s home.

The river overflowed its banks in June and the residents of 15,000 homes were forced to evacuate, leaving behind their lives. As soon as the floodwaters receded, the houses were sealed up until they could be assessed for livability. The residents were left to cast about in search of some other place to dwell while the status of their house was suspended in bureaucratic limbo. Finally the rebuild permit was issued, which is where we came in.

We learned about the owner a day after we had started. Judy is 65 and still disoriented from the disaster. Her husband died of cancer in November. She was diagnosed with cancer in February and is undergoing chemo. Because of the medical costs, she stopped paying her home insurance. Her son was divorced in March and moved in with her. Her world was a dizzying cloud of hard circumstances. Then the flood came. She scrambled to get pictures and keepsakes from life with a husband who loved her off the walls and up to the second floor. Then she drove away, the floodwaters rushing down the street as she looked out the back window. Her father had built the house and had given it to her, and now it was about to be swallowed by the Cedar River.

When the door opened, the house wheezed out the sickly breath of mold. This was no longer a home; it was a dank incubator, a terrarium for e.coli and every kind of fungus that finds delight in dark, warm, moist spaces. Literally, everything was food for the mold. THIS was as diseased an environment as I’ve ever been in. I was grateful for my mask and my gloves.

We moved from room to suffocated room opening every available window, setting up fans, pulling fresh air into the stagnant space. Air and light – the first time in three months.

Because the water had completely filled the first floor to the ceiling, it all had to be ripped out, layer by layer: carpet, flooring, trim, plaster, cabinets, fixtures, appliances, walls. Everything but the studs. All that had been part of the comfortable interior of Judy’s world, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, parlor, all of it now was destined for a discard pile on the sidewalk. House vomit.

But now, with the flood of air and light, there was hope. Hope that once again, Judy might be able to live in the house her father built. The hope of a sweet home again.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Augustine of Hippo, On Teaching
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Conni Ellisor, Blackberry Winter
Michael Hedges, Aerial Boundaries

Reverie

2008-07-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

Sigh … I look at the clock again … the fifth time in ten minutes. Could time creep along any slower? Only two days ago, the minute hand swept along the edge of the clock face the way a pelican cruises the foam edged surf of the gulf. But I was sitting on the dock then, the salt air uncombing my hair, and unknotting my mind, and carrying my kite and my heart into a sky ready to break open into vast blue, and enabling the frigate birds to sail up and down the shore higher than the ibis as they come in morning formation from the rookeries. I close my eyes and taste the sea. sigh. How could two days be so different? I want to hear the tide rolling onto the beach, the leaves of the foxtail palm rattling in the breeze, the gulls berating one another over a piece of crab, the dolphins catching their breath for the next dive…. instead, the weak voice across the room recounts for the eighth time how the neighbor works at night and never mows his grass and collects junk in his yard and lets his kid run wild and …. I smile politely, woodenly and glance at the clock ... the sixth time in twelve minutes …

Bound

2008-06-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

My wife and I were recently on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Being subtropical, Hawaii has a fair number natural curiosities to observe (curious at least for someone who was trained only in the eastern deciduous forests.) Among these is Banyan.

A Ficus in taxonomic relations (an older brother of the Weeping Fig found in many homes), Banyan has an unusual growth form. The branches develop adventitious roots that hang down and blow freely in the breeze. That is, until they touch soil. When that takes place, the root anchors, gets woody, and forms a prop that eventually becomes a new, or I should say, another stem. This will take place many times over such that the tree is composed of multiple entangled stems and branches. One gets the impression that this species isn't certain if it is a tree or a vine. Some individuals can attain heights of 60 feet and cover nearly half an acre of land because they have spread out and sprawled with each branch and dangling root. I’ve seen some Banyans that have grafted with others and become so intertwined that you cannot tell if you are looking at one, two or three trees.

The Banyan fascinates and disturbs me. In my understanding, trees are noble giants that stretch to the sky. When I think of “tree” I envision the towering primeval sentries of Longfellow’s Arcadia, or the ancient cedars and noble oaks of Isaiah’s visions, or Muir’s Sequoia giants that populate the Pacific coasts. I look forward to the day when I can hug a tree that ascends 32 stories into the sky. There is something inspiring and lofty and wondrous about that. I can barely envision it. But the Banyan is a Titan bound. As much as it would stretch to lofty stature, by its own nature it is repeatedly anchored to the earth, unable to pull itself loose and lift its mighty branches. With each new branch that fills with leaves, there are half a dozen appendages that more firmly tie it down to the earth and make it unable to soar like others of its kind.

I think what appalls me is that this tree more than all others becomes a symbol of my own failings and weaknesses and limitations. I am made to soar, to fly, to tower. I should stand tall and noble and inspire all who see me and know me. But each time I spread my wings, there is something, something about my own nature that further pulls me earthward, anchoring me in the dust of which I am made. All of that which should produce greatness in me has the potential to bind me to lesser, ignoble things.

I love Banyan. I hate Banyan. I don’t want to be Banyan. I am Banyan.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel
Esais of Amoz, Oracles
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline
Saul of Tarsus, Letter to the Romans
Samuel Barber, Essays for Orchestra
Josh Groban, Awake
Dakota Moon, A Place To Land

Harbor of Tears

2008-06-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

Wai momi. Water of Pearl. The harbor received its name from the Hawaiians for the abundance of pearl producing oysters found there.

The pearl is produced when a grain of sand gets into the oyster and causes irritation to the mollusk. The creature “weeps” nacre to relieve the irritation resulting in an accretion of lustrous layers yielding a precious gem. So the pearl is born through tears. Pearl Harbor could easily be named Harbor of Tears

It was here on a Sunday morning that the United States was drawn into war in the Pacific when the Japanese Imperial Navy sent two waves of bombers to destroy the American fleet. Half the fleet was crippled, and more than 2300 people were killed. The attack was unprovoked and politically charged. The USS Arizona was filled with sailors still in their bunks that morning. The battleship was destroyed and sunk in its berth, going down as a mass of smoking, twisted steel in nine minutes. There was no chance of escape for those inside.

The Arizona is not a National Park, or a National Monument, or a National Historic Site. The Arizona is a National Memorial. It is a tomb. Still buried in the waters are 1177 men whose bodies were never recovered because the wreckage was so massive and twisted. Of those who did escape on that fateful morning, upon their later death, 32 have chosen burial at sea with their fallen comrades here in the remains of the ship.

We spent a total of 13 minutes on the Arizona memorial, staring at the steel in the water, watching the oil seep up from the tanks below. There is a solemnity about the place. Not like Gettysburg, but still notable. It stands as a testimony of the heartbreak and the horror of what transpired between Japan and the US from 1941 and 1945. What began with an air raid, ended with atomic bombs.

Harbor of tears. Hopefully the pearl that results is wisdom.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality
Arthur Bennett, Valley of Vision
Michael Hedges, Aerial Boundaries
Bob James, Restless

Romanse

2008-05-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

The page lay on my desk, beckoning me to consider carefully the nature of affection and trust. Twelve lines. Twelve lines borrowed from a modern. Twelve lines hand-copied and hand-delivered with a slight flush of the cheek and a furtive look of the eye. Twelve lines, three clusters of thought which together become one window thrown wide open to offer a glimpse of the heart which holds on to the hope that you are trustworthy.

The poem wasn’t even about love. It was about the late afternoon shadows of autumn and the clatter of leaves being spun along the pavement and the revealing of hidden fruit. But it was filled with romance.

I wonder how many of us miss getting a glimpse of romance because we have scales on our eyes and are really looking for something else? Our day and age equates romance with something sexual because that’s how Hollywood has defined it since the 1950’s. The Internet has amplified that association by becoming a channel for peddling it. I cannot even log onto my email home page without being daily assaulted by half a dozen irritating headlines telling me how I can have better, longer, more satisfying sex, or what scantily clad star was caught by the camera yesterday. Such a definition is so sad because it settles for so very little.

Real romance is so much bigger and all encompassing. Real romance is catching the flash of white sails on the horizon while standing on the beach with your wife and smelling the salt sea air. It is candlelight reflected in a glass of port while the fireplace crackles in the background and your daughter hums a peaceful tune. It is the chickadees flicking around the feeder or hummingbirds scrabbling over a blossom, and hearing your granddaughter shout “Yook!” in surprise and delight. It is a mother and daughter, hand in hand, walking a quiet lane, discussing children. It is a couple of friends walking through a field, laughing and carrying six ducks apiece at the end of a blustery day’s hunt. It is autumn shadows, clattering leaves and open-hearted trust. Real romance is every grace-blessed thing we could taste in this life received as a token of more for the next. Friendship, children, sharing good books or music or poetry, walking in the woods, feeling autumn’s shadows. It’s all romance. Anyone who would reduce romance to mere sex wanders aimlessly in a terrible poverty of soul.

That single page, hand-delivered with the cautious expression of delight and trust and hope was romance of the finest kind. The only appropriate response is to be found tender-hearted and trustworthy.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
John Donne, Batter My Heart
George Herbert, Love Bade Me Welcome
Wendell Berry, The Country of Marriage
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Edward Elgar, Enigma Variations
Pat Metheny Group, Something Left Unsaid (compilation)
This Day and Age, The Bell and the Hammer

Really Fast Rats

2008-04-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

When I was in college, we learned of the behaviorism experiments that were performed in psychology departments by those studying the stimulus-response mechanism. You probably know the ones I’m talking about.

In most cases, there was a box. In the box was a maze of walls that formed corridors with twists and turns and dead-ends that could be changed by the experimenter whenever he pleased. At one end of the maze was a little door. At the other end was a push-bar that, when pressed, released a spoonful of grain or something. The experimenter would send a rat through the entrance door and observe as he worked his way through the corridors, in and out of the dead-ends, back and forth through the twists and turns until he got to the push-bar. When he pressed the push-bar, of course, he got his reward.

The rat got better at this with each successive run. He figured out how to get to the push-bar without the deviations of the dead-ends or the confusion of the twists and turns. In fact, he would even run straight to the push-bar past the dead-ends even when they were opened into new corridors. The objective, after all, was the reward, the munchies at the end. No point in looking into new corridors … learning is not the objective, it was only here for the food.

I often wondered when they would try this stuff on people. What would they use as reward? Money? Sex? A “Rocky”-style celebration? I dreaded to think how little it would take to get me to respond properly.

Last night on the news, there was an intriguing little blurb about medical conditions associated with some video game involving guitars. My wife was interested in the medical conditions. I was interested in the film clips of the young people playing the game, since I had only heard about it before. The “guitar” is little more than five colored buttons on a fret bar, an up-down switch where one would strum the strings and a “waa-waa” lever on the body. Pretty simple actually. Apparently the player presses the buttons, flips the up-down switch, and jiggles the “waa-waa” bar in response to the video-music sequence displayed on a screen. The medical conditions were associated with hours of play as the participant tried to keep up with a faster and faster stream of programmed “notes” and actions.

My wife’s first reaction was “too bad that there are medical conditions associated with this.” My first reaction was, “Hmm. Really fast rats.”

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth
George MacDonald, Phantastes
Michael Hedges, Aerial Boundaries
Jan Hammer, Themes From Miami Vice
Beethoven, Piano Sonatas

No Continuing City

2008-02-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

Ephemeral. Fleeting.

All last week was spent with about 50 teens as we worked on a play. On Monday, there was an empty stage, a group of about 16 who barely knew their parts, had no idea where to stand or what the movements were, and a collection of vague ideas as to what we wanted. During the week we built a set, practiced entrances and exits, shouted out lines, sewed costumes, adjusted lights and sound, modified dialogue, sweated the deadline and put together a play. On Friday and Saturday we performed the play before about 450 people.

We laughed, followed a crazy plot line, watched the display of some superb gifts, panicked over mistakes, believed we were in three different parts of Italy, and were exhorted about peace in marriage. And for a while we created an illusion that entertained and instructed.

On Saturday, immediately following final curtain call, we spent two hours and completely disassembled the set, stored the costumes, reset the lights, put away the props and cleaned all the floors. When we walked out of the building Saturday evening we left behind what we started with … an empty stage.

It was fun and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. For a week we worked hard, really hard, and had an absolute blast. But it was as lasting as the morning fog. It all passed swiftly into nothingness. All that remains is a few photos, a couple crinkled playbills and some great memories. Like a rainbow that can never be held on to, it faded from view. The only thing we could take away with us were the oh-so-valuable lessons of cooperative work, patience deliberately exercised, the good company of faithful companions, encouragement that led to excellence and the satisfaction of a job well done.

It is said somewhere that the glory of man is like the flower of grass. In the morning it is beautiful and fresh, and by evening it is dried and falling off the stalk. The illusion of this play and, interestingly enough, the events of life are like that. Like the lone and level sands to which Ozymandias points, our best works as well as our worst, shift and fade with the changing light. They are ephemeral, fleeting. Here we have no continuing city. What we really carry away is the wisdom that comes from having lived and worked with others, having loved our fellows, having encouraged unto excellence, and having gained the satisfaction of tasks well done.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
David Hicks, Norms and Nobility
G. K . Chesterton, The Ball and The Cross
The Cinematics, A Strange Education
Hem, Rabbit Songs
Hem, Funnel Cloud
Vaughan Williams, Norfolk Rhapsody 1 & 2
Beethoven, Egmont Overture

Mingled providences

2008-01-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

I cannot help but chuckle at the peculiarity of providence. What in this life isn’t some mingling of joy and sorrow? What in our puzzling existence isn’t some blend of the delightful and the grievous?

Marriage, for instance, is an interesting mixed bag. What an adventure. On the one hand, there is the delight of having the companionship of someone who complements you physically and emotionally and intellectually, and at nearly the same moment that person drives you crazy because they don’t think like you, react the way you do, or have the same pleasures you do. In another instance, work gives the satisfaction of having something to do that is worthwhile, fulfilling, (which is especially the case with me … I love my work) but is frequently laced with aggravations and frustrations that make me long for a permanent vacation in a tropical paradise … or maybe just a gardening job. But even then, vacation, however fun or entertaining or stress-free, generates a wan listlessness if there isn’t something useful to look forward to … and even gardens produce some tenacious weeds.

I could multiply examples, but just fill in the blanks from your own experience.

The circumstances that gave rise to my previous post haven’t gone away, and if I have any insights into life, won’t go away for quite a while. When they do go away, what will be left in their wake, good or ill, won’t look at all like what they started out to be; and nobody who is close to this will remain untouched. I certainly won’t be the same.

But the fragrance of Lilac is in these turbulent winter winds. In nearly the same week the upheaval came in, a new grandchild was born into my family, who is a delight to us all; and I will be so stupidly bold as to say I am the most thrilled. There is a fresh experience of wonder watching a child become conscious of the wide mystery of the world; and it’s an especially fresh and delightful experience when it’s your grandchild and you live close enough to be regularly involved.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Douglas TenNapel, Earthboy Jacobus
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy
Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism
Al di Meola, Elegant Gypsy and Casino
Doug Trowbridge, Songs Unspoken
Montreux, Sign Language

Fierce Winters and Sidestriking Winds

2008-01-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

Turbulence and driving winds. That’s how this New Year has arrived.

This first week comes accompanied by turmoil, stress, pain and the threat of alienation. My family is in upheaval. Loved ones are hurt, becoming estranged and looking around for someone’s feet where they can lay the responsibility. People are talking about but not to one another.

I’ve been stretched emotionally like never before. Each day’s end brings the exhaustion of having to navigate narrow relational channels filled with rocks and the prospect of sudden shipwreck. Each night is mingled with ten thousand what-if’s that keep one awake with the unsatisfied hopes of a predictable outcome or some kind of resolution.

And it all comes through no obvious fault of my own. So much is outside of my control, and outside of my influence. All I can do is wait and sigh, and talk and listen, and catch up on sleep I miss at night trying to solve what is not mine to solve.

But since my nights are filled with a tangle of thoughts and emotions, here are a few:

1. What you have can disintegrate in a minute through pride and selfishness. And it can happen before your very eyes, even if you are scrambling to prevent it.

2. There is a principle called “dying to oneself.” It’s required of families. If you don’t die to yourself, you expect others to die for you, and that can only result in alienation. When you choose to lay down your own prerogatives and give yourself away so that others can be benefited, you remove alienation in most cases. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but more often than not, it does. But families have to do this, because each person is so different.

3. It is agony to watch someone you love receive the consequences of their choices. But if you don’t let them go through it, you might not love them quite properly or fully enough. Thus love frequently involves agony.

4. Through it all, you have to keep your eye on the compass. You cannot avoid being buffeted and driven and slowed to a stop and spun around and driven again. You cannot stop the turbulence and driving winds. But you can keep your eye on the compass and stay oriented and make course corrections as soon as the opportunity presents itself. This works best if you have a clear star beyond the horizon by which you set your course.

5. It sure helps to have a good crew at your side. You’ll likely never make it alone.

6. Oddly enough, ‘tis the turbulence that can make you. “An acorn is not an oak tree when it is sprouted. It must go through long summers and fierce winters; it has to endure all that frost and snow and side-striking winds can bring before it is a full grown oak. These are rough teachers; but rugged schoolmasters make rugged pupils.” Henry Ward Beecher.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
C.S. Lewis, The Inner Ring
Samuel Barber, Essays for Orchestra, including Adagio for Strings.
Cambridge Singers, Brother Sun, Sister Moon

The Topography of Love

2007-11-20T21:06:00.001-08:00

While we sat at breakfast, I surreptitiously studied her face the way I would the ridges and rills of a wind-carved land. Each line, each wrinkle that etched her skin told its own tale of love and prayer and toil and perseverance. They ran together into a network of stories, one long story, composed of the joys, sorrows, trials, worry, laughter, and love of life. It was a face I had seen my whole life and a face I still don’t know very well. Strangely enough, with all those wrinkles, it looked anything but worn out. This was not the personality of someone who is just hanging on, waiting for the end, but a cheerful soul who enjoys the life that is given this day.

She’s 92 and still full of spunk. (She thinks BINGO is for “old people” [whoever does that refer to, … the hundred-somethings??], preferring shopping and line-dancing when she can get out.) She’s buried her husband, her sister, her brother, her son-in-law, nephews, nieces, cousins, and probably long-lost lovers. She’s held in her arms and laughed with her great-great-granddaughter. And if I have her genes and I get to be that old, I think this is how I want my face to look. Cheerful, grave, filled with story … lived in. A topography of love.

Today’s influences and soundtrack:
Anonymous, The Chronicles of Israel
Beethoven, Symphony No. 5
Eric Hayford Rhodes, Shout!
Lyle Mays, Street Dreams
Gordon Lightfoot, Sundown

For Peculiar Reasons

2007-11-19T18:17:00.000-08:00

Today was a really good day. But it was good for all kinds of peculiar reasons.

I got about 6 hours of sleep last night which is an hour more than normal, so I felt rested.
I had a cup of well-made coffee of the proper strength while reading before first light.
I had a nice hot shower which seemed luxurious …. but that happens every day. I once went a month without being able to get cleaned up, so a shower every morning is a luxury anyway.
I wore a new pair of socks that were bulked up on the bottom and my feet were comfortable.
The front seat of my Jeep felt right.
The trees are nearly barren with only remnants of leaves decorating the branches. I love this time of year “… before the coming of the snow.”
The air smelled wonderful, the weather was improperly warm, and the sunshine on my head felt like a soul massage.
There was a hawk against blue sky and a Flicker was laughing at me from a nearby sapling.
A friend of mine wore a new bow-tie.
Another friend laughed at my faux pas and it made me feel significant.
There were leaves being carried on the breeze which made me wish I could fly.
The office staff spent 15 minutes laughing at silly stuff.
I finished a little project that was dogging my steps for the last few weeks.
I was surprised by butterflies on November 19.
Someone fixed us a delicious meal, just because …
The moon has risen and is splashing light all over my front lawn.
I am glad for the dog down the street barking at who knows what.
The day ends with a glass of delicious 2005 Cabernet.

I feel like the king, sitting in his counting house, counting all his treasure…

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny
Arthur Bennett, Valley of Vision
Alexander McCall Smith, The Kalahari Typing School for Men
Hubert Parry, Lady Radnor Suite
Pat Metheny Group, Something Left Unsaid (compilation)
Charles Tournemire, L’Orgue Mystique Suite No 24

A Banner Where It Counts

2007-10-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

I was paging through a study guide for Ken Burns’ “The War” this afternoon, casually looking at photos, when suddenly, my attention was riveted on a black and white of a banner strung across a merchant’s store front. It announced to all in capital letters “I AM AN AMERICAN”.

At first I puzzled wondering if this was a disclaimer because of his ethnic background. Was he German or Japanese and needed to assure his neighbors and clientele that he was a good guy during troubled days? America was nacreous with peoples from all around the world. Was he receiving suspicious glances from his neighbors because his accent was guttural or his eyes heavy-lidded? Was business dropping off and he needed to invigorate it by stirring patriotism?

But then I got to thinking … whatever happened to the plain declaration, “I am an American”? The banner took on new life to me. What would happen if I put something like this across the front of my house? How many special interest groups would slobber all over themselves to get me to take it down because it made non-citizens (and, heaven forbid, people in other countries) feel bad?

Two years ago, while being interviewed for jury duty, I got to know a fellow from Lafayette Square. During our conversation, he referred to me as his European-American brother (he’s black). I laughed out loud because it sounded so absurd. I told him that I was no more European-American than he was African-American; we were Americans and that should be sufficient. That the whole point of becoming American was to not be European or African. America was something distinct, desirable, liberating. Europe was a place with rulership that was too old, and laws that were too entrenched, and traditions that were too stuffy and lifeless. Europe was a place where boredom pushed the thinkers to embrace enlightened philosophy which then tolerated Nazism and Stalinism.

America was freedom, America was opportunity, America was possibilities and innovation, America was shedding those old alignments and starting fresh. Between 1870 and 1920, more than 20 million people did whatever they could to get here so they could have a new life. When they came, many Anglicized their names so they could be a part of this new world, this country. America, as G. K. Chesterton states, was founded on a creed, and those who came here believed that creed enough to become a part of it. They weren’t “Other-American” anything.

But even more than that, there were some who were so convinced it was the right thing, that they pledged their lives, and their fortunes and their sacred honor to establish it. And others who were so convinced it was the right thing that they gave the last full measure of devotion to preserve it. And still others who were so convinced it was the right thing that they poured out their life on a foreign shore to push back the long dark night of villainy that threatened to swallow up the deeply-rooted liberties it offered. Tell them that they are “European-Americans”. Each one of them had a banner on his heart in bold letters that read, “I AM AN AMERICAN.” And so must we if we hope to keep what we have.

Today’s influences and soundtrack:
Alexander McCall Smith, The Kalahari Typing School For Men
John Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership
Will Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
Toad the Wet Sprocket, Dulcinea
Lyle Mays, Lyles Mays
Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Norwegian Rhapsody No. 1 and No. 2
J.S. Bach, The Goldberg Variations

Full Throttle

2007-10-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

“A life oriented toward leisure is in the end a life oriented toward death – the greatest leisure of all.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird.

I have a friend who is perhaps 15 years older than myself. I’m afraid to ask her age, mostly out of respect, but also because of self-preservation. The weight of the obligation in knowing may prove to be too great for me. You see, she is a silver-haired, full-throttle, start-a-holic. She is always beginning some new project that will have lasting significance in some part of the city. Really. I don’t think she does anything that doesn’t contain future blessing for others. Thus I view her as an inspiring role-model.

Victor Hugo (Les Miserables) once commented that “Forty is the old age of youth and fifty is the youth of old age”, in which case, I’m a few strides into my youth. Which makes me ashamed when I think about my friend. I’m looking for ways to settle in to my culture and she is busy shaping one. I listen wistfully to acquaintances who are enjoying retirement, diverting my mind and heart with desires of daily rounds of golf, afternoon hours with a trash novel, and evening chats on the deck while sipping Pinot Grigio. She is off to a meeting about how to start a college or where to confront the next social issue threatening the family or who should head up a neighborhood renewal program. I’ve a growing suspicion that when her body finally gives up the ghost, we will come to the visitation and discover a petition of some kind pinned to her blouse, which she will expect us to sign as we go by.

My friend lives as though Lamott's quote is her launch point. Retirement isn’t part of her vocabulary and it really shouldn’t be part of mine. Leisure and rest will come soon enough. Until then the best use of my time is labor that contains future blessing for others.

Today’s influences and soundtrack:
Paul of Tarsus, Letters
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Educating For Shalom
Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
Pat Metheny, American Garage
Charles Butterworth, English Idylls

Far-sighted Idiots

2007-09-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

To be able to see evil before it begins to act takes clear distance vision. Most of us hardly see it after it has begun to have its effect. But to be able to stand against it before it acts, or before it has its effect requires a special commitment to that which is good and always has been good. It requires a resolve of character and life that knows no compromise, knows no dilution, brooks no counterfeits to what is timelessly right.

The one who lives by such resolve and acts upon such resolve is considered an idiot, a lunatic, a nuisance, a demon, until the real demons bare their teeth. And it isn’t until much later, when everyone’s hindsight has been clarified through suffering, that they feel comfortable enough to say that the lunatic was right after all.

The throngs are blind with pop culture, reveling in foolish ways, and taking up a foolish mantra. And they pretend to be wise afterward when they can see what eventually had to be explained to them and they should have seen earlier. And without the far-seeing idiot, they would have been turned into slaves or unwitting henchmen or fertilizer because of their tardy efforts at resistance.

I’m beginning to suspect we need a good lunatic right about now

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
Stephen Mansfield, Never Give In
Jean Sibelius, Symphony No. 3
Jean Sibelius, Symphony No. 2
Mark Isham, Film Music
Pat Metheny, Still Life Talking

Rivermist

2007-09-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

The larger portion of my life is a kind of whirlwind, often because I haven’t learned how to say, “No!” But mostly it’s just because there is so much to do and so little time by which to accomplish it. The nuance here is that the limitation of time is not the mere imposition of a deadline, rather it is the comprehension that our days are numbered, thus time is valuable and we are to maximize our positive impact. The story is related of Cotton Mather’s father that as he lay on his death bed, he reached up to his son to get his attention and said, “I can’t die yet. I have so many books to finish.” Yeah … it’s kind of like that.

Periodically, I get away, which happened within the last few weeks when I went fishing with my son and some friends. I escaped to the Ozark Plateau Province without my computer, day-planner, address book, and paperwork, meaning I had little intention of doing anything more than fish, sit in front of the campfire and stare into the starlit expanse. Actually, I was the cook for this little excursion (…… everyone survived.)

The best part was our evening fly-fishing in the headwaters of the Current River where people don’t usually go. Evening on the river away from the madding crowds is good for the soul. Especially when the river puts on its primeval mantle at day-end. The gentle conversation of bubbling water, the soft promenade of evening mist and the chance to be lost in thought while pretending to angle for trout has got to be one of life’s little therapies.

More than therapy, however, is an instructive whisper to the spirit that this is a token of what has been lost. There is something paradise-ish about riverfog in the early evening. A reminder of the pristine days of the world’s youth, when man was not so much an agent of consumption as a husbandman of beauty and order. Not like the new-agers might declare it, where the untouched places of the world send forth vibrations that allow us to contact the ancient and ubiquitous all-pervasive non-conscious spirit. Rather like an old love-letter saved and cherished and ever speaking of unswerving eternal devotion.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
David, The Thirty-fifth Psalm
Kaki King, Legs To Make Us Longer
Leo Kottke, One Man, One Guitar, No Vocals
Chip Davis, Sunday Morning Coffee
Hubert Parry, Lady Radnor Suite

Good morning, Moon

2007-08-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Early morning. Four-forty-five ante meridian and the moon hung like a smudged basketball over the western horizon, looking more spherical than I had ever seen it. Fascinating.

How weird and entertaining is it that there is a sphere that orbits the earth? Ordinarily, the moon is just a silver disk that sits above the world lighting the night, the bright circular end of a halogen flashlight. But this morning it was more three-dimensional, more intriguing, and more alive, that’s it, more alive than at any other time. It made the distance between ball and ball seem so much shorter, and space behind it seem so much deeper, further away.

It got me to thinking about the other eclipsing arrangement. Here the earth was the perpetrator casting cold shadow on cold orb. But there are those times when the moon slips between sun and earth, choking off heat, blotting the light, exposing just how vulnerable we really are, and standing ever so briefly in a position of veiling power that reveals an ordinarily hidden glory, the solar crown. How unbelievable that we live in such a place, in such a world!! It’s a wonder that we can even sleep at night.

Today’s Influences and Soundtrack:
John of Patmos, Letters
Christopher Parkening, In the Spanish Style
Gioacchino Rossini, String Sonatas

Go For A Walk

2007-08-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

I recently sent a few hand-written notes out to some students just to greet them and tell them I appreciate them. A trickle-through report has one student who knows me fairly well, turning to his mom upon receiving the mail (snail mail …. remember that?) and saying, “Whose handwriting is this?”

Have you ever noticed with email, especially corporate email, how some people expect you to be sitting in front of your computer and ready to respond instantly? This is one of the irritations with Blackberry’s. Instantly on call through the Internet. I know one fellow who lives in a steady-state of low-level panic and jumps nervously when his Blackberry vibrates. He is instantly compelled to read it and answer whatever message came in. It actually reminded me of a Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. story set in the future (which is probably here by now) where people were equalized mentally, physically and soulishly through a governmental agency and electronic devices they had to have with them at all times. The Blackberry thing is an insidious form of slavery. So is email when people expect always-on attention and instant responses. The only instant response that makes sense to me is the automatic one that returns an email stating, “I’m on vacation for the next 3 weeks. Suck it up and live without me.”

I still have dial-up and that’s not likely to change anytime in the next 5 years given my location. You can imagine what an irritation I am to the corporate digitizers. I check my email 4 times a day whether I need to or not, and I respond within another 4 to 6 hours to those that seem sort of important.

Ultimately, the choices we make about technology shape and sometimes direct our lives. When we accept a new technology, we either control it, or it controls us. We never really remain neutral. I’ll no doubt touch on this with regard to iPods, cell phones, automobiles, gameboys, etc. But this much I must say now. I am not a materialist. By that, I mean that I don’t have to act a certain way because a new process, new gadget, new technology comes to the market. I don’t have to accept all the changes it brings. I prefer to drive my automobile and not have my automobile drive me. We should prefer to consciously use our technology as a tool and not have our technology turn us into something a bit less human or turn our world into something a bit less humane. And really, to do that, we need to shut it all off and go for a walk in the real world.

Today's Influences and Soundtrack:
Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny
Patrick O’Brian, The Fortune of War
Michael W. Smith, This Is Your Time
Roy Whelden, Galax
Felix Mendelssohn, Choral Pieces

Long Pause

2007-08-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

With a sort of solemn fascination, I’ve observed a tree in a nearby park all summer. In mid-spring, after everything had recovered from the frozen hammer that hit us, this strong specimen of oak was healthy, vigorous, and well-placed for growth during the stressful drought of a St. Louis summer. At more than 50 years old, it had everything going for it. Right now, it is nearly dead. Two living branches remain sticking out from its scarred trunk; hopeful, etiolated but unpromising. Everything else in its 45-foot crown is withered. And its been a long, slow, instructive demise.

I first noticed it while bike riding. The bark had been blasted off the north side; a telltale sign of super-heated cambium. This was lightning death. As a spring cold front swept through, electrons in the field collected on the bark, turning the living tissues into a giant capacitor. When they became hyper-active and discharged to the sky, they turned the blood of the tree into steam, expanded, and took the living cells with it. BLAM! From a distance, we heard thunder. No one, probably, and certainly I hadn’t, heard the sigh of an insentient creature giving up its life-force in the struggle against futility.

The weird part about this, and what has captivated me, is that this wasn’t the tallest tree in the area. Within 20 feet on both sides, there are taller trees, more susceptible I would think, to being struck. They weren’t touched. And it makes me ask by what criteria this one was singled out.

It’s the not knowing, not seeing, that draws me and troubles me. Because this happens to people, too.

It was said of Jonathan Edwards that from the age of 17 on he contemplated is own death every day. This wasn’t morbid. If anything, it was intensely realistic. He did this to make certain that he would be able to say, each day, he lived as he thought he should have in the face of eternity. I’ve watched that tree with the same sort of temper.

My brandy is finished. Time for bed.

Today’s influences and soundtrack:
Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny
Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings
Gabriel Faure, Requiem
Imogen Heap, Speak For Yourself
Jake Armerding, Caged Bird

Missing Ingredient

2007-07-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

I’m broken-hearted tonite.

While I’m an introvert, I work, like most of us, with people. By that I mean I work with them as souls and spirits, not just as bio-machines that are little more than extensions of the copier or workstation. So … I get to know who they are in the core of their being. I get glimpses of their central convictions and the things that offer them hope. I get to share a little bit in their burdens and their disappointments. I also get to see, sometimes, the demons that plague them and the longings of their heart and the dreams that put wings on their feet. It is a curse. It is a blessing.

For three years I have invested in a very gifted someone who has been lingering on the edge of hope. This has included prayers and pleadings and conversations and challenges and encouragements. Today I learned that it has produced no hopeful fruit. That someone walked away and proclaimed it all to be meaningless.

My broken-heartedness does not come from my time and effort being wasted, because I don’t believe it was a waste. It doesn’t come from the dissatisfaction of no return on investment. It comes from watching someone turn away from light and peace and promise and hope, and choose a path filled with quiet, appealing, smiling deceit and progressive blindness.

This can only lead to being lost in the wilderness. And it breaks my heart.

Sound and Smells

2007-07-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

“Now divine air! Now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies?”

Much Ado, Act II, scene 3.

I think Benedick speaks for me here. I love Benedick in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Such a stalwart bachelor who is secretly, slowly caving to his affection for Beatrice. When he makes the statement above, Benedick is listening dispassionately to a love song which several of his friends were swooning over. In his quizzical comment on the poor resistance that we display against the emotional power of music, I think he surreptitiously touches on something mysterious and mystical in the world. It IS strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies. It is a curious thing that certain forms of music move us profoundly in the spirit.

This is a powerful mystery. A physical action at one location can have and often has an emotional and spiritual response in the soul of rational creatures. Really, how DOES the plucking of a string, which results in a vibration of “sheep’s guts” and air, and triggers a vibration response in our ear, evoke from us longings and joys and remembrances and unseen pleasures, and even fears? Ever hear the tones in a well-crafted air-horn? Frightful. They are only sounds, … but frightful, fear-generating nevertheless.

There is something mysterious about these things. And quantification only goes so far. Vigen Guroian, orthodox theologian and avid gardener, finds the same thing in fragrances. He likens them to the viewing of colors. How can you describe a color to someone who hasn’t “experienced” it. How do you describe aromas to someone who hasn’t had the privilege of smell? But its more than that. It’s not just being able to describe the fragrance of something. Fragrances and odors move us. What does the fragrance of lilac or lavender or gardenia or alyssum do for you, or to you? How about coffee or a good wine? Ahh, yes. Tokens of paradise.

There is a plethora of things that we moderns easily lump into a mere physics category; the physical action of vibrations or organic molecules or light waves, when in reality they are so much more. Each seems to be a portal into something of the mystery in the Universe. Frankly, it IS strange, however true, that sheep’s guts hale the souls out of men’s bodies. But no stranger than the beckoning fragrance of a rose making us long for something eternal.

Today’s influences and soundtrack:
Vigen Guroian, Inheriting Paradise
John Mark, Gospel
John Barry, Out of Africa
Coldplay, X & Y

With a Twist

2007-07-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

Labyrinthine. This is what makes for a good story. It must be labyrinthine. There must be twists and turns and dead-ends and switchbacks and a destination; and perhaps there may need to be a string that one can follow to find one’s way out or back. Umberto Eco* asserts that three labyrinths are needed. A spatial labyrinth, whether it be a city, a building, a cave, or something Minos created to confound his enemies. The hero and the reader must run the risk of getting lost and having to fight his way through. Secondly there must be a relational labyrinth. People are a puzzle anyway, but a good story involves several personalities whose lives are intertwined and one risks getting lost in the matter of who affects who and who is the culprit and who is the anchor and who is the stooge and so on. Thirdly, there must be a psychological labyrinth. The hero must be sorting himself out as he sorts out where he is, where he is going, who he is dealing with and what difference it makes. Who he becomes is more important than where he is getting.

Labyrinthine. This is what life is. We would like life to be straightforward and simple with the destination clearly in view and all the pathmarkers printed in reflective silver. But it’s not. Even for those who know without doubt the final destination, the labyrinth must be walked through. And it is probably a good thing. How boring and dangerous is the predictable life with no sudden turns, no startling obstacles, no exhausting uphills. Without these things we wouldn’t have surprising vistas, satisfying solutions, or victorious summits. Nor would we have the call to courage, the labor of creativity or the demand of endurance. Without the labyrinth, would we become anything? Merely having a map and compass does not get you to where you are going. They only give direction. You still must walk. Who you become is more important than where you are getting.

With all of its switchbacks, dead-ends and unexpected twists, involving the multiplicity of personalities and the discovery of oneself, life is a wondrous story.

*notes – Umberto Eco. 2001. The Name of the Rose. Harcourt, Brace, Janovich. Pp. 528-530.

Today’s influences and soundtrack:
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Alexander McCall Smith, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
John Mark, Gospel
Nightnoise, compilation including Hugh, Hourglass, Bridges

Stouts and Starts

2007-07-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

The half-finished stout on my desk is a local brew that doesn't quite match up to the Irish products I've had in the past. For the moment it will do, as it provides a kind of distraction while I mull through this post.

The reason I'm starting this is because of a suggestion that "it builds community where most people are living." I doubt that actually. I live next to a redneck who doesn't care a lick about the Internet, and across the street from a guy who is a year away from retirement and doesn't care about the Internet, and behind a couple that who are never home to use it even if they had the Internet, and I suspect they are all pretty typical of most of the folks within a fair radius of this keyboard. The community I know chit-chats in the evening at the property line about tomatoes and burned out front lawns and the improvements they're making to the kitchen floor.

My dread, of course, is that this will simply be one more thing that takes time and requires regular management.

My computer requires more time of me than I wish to give it. Sadly, it is a useful tool.... so I use it. Tragically, it threatens to control my mind and my time and my life and my finances. Between viruses, spyware, software that gets zapped by static electricity, security filters, firewalls, and who knows whatever else, many of my daily resourses are consumed by this thing. I don't even want to go into how much time it cost me yesterday while I adjusted a database just so I could get an accurate report from it. Just to set this blog up tonite cost me an hour and a half. Tell me ... do you really have that kind of time to throw away? If today was your last day on earth, would you have wanted to waste an hour and a half schmoozing with your computer? This thing is a toaster for heaven's sake. Who in their right mind spends their evening with a toaster?

But since I believe there is some benefit to come from this, then let the games begin....

The stout is finished, its last bitter aftertaste lingering on the tongue. A good end to a good day.