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
Friday, January 18, 2008
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Fierce Winters and Sidestriking Winds
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
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
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The Topography of Love
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
Monday, November 19, 2007
For Peculiar Reasons
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
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
Friday, October 26, 2007
A Banner Where It Counts
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.
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
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
Friday, October 5, 2007
Full Throttle
“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
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
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Far-sighted Idiots
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
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
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