Homeland Security

I have three posts that are handwritten... but before I finish them up and toss them onto the blog pile...

A letter came today from Homeland Security... the folks dedicated to keeping Americans safe.

My son, Jeremiah,

J at Special Olympics this weekend

upon further consideration...



has been denied U.S. citizenship.

Beauty

It occurs to me that when I talk about the bad parts of the world, the ugly parts of the world, I am referring to sin... to people.

That's true enough. We are masterful in causing each other pain.

And though it is true that the natural world, the natural universe, is incredibly (in [not] - credible
[believable]) beautiful, people are also.


Here is an example:





Here is the high quality for those with faster connections:

Politically Correct (Service)

At six years old the most dreaded words were: "Wait until your father gets home!"

It was just before they split up.

Mom was pretty patient. But if my brothers and I went too far, far enough that she was ready to step aside as a shield between him and us, then we knew we had really gone too far.

Like sneaking into the old house across the street and roaming its upper floors in search of ghosts.

Like climbing atop our old two storied house to throw balsa wood planes.

Like climbing the apricot tree beside the old garage and shocking ourselves with the exposed power line (Wow! That really makes you jump!).

(Willows, CA. Garage is way in the back.)

Waiting for dad to come home made a fearful afternoon. He worked for an insurance company and that thin belt of his really, really hurt.

I suppose he would be arrested nowadays. I think such punishment is too much (I tried putting a paperback book in my pants once, but he noticed, big mistake).

But though that was too much, as a society we may be going too far the other way.

I think we are becoming lenient with disciplining children.

A 12 year old in Ottawa successfully sued her father recently so she wouldn't be grounded for her excessive internet use and disobedience. (Hard to believe!)

We are becoming too eager to sue. (When a 12 year old does it I think that is a warning.)

A city worker in our small town tripped on a slightly raised sidewalk in front of the library. So, for fear of the lawsuit, the two old trees came out, the sidewalk replaced. It's too hot too sit on those exposed benches now. They were nice trees.

We are becoming easily offended over slights against our persons, our faiths, our sexual orientation, our dietary habits, our turn at the stop sign, our wait at the check out counter, the hotness, spiciness, sweetness, frothiness, and strength of our coffee.

Ever since those first orchard thieves put themselves first we have found ever more creative ways to hurt ourselves, hurt each other.

Stone age to bronze, iron age to the information age, we fill the world with ourselves... we fill ourselves with ourselves.

I'm getting so tired of Republicans and Democrats and Muslims and Hindi and vegetarians and feminists and skin heads and Christians and Jews and communists and socialists and capitalists and yuppies and genXers and freemales and all the other labels which are supposed to describe but instead place people in tidy little boxes with tidy little labels.

People are hurting. A label won't really make them feel any better.

I'm a Christ Follower.

I'm a teacher and a husband and a father and a friend. A gardener and a blogger and I love this world.

I am unique.

...just like every other person on this spinning ball of dirt.

We need each other.

Life is hard.

There is so much hurt and pain and wretchedness in the world, and overlying it all, this incredible, indescribable beauty and love and loveliness.

We must help each other.

When we smile at someone, say a kind word, we take a little of the beauty God has poured, is pouring, is drenching the world, and lay it over them.

They need it.

We need to give it as much as they need to receive it.

I understand the need for people to be concerned about saving souls, for sharing their faith.

But there is something more important.

My Lord did a lot of cool things when He was walking about this earth in a body that stubbed its toes, had acne, and had to relieve itself.

He didn't hurt people. He didn't avoid tough topics, but He didn't hurt people.

When someone was hungry, He fed them.

When someone was sick, He healed them.

When someone was scared, He comforted them.

He told stories, and He hugged His friends, and He comforted the disenfranchised, and He looked at the beauty of the world, and He let it seep into His human heart through His human eyes, and He took that joy and shared it.

Hey, life sucks. I get. Boy, I get it.

The planet is filled with 6.7 billion people who are sick and hungry and poor and grieving and confused.

One of the last things Jesus did before He went to prepare Himself for His arrest and torture and death was to present a meal to His friends after washing their feet.

Even after His death and resurrection, the last thing He did before leaving the planet was fix breakfast for His friends.

What can possibly be clearer than that?

Love each other, help each other, say a kind word.

The world is horrid, hurtful, spiteful, beautiful, wonderful, and glorious.

I feel a lot better when I do the sort of things Jesus did.

He Changed the World

One of my challenges this Summer is to teach myself a variety of software programs in preparation for teaching technology next school year.

My first project is a little video using the new iMovie program.

This video is a little reflection on how Jesus constantly sought God through prayer. He went off to pray, especially when the task before Him was difficult.

Even though he was (is) God incarnate, He sought God's direction always.

Let me know if the size is too large or if there are other problems. It is in Quicktime format, and set for higher end broadband.

What I'd like to Say

She asked me to take her back.

She has cheated. She has deceived. She has betrayed. And she asked me to take her back.

And I did.

I can't shake my suspicions. I can't escape my anxiety.

I can't be obedient to God in not worrying.

We share the same bed, even if I spend the first part of the night on the couch to slow my pounding heart.

I know her well. I know her heart. I can see her fears and doubts and her longings.

I see her desire to control her life, and to control those in her life.

I know she is angry over much. About me. About her childhood. About the failings of our children.

I have heard her say too often how she wishes we hadn't adopted Jeremiah, and still holds the destruction of our church against him.

And in my heart, in the anger of my heart where I stuff my feelings which I believe would hurt more than heal, which feel like emotions my Lord does not approve of, there are things I want to say, to shout.

Brenda... I can't say this, but if I could, this is what I'd like to say:

Snap out of it!

Yeah, life sucks. Yeah, you have been hurt.

But get a grip!!!

You vowed to be my wife. To stand beside me, to forsake all others. You have broken that solemn promise. More than once.

So, we can't undo that. But get a little integrity! You can be and do what you want. Stand up. Look at the muck you are churning up around you and climb out of it!

Be my wife or move on.

If you want to live a life of integrity, stand up, come along side me, look in my eyes, take my arm, walk with me.

But stop the faking a marriage crap!

Yeah, Jeremiah played with fire. Maybe he even has a proclivity for doing bad things. But we all do. We all sin, we all fall short.

I love Jeremiah.

I love you.

But from where I stand, Jeremiah has not done anything any worse than the things you have done. He did not intend to hurt others. You have.

You have fallen, but you can get back up, accept my forgiveness, accept God's, and get back up.

I have asked you to share my life. So, get off your ass and be my partner!

Yeah, Willy died. You were barren, could not bear a child to fill that void in your heart, and we adopted Willy, and he died.

It sucks. It really sucks! I ache when I think about that terrible day.

The shadow of his tiny life is still on my heart.

But, there is joy in the world! God is real. He loves you.

There is beauty. There are wonders and majesty and loveliness. Open your eyes to beauty!

Just because there is shit in the yard doesn't mean you have to sit in it.

If you became ill, if you needed someone to feed you, keep you clean, tell you that you are loved, I would do it.

I do not think you would do that for me. You would leave me, run off with someone who promised adventure.

You don't deserve my devotion. But you have it.

If you were to screw up again I would finally be free. I would know that I did my best to save this marriage, far beyond what I should have done. But if you betray me again, it would mean my freedom.

But this life I offer you is something you should desire. I have been strong and kind and loved when I was hurt. This is a quiet adventure that would give you a life that in the end you would find more fulfilling.

So, shut up... Stop moaning. Love. Forgive. Be true.

Metaphors

I found this photo on a blog, The Feathered Nest. A nest in a bird cage. A nest is a symbol of new life, of nurturing. An empty nest is a metaphor for letting that young life free. And a cage is a good analogy for trying to hold what wishes to be free. I got stuck thinking about metaphors. I wanted to write something drectly about the image above... but this post came out instead.

------------------

A spear of light pierced the dark, pooling around the antique wooden chest with the metal straps and reinforced corners. The humped lid swung up and away, revealing nothing, just an empty box.

The first gold coin turned slowly as it fell, dropping into the container on the smooth grey floor. A steady stream of gold coins followed, filling it up with the weight of precious metal, filling to the top, heaping above the top. It would be too heavy for one person to lift. The metal handles on each side were large enough for each to be grasped by two hands, which is what it would take to lift so much gold.


The sound of the coins striking each other, the rich sound of wealth, quieted and a powerful humming, almost choral sound grew.

A piece of rectangular paper fluttered, rocked from side to side as it sought its place on the pile of coins. The chorus rose. An indistinct, deep, swelling of voices that did not stop for breath, swung its unified voice, a dramatic sound of hope and joy and love and promise, rose as another piece of green currency fluttered down and joined the first.

The rumble of voices, voices that sounded as if they could sing joyously forever without tiring, grew soft as the currency continued to drift through the air, bill after bill, until all the gold was covered.

The sight of all that wealth seemed more of a promise of personalized joy than a symbol of material wealth.

A deep thrumming slowly replaced the chorus. The rumble seemed to be saying something, though I could not make out the words. But if that distant thunder could be described as a feeling, and if that feeling could be translated into words, it would be: "I promise."

----------

They say all people dream. Most people I ask tell me that though they may dream, they are unaware of it. They awake and if there is anything left of their dreams it is a diaphanous veil, more feeling than memory.

Apparently I differ in this respect.

I remember my dreams.

I remember them as clearly as I remember any other experience. A few of them are vivid enough that they stand clearly in my mind for years and years.

Like the big moments of my waking life.

I remember a little boy, not too far off my own age, saluting a horse-drawn casket accompanied by soldiers in their finest dress down a street lined with crowds.


I remember lying on the living room floor watching the grainy, black and white, flickering sight of a man in heavy clothing and a round white helmet descending a ladder onto the dusty surface of another world. I was 13.


I remember a man standing atop a wall against the backdrop of sky, a crowd cheering as he swung a hammer... and another image of that same wall falling from repeated hammer blows. My heart swelled as I realized that the ridiculous promise that an elementary school desk would protect me from nuclear holocaust would not be told to another generation. The Cold War had ended.


I remember a column of white smoke forking in the sky. I remember the pounding of my heart as something I had never seen in all my viewings of launches from Cape Canaveral, creating that enormous white Y as the announcer stumbled in his descriptions, unsure of what we had just witnessed.


I remember my wife telling me of a plane crash as I left for work, and then, a few minutes after arriving, learning that a second plane had crashed in New York City. The image of an expanding ball of flame duplicating the smoke which already poured from an identical building is frozen in my memory.


I remember certain moments so clearly, even when they are dreams.

I remember the chest filled with gold and currency with the sound of enormous power stepping itself down to a small rumble so a mortal might understand.

For me dreams are like any other experience.

I recall dreams from when I was five, ones that had the same sort of import as the events which etched themselves in my waking life.

For me there are distinct types of dreams. Some are mere flotsam. Bits and pieces of my life, jumbled together and being placed in convenient spots of my mind... just a bit of psychological housekeeping.

Some are messages from myself to myself. Bits of advice from the subconscious.

Others are fantasies. Experiences I would like to have, often breaking laws of physics.

And some are not mine at all. Some are clearly messages from outside my mind and heart.

Those are the important ones. They have a quality different than the others. There is always a sense of importance to them, an importance that I feel while I am dreaming, which is stamped on them ever after. They have in common a simplicity outside my normal dreams of bizarre plot twists.

Though many of my dreams may incorporate real places, things, there is often the added dimension of metaphors to them.

The night before the dream of the treasure chest I had prayed.

"Lord, tomorrow we see the lawyer. Tomorrow we begin spending money we don't have. Guide me Lord. Shall we adopt this child? Is this the son you promised me? If we adopt him, make him ours, how will I care for him? I'm going to school and money is tight. How will we buy the furniture, clothing, food, toys, all the things we will need to raise this child? Lord, I need an answer now. I need an answer before 10:00 tomorrow morning. Bless me, Lord. And Lord, if this is what You want... if adopting this boy is Your desire for me, then I make You this promise... I give him back to You. I will raise him the way You would have me raise him, and I will love him, and I will dedicate him to You. What you choose to do with his life, I will stand firmly behind. I give You my first child, my first son. May his life please You, if it is Your will that we take him into our home."

That next morning I was certain. The treasure we longed for, the gift of a child of our own would be fulfilled. The empty chest of my heart that longed for a son, would be filled. I would get the thing I treasured. And as for my fears for how I would raise him, how I would find the money to feed, and clothe him, I needn't worry. It was all covered.

We went to the attorney that day. A few months later my first child was born. He came home with us less than a day old.

I kept my word. A month later I threw a celebratory feast for my closest friends. And at that table, after we had blessed our meal and eaten our fill, I prayed that prayer of dedication.

"Lord, You have blessed me with my heart's desire. We have our child. But he isn't just ours. And so I pray, and I promise, that this first son is Yours, Lord. Whatever Your will, whatever You want me to do in raising this child, I do in obedience to You. I give him to You. I will be his teacher, his provider, his father, but all in Your name Lord. Because You gave this child to me, I give him to You. --Amen."

A little over two months later the Lord took that child home.

A few weeks after that, in packing away clothing and toys and pacifiers, and cards and gifts, we came to a startling conclusion. Gifts of food, clothing, furniture, money, totaled within $10 of all we had spent on that child, my son, Willy.

------------

It was a painful year. I hurt. I was depressed. Suicidal.

But I came out of the experience with a deeper understanding of sorrow, and surprisingly, of joy.

Now I have more children. Two more. And though they present challenges, and though they cannot learn the things I had hoped to teach my children, I feel extremely blessed.

I look back at the first child's life and I see meaning. I see symbology in a short life, one that passes through so quickly that all it gathered in its quick sojourn through this world was the basic experience of birth, parents, taste, touch, smells, sight. No crawling. No walking. But a bright soul headed toward eternity with the simple experience of mortality.

People see metaphors all the time. We see the cross and think of forgiven sin, and the suffering endured by eternity in experiencing tortured deicide.

We see the six pointed star and think of a people gathered beneath a flawed king who established a lineage, a family that led to that day of ultimate sacrifice at Golgotha.

For three years the incarnate God walked among us, listened to our sorrows, healed our wounds, washed our feet, fed us when we hungered, and told us stories.

He told us stories that held meaning. Important morality tales which shed light on matters of the spirit, and matters of daily living.

Jesus taught us through parables.

It is natural for us to think that way. We like metaphors. We use symbols to represent sounds, events, empires, points about faith and morality, all things of our minds are represented in many ways, in symbols and metaphors.

We dream that way, we speak that way.

-------------

Brenda is confused. If God is good, if He loves us, why would He let us suffer? Why would He let evil roam unfettered?

It is a common question. We seem to have an innate sense of what is right, what is wrong, and much we see of the world seems very, very wrong.

There are the usual answers to the question, about free will, about choices, about how God works good out of the hurts we inflict on each other.

A more interesting question for me is why do I believe all the stronger when I too have been hurt the same ways as she, and I have the passion for science which relies only on what is measurable, testable?

I have had some strange experiences which reinforce my faith, a vision of Jesus when I was six, two experiences with angels, a miraculous healing from a life-threatening illness. Dreams which felt outside my reality.

But my faith does not spring from those experiences.

My faith springs from my soul. There is something inside me which recognizes the truths of faith regardless of circumstances or evidence.

Metaphors in dreams, parables in scripture, examples of spiritual truths looming large in ordinary events, such as the quiet death of an infant, speak to me.

And the amazing realities of science (see previous post) which demonstrate a universe beyond human proportions, human imagination (though I work hard at grasping those proportions) speak to me of greatness, glory, care, love, power and control which I heard echoed in the rumble of certain dreams.

Do I believe in God?

Should we believe in God?

I think we have it backwards.

At the limits of human exploration of what might be at the tiniest of levels, at the level below that of sub atomic particles, at the level of quarks and 12 dimensional strings singing the universe into being, we find that everything is chance. That the patterns and order we see in the newtonian universe seem to be completely random.

It seems that the effect of a mind can have more influence on what is than the laws of the universe. The act of observing somehow constrains things to behave outside their random nature.

If one throws one's mind down into the realm of quantum mechanics and turns to gaze upward at the world we experience, we see that the "real" world is as imaginary as a dream.

In this dream of what we believe is reality we question the existence of God.

We should question our own existence.

Might we be metaphors?

Might I not be the question: "How does a soul respond to the experiences of being raised this particular way, having those particular experiences, walking that particular path?"

We want God to prove Himself to us. To show us He cares and loves and has control over a world where evil roams and pain is common and grief and longing drive us in directions away from Him.

Perhaps we have it backwards.

Perhaps we should prove ourselves to Him.

Life sucks.

Life is wonderful.

Life is all things, and what we decide, what we do, how we choose to stand, how we choose to live, is far more important than the sorrows that might cross our path in the brief time we walk this world of ephemeral living, this realm of mortality.

I am ready to accept things I don't want to accept. I am ready to do things I would rather not.

If it pleases Him, I am ready.

Of Mice and Men

I’m sitting before this glowing screen and you are on the other side of this shimmering electronic mirror.

Still, we are connected.

You may be one of those who have followed my strange travels for several years. You may have just now stumbled into this odd corner of the blogosphere for the first time.

We are connected.

Sunday afternoon I, my wife and two kids found ourselves in a Chinese restaurant in Salem, Oregon. My wife’s father’s paternal uncle was celebrating his 60th wedding anniversary. There were he and his wife’s four children (who hosted the event) and their children, and grandchildren. Some of those offspring brought boyfriends and girlfriends, new wives, genetic relations and legal relations. Folks of nordic descent (family name: Nelson), hispanics, asians, my children from Haiti. All connected.

I did a fair job in remembering names, but could not possibly keep up.

In such a setting I see the world is connected.

Business, personal, faith, genetic, marriage... there are so many ways we connect to each other.

My great grandmother (maternal, maternal, maternal side) told me she was the grand daughter of President Ulysseus S. Grant. How distant he is to me... yet connected.

My grandfather was adopted by a man who befriended his mother, Alice Louise Edstrum, a woman who survived a severely abusive husband, an explosion which deformed her hands, poisonous well water (which killed all but one of her children) and finally succumbed to tuberculosis.

That man who took my grandfather in was a down on his luck farm hand (much like George and Lenny in Steinbeck's novel) descended from John Greenleaf Whittier, the famous Quaker poet.


And Alice, my great grandmother, was born Alice Louise Gordon, of the Clan Gordon of Scotland. My friend and colleague across the hall at work is a descendant of Clan Gordon of Scotland.

We are all connected.

I’ve been thinking about connections, physical, theological, cosmological, genetic...

I was on the freeway today, following an 18-wheeler. It was carrying one of those cargo containers which get picked off the truck frame and set on cargo ships and moved about the globe.

Something moved along the corrugated metal, clinging to the slanting steel, ran to the vertical bars which lock those tall doors. I slid over to the lane to the right (it was my exit) and the mouse scurried back across to the container’s corner near me, desperate to find a way off that vibrating metal box rolling along at 60 miles per hour. I took out my camera to snap its picture, but it scurried back behind the locks again and all I could see as I went by was its tail.

Poor little guy. I hope he makes it out of that situation.

The smallest of connections between he and I, yet here I am, imagining him still. And now I have shared the vision of that frightened fluff of grey fur clinging to yellow metal on a busy highway in the northwest corner of a Oregon, a state in the northwest corner of the United States, with you, on your side of the mirror.

There were several pieces of news which caught my attention this past week. News I found startling, and beautiful. While I caught and tossed back a dozen emails from a parent concerned about her son’s failing grade in my class, while I coached a half dozen kids in organizing an end of the school year assembly, while I graded dozens of hastily finished projects, weeded my garden, tucked my children into bed, threaded the land mine-strewn conversations with my wife, I pondered several strange, startling, and beautiful pieces of news.

First piece of news: The tightness of the spiraling arms of galaxies are indicators of the mass of the black holes that lie hidden in nearly every galaxy. We can determine how many solar masses (the mass of our sun) make up those central black holes, those voracious, monstrous eaters of all things.


(Background: a galaxy is an island of stars, numbering in the billions [ours has about a 400 billion stars]. Early in the universe they tended to be smaller, made up of more massive stars with short lives. The latest editions of galaxies look a little like hurricanes gliding through the universe, unless they collide with another, in which case they can take on almost any shape as they swing through and around each other in a complex dance of mass and gravity.)

Hurricane

Colliding galaxies

More colliding galaxies

Second piece of news: Scientists have studied the orbits of the stars in our galaxy's halo (one can determine the material of a star by looking at it through a spectrometer, then determine its mass by its brightness, and its velocity by how much the image in the spectrometer is red/blue shifted) and so have determined the total mass of our galaxy. (Read this paragraph again if you didn’t get it the first time. I think its a little awkward and might need some editing.)

Turns out our galaxy contains the mass of a little less than a trillion times the mass of our sun. Wow! Cool work there, guys!

Third piece of news: The Spitzer-Hubble Space telescope has finished its survey of our galaxy and using primarily the light from the infrared portion of the spectrum which penetrates the dust lanes much better than visible light, scientists have mapped our galaxy! That’s right! We now have a map of our own galaxy. An amazing feat of detective work!

Please click to enlarge
(It's pretty cool)

So, our galaxy is typical of that latter sort, spiral, if a touch on the small side. We have thought for decades our galaxy, the Milky Way, was a typical spiral galaxy featuring four arms spiraling out from its glowing hub.

Turns out there are only two arms, and they are tightly wound. Remember news item two? Our galaxy has some VERY LARGE black holes in its heart, pulling its swinging arms in a tight grip like a ballerina who brings her arms in to spin ever faster (well, it takes about 250 million years to make a complete turn, but that is pretty quick if one takes the long view of things).

Fourth piece of news: We see into the future.

Sort of.

It takes about a tenth of a second for the image that hits our eyes to get passed along the optic nerves and then passed on to the brain. The problem with that is that if we are presented with an object moving fast toward us, how can we react in time?

A pitched ball should smack us in the face before we can determine where it is going, how to react, and get that catcher’s mitt into place.

The truth is... we see the ball coming before it is coming.

There have been a lot of theories on why we see optical illusions the way we do. There are about 52 types of optical illusions. Past theories have only been able to explain one or two of them at a time. A new theory predicts how and why for all 52!

Here it is: The brain is analyzing everything we see all the time. We can’t spend our time really looking at things, so it takes the memory of things and places them where they should go, so we feel comfortable walking along and don’t worry about the empty spots in our environment where we haven’t bothered to look closely. As we move along the brain predicts what we will see next and imagines that image as “real.” Then if the image that arrives is different than the one we are presuming on, it quickly adjusts and updates the image.

We don’t see the world as it is. We see the world as we imagine it is going to be in a moment.

When something is wrong with that image we do a quick double-take, look hard for what is different than what we believe was supposed to be there.

Say there are two objects in a room about the same distance from you but at ninety degrees from each other in terms of your perspective. If you suddenly move toward one of them, your brain will enlarge the image of the items it believes should get larger, blur out others, and shrink others, presenting you with a virtual real time image.

About fifteen years ago I was riding in a van with my brother Mike. He was driving. We were talking and as we passed a side street I saw a car coming out from that street too fast to make the turn.

My eyes widened, my mouth opened to shout a warning. The car went out of view behind Mike, on the other side of the wall of the van.

“What?” asked Mike.

I furrowed my brow. Why hadn’t the car hit?

WHAM!

The van gets shoved sideways. We had been in an accident.

How could so much time have passed between when I saw the car fly by heading into our vehicle, just behind Mike’s seat?

My brain was telling me about things that hadn’t happened yet.

In moments of crisis it can actually predict a second or two into the future!

Did you know that astronomers can see galaxies that are out of view by examining the lensing effect of massive galaxies which lie between? Gravity bends light waves and a distant object’s image can slip around another just the same way mirages in the desert are caused by the light slipping in strange ways through the shimmering variations of air.

The little arced streaks are galaxies further away than those they surround

Mirage on The Great Salt Lake
(where my dad attempts his speed records)

We can see things that aren’t there by using the slippery characteristics of gravity and light.

We can see things that aren’t there.

We do see things that haven’t happened yet.

After my little trip into town today I was pulling up to my house.

It has been my habit to cross the oncoming lane (if I am eastbound) into the parking area past my drive, and back into my drive. I believe it is safer to pull out again forward rather than backing out.

As I pulled over, there was a car coming, about a block away. I debated for a moment whether or not I should back up into the driveway before he arrived or after. I decided to wait to make him feel more comfortable, though I had enough time to get completely in the drive before he arrived.

It took only a few seconds, but he rolled through, going a touch fast, and gave me the one finger salute.

I had no idea what we was angry about.

I backed into my drive, watching him grow smaller in the distance.

What was he upset about? How had I angered him?

I wasn’t angry. I knew he must have some bad things going on and I was a convenient target.

“Talk to him. Be kind, be polite, don’t crowd him, but talk to him.”

Huh?

It was a weird thought (or perhaps The Spirit?). Actually it wasn't so much a thought as a feeling.

I pulled back out, turned right. Kept the speed limit, followed.

A stop sign made him wait for me. I could see how angry he was in the reflection of his mirror. He turned north on Holly St. So did I. I kept a respectful distance.

Great. I’ve been thinking about how the things I see aren’t real, and now I’m hearing voices, or rather obeying a feeling in my heart.

He turned left on Territorial Rd. As he did his angry face glared at me in the mirror. He flicked a cigarette butt back in my direction.

A few blocks to the end of the road. A couple of turns, he pulled into a drive. I pulled in slowly as well. I stopped just inside the drive, I didn’t want to crowd him.

“Stay calm,” the voice/feeling said. "Smile. Be kind."

I stepped out as he pulled his pickup into the garage. An elderly woman got out of the passenger side. The driver got out, he looked about five years older than I.

“Stay calm, be kind. Smile sincerely,” my heart whispered.

His face was contorted in anger. The older woman spoke.

“What the Hell are you doing here? Go away! This is private property!”

“What is your problem with me?” he growled.

I smiled nervously. (Sorry Lord, that’s as close to sincere as I could manage.)

“I just wanted to know how I offended you,” I said softly. “You look angry, and I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry if I made you angry.”

“I’ll tell you what you did!” he shouted. “You cut across in front of me!”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been pulling into that driveway that way for over fifteen years and it hasn’t bothered anyone before, and you were a block away. But I knew you would be passing me as I was backing in, and I can see how that would make you feel I was putting my vehicle close to yours. I should have waited until you passed.”

A confused look came over his face.

The older woman huffed and went inside.

He walked up to me, his hands balled into fists.

I looked into his eyes, smiled.

He had tired eyes. There were wrinkles, sad wrinkles circling his eyes, creasing his forehead. They reminded me a little of the lines of stars around spinning galaxies.

"I'm sorry," I repeated.

He smiled weakly.

“It’s OK,” he said. “My mother has alzheimer’s and I had just picked her up from the nursing home and she yelled that you had cut me off and I reacted and I got mad. I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” I said. “Life is tough. I can see there are a lot of things going on in your life. I’m sorry about your mom. And I’m sorry I got in your way. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not upset or anything.”

We stood a moment. Both of us slightly confused by the situation.

“I’m Will,” I said, and stuck out my hand.

“I’m Jim,” he said. He took my hand.

“I hope things get better for you,” I said. “It must be hard dealing with your mom. Are you married?”

“She died last year. Alcohol and drugs.” His voice thickened.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

“I don’t know what the Hell is the matter with the world right now!”

It was almost a shout.

“Gas is going up, I’ve been a trucker all my life, and now the company has gone, just disappeared, and how am I going to start over at 56 years old?!”

He looked close to panic.

“I’ll be damned if I go on welfare,” he said.

“Life is tough, I know,” I said.

“Are you married?” he asked.

“Yeah, but things are rough there too.”

“You got kids?”

“I have two. They are mentally disabled. I love them, but it can make things... interesting.”

“I’m sorry I got angry at you,” he said.

“Hey, it isn’t any big deal. Life is tough. I’m glad there aren’t any hard feeling between us.” I started to get back into my van.

He grabbed my right hand in both of his.

“God bless you,” he said.

I smiled, sincerely now.

“Thank you. You too.”

I drove home.

I love to think. I love putting ideas together, learning new things.

Sometimes what I see isn’t what is really there. And what is there isn’t always seen. Sometimes I think I know what is real.

Sometimes I feel I have righteous anger, a right to be indignant at the hurts others have inflicted upon me, sometimes intentionally.

But those thoughts feel wrong.

The mind is a strange instrument. It tells us what we see, and it creates conclusions out of nothing.

The heart is a more trustworthy organ. When it whispers, when it tells me what I am feeling is wrong, or when it tells me to do something, it is often more right than my mind.

I think about that man, walking into his house. His hand still feeling mine in his, minutes after he had used it to fling anger at me.

I think about that mouse scurrying on the back of that speeding truck, a tiny living thing in a whirling world it cannot see or understand.

I think about the coiled arms of our galaxy, hugging invisible, powerful singularities in its heart, and my little home, my little star, riding a bit of flotsam of stars, the Orion Spur (rather nice sounding, isn't?) coasting between those two arms.

I think about my eyes telling me about the world, and knowing that it may or may not be right, be true.

I think about the sadness in my heart resting beside the joy I feel for living in a world my Lord has made.

I think about how everything is connected. We are all related. We lean against each other, brace each other up in our lives. Sub atomic particles making up atoms, making up molecules, making up cells, making up organs such as my heart, making up people, such as myself, making up societies, cultures, making up a world, which swings around a star, tugging at other stars with the braces of gravity, swinging around a galaxy in a headlong journey with many other galaxies, all bracing each other in connections seen and unseen, imagined and unimagined.

I think about my friendships, and how I want to go off somewhere and pray.

I think too much.

But I don't think I feel too much.

Forgiveness (And a P.S.!)

A friend pointed out how much my previous post (“Wary”) dealt with forgiveness. I thought it more about suspicions, but in rereading it I see his point.

Since I meant to write about being suspicious, but seem to have been thinking about forgiveness, perhaps I should pause and think a moment about what forgiveness means, at least to me.

If I am suspicious have I forgiven?

I think I have.

Being suspicious can be (might not be, but can be) a logical response to circumstances. I began this relationship trusting. That was spent. Trust must be earned again.

Forgiving is different than trust.

Forgiving is a gift one gives to another and to oneself.

It seems Brenda has not forgiven me for mistakes I have made. She holds old decisions I made, choices I made, against me.

She is still angry about them.

She uses those mistakes as justification for her own actions, reasons for her actions. She is angry at me, and perhaps at herself.

In continuing to blame me I feel a little betrayed again. It feels she is unrepentant of her own mistakes, mistakes I can't help but see as larger than my own.

But that isn’t the point.

What happens when one forgives? What happens when one doesn’t?

I forgive her.

Regardless of what happens in the future, I forgive her.

Forgiving her doesn’t make her happy.

It may be the reverse. It may be that in forgiving I make things harder for her.

She may feel greater remorse because I forgive her. She may feel greater embarrassment. She may feel a debt. She may feel pressure to give me what she thinks I want.

It isn’t much of a gift if it is a burden.

On the other hand, in seeing how she remains angry at me, has not forgiven me, seeing how unhappy she is with our life, it feels she is unrepentant.

Whether or not that is true, I’ve been thinking, what does that mean? What does it mean to forgive someone who isn’t sorry, is unrepentant, doesn’t want forgiveness?

I thought forgiving someone was about making them feel better. I thought forgiveness is a a gift, a bit of grace, perhaps undeserved grace, given to another.

I don’t think it is.

I have asked her to forgive me for my mistakes. She once said she had, but I see she hasn’t.

I’m sorry about that. I won’t repeat my mistakes. I can work to compensate for my errors. But that is all I can do. Time is assymetrical (in this dimension), running in the direction of entropy. I cannot go back in time and undo anything.

But she pays a greater price. In not forgiving she clings to her pain.

Perhaps it helps her feel justified in her own mistakes, but it also keeps her angry, unhappy.

My mistakes happened, they are in the past and I cannot undo them. But those same mistakes continue to hurt her, or rather, she continues to hurt herself with them.

And there is the epiphany. Forgiveness does more for the one forgiving than the one forgiven.

A lot of implications there. If in forgiving we heal ourselves a little, does living a life of forgiving others make one happier? Healthier?

Does continual forgiving (turn the other cheek) make one a doormat? If we are seen as someone who will forgive anything, will others take advantage of us?

I forgive her. I forgive her for hurting me, for betraying me.

When I think too much about that hurt, when the anger returns a little, I am stealing back some of that forgiveness. It doesn’t affect her, it affects me. When I say a prayer, and give it up again, forgive again, the small relief I feel is the light touch of healing.

Forgiving her does not make me a doormat.

First, forgiving is hard work. When I forgive I am wrestling with myself, conquering my emotions. Forgiving isn’t about letting someone walk over you. It is being strong enough to control your emotions. It is loving yourself enough to stop letting something continue to hurt you.

Additionally, forgiving does not mean becoming available, welcoming, further hurts.

If she proves untrustworthy, if she betrays me again, I will divorce her. I will probably forgive her, but I will divorce her. A future hurt is a part of accepting the risk I take in letting her come back. It hasn’t anything to do with forgiving.

Forgiving is for me. It is letting something go so it doesn’t continue to hurt me.

And that brings me to the next epiphany.

Forgiving someone is not a matter of telling anyone about it.

Forgiveness lets us off the hook, not the other person. If we forgive and make a point of letting the other person know, especially if we make a grand gesture in forgiving, we are seeking control, seeking to elevate ourselves.

Telling the person we forgive them should happen only if it helps the other person, if the other person is seeking that forgiveness, needs to know they are forgiven.

When Jesus was on the cross he said “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus wasn’t forgiving us. He had already forgiven us. He had endured much already, and He could have extricated Himself at any time. He accepted it all, took it, forgiven us, starting when he received that disciple’s kiss.

On the cross He was pleading our case. He was asking the Lord God to share His gift of forgiveness, extending His forgiveness into the trinity.

I’m not sure what to make of the part of the Lord’s Prayer that says: “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

It implies we are only going to be forgiven as much as we are able to forgive.

Obviously not the case.

Jesus has taken on the sins of the world, sins of each of us, my sins. I can never match His grace. Therefore that line isn’t a description of how salvation works. If that were the case, if I were to be forgiven only as much as I forgive, then I am doomed.

Perhaps that line from the prayer is a reminder of that point. We are not able to forgive that much, that consistently, that freely. Perhaps it is there to remind us that we have been given grace beyond price and the least we can do is give out a little now and then.

If I could learn to live a life filled with forgiveness, not nescessarily opening myself, allowing others, to hurt me, but forgiving them so I can let the past go. I know I would be happier, healthier.

So what is forgiving for?

Forgiving is for giving us, for giving ourselves, freedom. Freedom from the hurts others have given us.

Forgiving is for healing.

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Look at this picture carefully, and then...
See my comment!