I'll Meet You Somewhere Else With The Boys

“Do you want me to just drop them off at the corner or what?”

“No, I’ll meet you at the theater.”

Her voice carried a hint of sarcasm.

I told her two days before she is not to come to the house any longer.

She was pacing the parking lot, cigarette smoke trailing. She looked irritated, a touch angry, and miserable.

I pulled beside her, the right side door beside her car next to her and the boys. She came around. I rolled the window down.

Her face has aged.

“I can take Isaac to his appointment on Wednesday if you want.”

It was just something to say. We had already discussed how and when and who was getting Isaac to the gastroenterologist’s.

“Don’t worry about it. Anything else you need?”

“I don’t want you to think this is a criticism of you, but it may be one thing that is causing Isaac allergic reactions... You should really watch the food in the refrigerator. I’ve noticed sometimes you have let food go bad.”

Suppressing irritation, I shrugged. Said nothing.

“I hope you are better. I hope things are easier for you.”

“I’ll be all right.”

The boys got in. I drove off. She watched after us, her brows furrowed.

She has been trying to draw me into conversation, trying to gain some sort of ground over the lines I have drawn around my home, my life. Lines dividing her from me.

It has been over a year since our divorce. I’ve accommodated her to make things easier for her to see Isaac, well... for him to see her. She has exploited it to make her presence a continued part of my home... an awkward, and somewhat manipulative, presence.

Another step in this journey...

Avatar

In 1973 I joined a long time friend’s new friends on the fields of the high school early in the morning, and sometimes in the evening, learning Tai Chi.

The hint of martial arts helped my self confidence, while the slow, concentrated, peaceful movements appealed to my introspective nature. Also, it was nice it followed the mysterious path of Kwai Chang Caine.


Tai Chi led to various types of yoga, which led to my introuction to hinduism. I joined an ashram, telling myself I was true to my faith having chosen Jesus as my avatar.

In the mid 70s the word “avatar” was just one of many hindi words I learned (though I have realized today I’ve been mispronouncing it all these years, but in my defense, I learned the word from someone with a thick Calcutta accent).

An avatar is an incarnation of God, or, a god. The hindus consider buddha an avatar. Krishna was an avatar (and that wasn’t his first visit). They consider all the greatest manifestations of spirituality as avatars.

Sometime over the last 15 years “avatar” has come to mean a stand in for a person... For example, in a silly little online community I play in I have an avatar named Sam Spade (from The Maltese Falcon).


Avatar is a hot movie right now. In the movie the word describes a genetically designed stand in for humans contacting a race of indigenous people on an alien world.

I loved the movie. The others in the theater did too. It’s rare a movie audience applauds.

Amazing movie. It sets sets a new bar for movie making. I’ve never felt so drawn in to a movie. It was thrilling.

Go see it, especially in 3 D.

Not everyone is as happy with it.

Others as well...

I had an unusual dream a few weeks ago. I always have unusual dreams, and I recall them as well as I recall anything in my waking life. What made this one especially unusual was my heightened senses. Dreams often provide a sensory experience which is a notch or two down from that of real life. Sometimes the same, but usually less.

Not this one. This time it was more filled with sensory experience than real life. Every smell, every touch, the feel of the horse’s breath on my neck, the texture of the hair of the man’s head I held, the brightness and subtle colors of Jupiter, Venus, the waxing crescent moon, the Orion Nebula, all extremely clear and sharp.


That was part of the thrill of the movie Avatar. The sensory part of it was a quantum level above any previous movie experience.

So was this dream.

The dream makes this experience, the one right here and now as I type into this laptop at the gastroenterologist’s (Isaac is going to have a procedure done soon), less real than the dream experience.

It makes me feel like real life might be merely a dream.

Seriously. I have my doubts how real this is...

I feel God is more real than I. I intuitively feel He holds all things together, from the largest structures of the universe to the 12-D vibrating threads which make up quarks, which make up bosuns and leptons, which make up sub atomic particles.

Some folks, some conservative, evangelical types, dislike the movie. They grouse about environmentalism (seeing a swipe at big business), western culture (a swipe at our latest version of imminent domain), and echoes of American misadventures in Vietnam, Iraq, and 19th century westward expansion.


They also see the film embracing of paganism (pantheism actually), alcohol and tobacco use, swearing, and other “anti-christian” elements.

Well... I think there are all sorts of truths in all sorts of things. The first step is to realize that though our faith is not embraced by all, bringing our faith to others does not happen with a hammer. Rejecting a film, a group, or a person, because of alcohol or smoking is absurd. We aren’t called upon to beat our culture into the shape of our faith, but to bring our faith into the lives of those around us so faith makes changes from within, person by person.

Living in a nation where my vote matters means I must use that vote in ways which align with my conscience and faith.

It gets murky when others try to tell me that their views, party platform, align with my spiritual views. I don’t buy it. Since Ronald Reagan (apparently enough time had passed since Nixon) there has been efforts to demonstrate that the Republican party is pro life, pro faith. That is partly true, they oppose abortion... but I’ve never heard God endorse them. If He had, I’m pretty sure they would have included that in their campaigns.

On the contrary, often the party has been pro death penalty, and anti-environment. Both of those views oppose what my faith says to me. God does not permit vengeance for any but Himself, and the world He created is worthy of respect. Loving others, no matter what, loving the world He gave to Adam to care for, seems to align much more closely to the tenets of faith I know.

Either way... the film, Avatar, because it is pro environment and anti capitalism is not in itself, anti-christian.

I read about the work of a brain researcher who came to an interesting conclusion. He studied brain injuries and believes the brain limits the mind, it does not simply generate it. According to him the limits to thought and action by those suffering from brain injury hide a larger ability which is sometimes revealed when the injury is repaired. It is indicated that the injured are able to recall more about their time of disability than they could have expressed while experiencing it.

The Indians see the incarnation of God, or god, as an avatar. Sort of a diminished expression of something greater behind the physical form. The suggestion is that an avatar is an expression of something greater.

That sounds an awful lot like what those who share my faith believe... that God took the form of a man, limiting Himself so to express Himself to us.

Perhaps what many belief systems sense are elements of a greater truth.

Just as my silly avatar in that silly online world is merely a puppet I control, perhaps my body, this life, is merely an expression of a me that is greater than can be expressed in a three dimensional world.

I think I caught a glimpse of a greater level of senses in that dream I had. Scientists believe our universe may contain at least 12 dimensions. Perhaps I am more than I appear to be.

Take what you will from the movie. One must certainly take away that it is a quantum step forward in movie making. But that aside, elements of the story, whether issues of environmentalism, capitalism, dealing with beliefs of others outside our own, or even drinking and smoking, truths are revealed by what we think and feel.

Attacking others for how they live their lives is to take a hammer to the world and attempt to beat it into the shape we wish to see.

I’m a Christ follower. He did not take a hammer to people. Indeed, people took a hammer to Him, and He lay upon a piece of wood and let them.

If the movie makes one angry, perhaps such anger is not the approach He would take.

Merry Christmas everyone... in this season when we recall that God Himself limited Himself to less than He really is... just so we could hear how He loves us no matter what.

Brief Update

I've neglected this blog of late. Partly because I have been busy.

So... a little update...

It has been... interesting.

As far as my dad goes... he got back to Thailand, checked into the hospital, had heart surgery, and is now running around Koh Samui again, get his "massages" and living large.

The guy was on death's door a month ago and now he is right back to as crazy as ever.

Personally, my emotions have been swinging to and fro... Isaac had some real problems a couple of weeks ago. He is still having some difficulties. He has lost weight, is having a great deal of trouble keeping food down, or even swallowing. Today Brenda is taking him in for a barium X ray.

I have been working 12 hour days for several weeks. That is partly because my two robotics teams were preparing for a tournament and now that is done.

I've been sketching out (Literally! I have drawn pictures and notes all over two walls in my spare bedroom.) plot elements for a novel.

One clear thing about my life is I'm a doofus and have no idea what I am doing.

But some things have been very good.

I finished a mural created from the lyrics in Christmas songs for a charity CD (raising money for an after school program).


Jeremiah played his drum on "The Little Drummer Boy".

(Yes, that is a question mark I cut into the back of his haircut)

Speaking of being a little odd... I know I have told you I have a very active dream life. I recall my dreams as easily as I recall events in my waking life. I had several dreams last night. The last couple were bizarre but not highly unusual in any other way... but the first one...

The first dream of the night was the most vivid dream I have ever had. It didn't have any real significance... it was primarily the exposition of a story... it would fit well into the first few chapters of a novel. But... the clarity of my senses was amazing.

It was more vivid than my real world life. It was about 12 hours subjective time. I can still clearly recall the smells, tastes, sounds, sights, sense of touch.

I can describe every moment of that half day (it began in the mid afternoon, went through the entire night, and ended about mid morning). The details... the house of carved wood and glass... the feeling of the horse's breath on my neck, the texture of the hair of the man's head I held, the taste of food and beverages, the smell of the cut grass, that it started a light drizzle about 2:30 a.m. in the dream... that before the clouds had rolled in there was a waxing crescent moon and Jupiter and Venus were up... the size, breeds, colors, and texture of the two dogs of the intruder to the grounds in the middle of the night, the smell of the man's skin, the exact descriptions of the two women who played large roles (people I have never met, but I can describe the freckles on the one, their height and weights, hair color, the body shapes...). I can recall every detail of the phone call I received just before dawn, and the buildings in the surrounding neighborhood. I can recall my unspoken thoughts, and the shape of the yards, fences, windows, everything.

I've never had a dream so vivid.

It makes me think a little about the reality of our existence... how I can experience something more real than this life leads one to wonder how real is this existence?

The following dreams were absurd and bizarre... and I can recall the details of them as well, but the quality of the subsequent dreams was much the same as the experiences I have had this morning since my shower and coffee.

Jeremiah is spending Saturday night with me... He really wants as much of a traditional Christmas as possible, but frankly, I just don't seem interested in decorating the house. Yesterday was the 17th anniversary of Willy's death.

Brenda called the other day. Apparently Isaac told her I have been a bit blue. I found her sympathy irritating.

I wish I was writing more on the blog...

But... there's a quick update.

Perspective

Part of me sees God as distant... and He is. It's true. Criminy!

It's all so large. So very large. So large it cannot be constrained, not even by the speed of light.

If you ask a Christian about God, they will nearly always talk about a personal God.

That's only part of it, of Him.

It is difficult for many to imagine the scale of the universe.

It is at least 27 billion light years across. That means, at it's current size, it would take 27 billion years for light to travel that distance.

How fast is light? Pretty quick.

To travel from Portland, Oregon to Sydney, Australia at the speed of light would take less than 0.025 seconds.

Pretty quick.

The matter of the universe once went faster than that, and, in a way, will do so again.

Just after the Big Bang matter raced outward faster than light... a universe of matter too dense and too hot for the four laws of physics to exist, so, the laws, having not yet been created, weren't "enforced". Didn't last long, but still... that is how it all got to be so darn large.

Soon baby galaxies formed, globs of stars, mostly enormously large stars gobbled up their hydrogen fuel in only a few million years before collapsing and rebounding, seeding the universe with new elements, which in turn formed into new stars, which lived nearly as short lives, and repeated the cycle (our sun is about 4.5 billion years old because it is much more moderate in size and is eating its cosmic meal with more appropriate, sedate manners).

The early galaxies formed around enormous black holes jetting material at speeds so great they are still "seen" at enormous distances (therefore times) shouting with the power of a trillion stars.

Today things have become somewhat more settled... galaxies are clumping together, but... the universe continues to expand (at an ever increasing rate).

The distances between the galaxies grow further apart like dots on an expanding balloon.

Can you see how the dots have moved apart from each other?

And while nothing within the universe travels faster than light, not relative to anything near it, the accumulative speed of all of it together, from one side to the other, will eventually add up to a speed greater than light. Eventually the further edges will begin to disappear from our telescopes as they recede.

It is my conviction, without demonstrable proof, that God is within, through, and outside all of this, and indeed, holds it all together.

So, when one asks a Christian about God, and the answer is about a personal God, I feel that is only a small (pun intended) part of it.

I think God is interested in larger things as well.

I think God is not only closely following the spiritual growth and exploits of individuals, and of nations, but of civilizations and our species as a whole.

God is BIG.

God has held the universe close to Him, as it was born leaping instantly to a fullness faster than light, of how it toddled through its goofy globular galaxies with its infant cries of quasars...

Yet...

Yet on many occasions... many times... I have felt His eye on me.

I have felt His breath on the back of my neck.

It is terrifying.

Yet even in those moments when I have felt that intense gaze, I also felt warmed by a love as large as the universe.

So large.

So complete.

So free.

He is a personal God. ...A being of such enormous consciousness and love and power... yet with an awareness of things, beings, so minute, that such love in its enormity is so alien to my ability to love.

The universe isn't static. It has gone through many changes, stages, and has more change ahead of it. Time unfolds in the direction of ever increasing entropy, but I am certain He is outside it as well... and takes joy in the entire work of creativity.

Pretty cool.

Pretty big, and pretty cool.

I like the perspective.

Eternity

I am far from perfect. Quite far.

Monday I blew it. I went up to Isaac’s room. I was going to say good morning, after all, I hadn’t seen him since Tuesday.

His room was a bigger mess than I had ever seen it. I mentioned how unwashed dishes had brought the ants back. Then I said something about how his lowered savings account would now cost him a monthly fee. And it all came out... I began growling, and then yelling... about his being late for work, about responsibility... about... too many things. I was frustrated. I went too far.

I hurt him a great deal. Enough so I... well... he needed to see a counselor.

The counselor wasn’t any good (he fell asleep twice during the session), but it was a start.

A good start to a number of changes. He needs to learn better communication skills. I need better listening skills. And I think I need to rethink what he is capable of, what might be too much to ask of him.

Brenda came to see him While I was at work Wednesday. I didn’t know she was here, but, perhaps it is OK for Isaac to want his mother do what she did... fix him breakfast, make Jello for his dinner desert.

I didn’t like it.

She wants to help him more tomorrow. She wants to come over here...

I don’t like it.

Went to a movie tonight. Two trailers, back to back, hit me in the gut.

The first was about a woman traveling to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend. Apparently February 29th is a date that a woman can propose.

I met Brenda February 29th, 1980.

The second trailer hurt.

It was about an older woman finding the love of her youth with the help of a young stranger. It was a poignant moment, her seeing the many of her youth, a love carried through a lifetime.

I’ve spoken to Brenda several times this week. My heart has never been further from her than it is now. There is absolutely no echo of the adamantine resolve to make our marriage work. It is gone.

But something else remains.

I desire to love, be loved. I desire to have a love that carries me to the grave.

The ol’ metacognition thing, ever present, has me self analyzing. Why do I feel this way?

It isn’t simply a desire to be wanted.

I am obsessively loyal. To a point of self destructiveness.

For a moment, watching that trailer, I felt overwhelmed, frustrated.

I’m not the bachelor type. I am uninterested in dating a string of women.

I feel frustrated that I cannot live a life of that kind of loyalty. The one I chose to walk to the grave with turned down a different path.

I took my glasses off in the darkened theater, bent my head to pray.

Why am I like this? Why do I so strongly want to be loyal to someone?

In that prayer, with my eyes tearing, I felt the spread of eternity around me. I felt time sliding not only into a future so distant that the form of this universe is thinned to a cold smear, dark... I felt that eternity stretching sideways... an eternity that pauses in a conscious yet static moment that will always be, has always been.

This eternity isn’t a theological theory for me. It is a truth that is intrinsically woven into who I am.

I was surrounded by many in the theater... I wanted to wrap this prayer up quickly.

I know this eternity.

It knows me.

I cannot escape it.

Being a part of that larger expanse of time, the one that never ends, in any direction, future, past, even perpendicular to now, is as real to me as the whispered voices in the darkened theater.

It is how I am made.

And there was tonight’s small epiphany.

I am still grieving the loss of the destroyed loyalty I had, the steadiness I felt even when my spouse was tearing the foundation of our marriage apart.

I fear choosing again... There is someone I am serious about. But I fear making the choice a poor one.

I fear it because I see that I am a loyal person. I will stick with it through the end.

That sense I have that eternity stretches around me, is similar to the sense I have of being steady for those around me.

I want to get the special love that will walk with me to the grave, but more important than that, I see that in how I know I am eternal, is similar to how I feel about steadiness in my relationships.

Part of me wants to move quickly.

Part of me takes great joy in all of this.

I like being an eternal being.

I like that I was made this way... even if it sometimes led me to cling to waht should have been tossed.

Tonight They Burn Steady

The stars were so bright tonight.

The crisp autumn air, chilled by afternoon rains, is too still to permit them to twinkle. They seem like old friends... the constellations, a few stars I know by name.

I got quickly into the van... I knew I needed sleep... and drove home. Yet here I sit in bed, tapping away at this keyboard because there is too much in my head and heart to permit sleep.

Driving home I thought about my father, and the women in his life, about my son, and the panic I felt yesterday, about the woman and her children behind me getting ready for bed... a delightful evening... Sweet kisses... A large heart...

Contentment and confusion, those who need my help and those who help me, classical music and classic rock, a predawn walk in soaked shoes and chilly sheets warming slowly...

Parental frustration shook my son to his breaking point, my friends gathered around me, pressing their shoulders to he and me, pressing the cracks of our hearts closed so they could heal...

My father gasping for breath, slipping toward death, my father surrounded by women who give him their love for free, and for a price. My father stronger once again as the small jet lifted me away from Orange County, northern bound.

I am terrified and overjoyed at the size of the universe and the gaze of its creator fully upon me.

Life is wonderful and confusing and frightening and complex and simple...

I want to write about all that is happening, all that has happened, and of what I sense of the future, sliding toward me from the entropic direction of our universe, yet paradoxically already done, complete.

I am so grateful for the work I do, the charges in my care, the colleagues beside me, those who direct my labors.

I am grateful for my freedom, and I resent it too... I am free to love again, and choose again, and I resent the one who saw so little in herself she threw away what was good in her, and in me.

I wonder at the anorexic star, voracious at its final meal. I wonder at the brilliant immolation of stars and worlds and dust shining with the brilliance of a trillion stars, so far away they died long ago, long before their light reached here.

There is too much to write about... My successes and failures as a parent... my successes and failures as a person...

So... this disjointed prose will have to do... notes jotted down on a digital notepad...

The stars were so bright tonight.

The Prodigal Father

My dad is in Southern California, wrapping up his life there.

The business struggled the last few years while he was in Thailand. The economy, poor decisions by those he’d left in charge, a number of factors, and it is clear the business should fold. The biggest name in building demolition and earth moving in Orange County, California is folding.

So is his marriage, of course. He’s on his third Thai girlfriend now, she on her second Californian boyfriend.

This is all regretable, but simply a part of the way things are.

My father wasn’t a perfect father. There were many choices he made, many actions he took, which were far from ideal.

But in his heart he is a good, though flawed, man.

His divorce papers have been filed, his heavy equipment auctioned. A couple of houses, a zillion personal items, details of outstanding bills and obligations are all that separate him from flying back to southeast asia for good. That, and his heart, which is “in pretty bad shape.”

He doesn’t want to go into a hospital here in the states. He is hanging on to check into a hospital in Bangkok.

I’m flying to Southern California this afternoon.

I’m taking a couple of days personal days and I’ll run whatever errands makes this easier for him. Chauffeur him around, deliver personal items to family members, file papers, pay bills, whatever makes it easier for him.

Faith is a big part of my life. But, unless he wishes to talk about it, I have no plans to talk faith with him.

He knows all that stuff. He went to church every Sunday when I was first entering school, before he had his first affair.

He always lived a little larger than was probably wise. World speed records on motorcycles, adventures dreamt in alcohol-fueled daydreams, or machismatic bravado... he lived a little large.

Cracks me up to think of that ambulance pulling up to him on the Bonneville Salt Flats, expecting to find a corpse but finding my father sitting on his ruined 400 horse power motorcycle, non chalant about dropping it at 165 miles per hour. When they told him to get on the stretcher for the ride in the ambulance he just told them to F off and asked for a cigar though half his teeth were missing.

He never asks for help, never complains about his health. Until now.

Which tells me that this time he is serious, he is facing some serious health issues. He may not make it to Bangkok by the 22nd.

Growing up I wasn't exactly the macho son he wanted. I read too much, drew or painted too much, thought and talked too much.

None of that matters now. I’m 53 now. I’m grown up and the ghosts of parental misadventures no longer haunt me.

All I want now is to help him, and for him to know he is loved.

Of course I am concerned about what eternity he faces, but it isn’t as if he doesn’t know about the elements of my faith, what salvation is. I think he is a believer of sorts, though of recent years he dabbles in buddhism.

No... none of that matters. He knows it all, and I will share of that sort of thing only if he wishes it. I’ll be glad to talk of angels and miracles and wonders of this world, this universe, and the surmises I have about the universes beyond this one, and the mystic imaginings I have cobbled together from reading of faith and science...

But I am more interested in simply being a help, being a loving son, offering what I can. I can’t really tell him anything about faith he doesn’t know, but I can tell him that the way I live my life is well grounded, enough so I am glad to drop everything to come help.

Dad is 72. A well worn 72. When it comes to aging it isn’t the distance traveled that matters, it’s the terrain.

He’s climbed a number of mountains, dangled from tree roots over dusty canyons and swum choppy predator-infested seas.

His exploits are many. He lived a prodigious life.

And prodigal as he is, he is running out of steam... physically, financially. He’ll probably have a half million dollars when this is over... enough to get him whatever he wants for this dusky time.

He went on his adventures, lived that prodigious life, but now I see him reaching toward me (he sent me on that adventure to Asia last summer), and I know that despite his mistakes, despite the fears he instilled in me, I love him.

The Prodigal Father has returned to me, and if I can help him find the Father who is truly prodigious by offering him a little help... Well... that will be quite nice.

Mecca

I apologize for the time between postings. I have been writing, but much of it I feel too private to share here. Which is funny because I have revealed and admitted much on these digital pages, but none of what I write lately seems appropriate here.

But... Here are some odd musings. I might share for the heck of it.

When I worship on Sunday mornings and I open my eyes between songs, I find myself facing a different direction than those around me.

Got me to thinking.

I'm not facing in any unusual direction for any particular purpose. I simply stand to worship and continue facing in the exact direction the chair was facing. Those around me seem to either be facing the screens displaying the lyrics of our worship songs, or in the direction of the central cross in our sanctuary.

I end up facing about ten degrees to the left of most.

Does it matter which way one faces?

It matters for some.

When I lived in an ashram I oriented everything in my rooms eastward. There are some Hindhu concepts there, but I always thought it cool to face the direction that the world is spinning toward. I liked the idea of aligning my face to exactly the same direction Earth itself is trying to face.

My second favorite direction is north. I almost always know where north is. The top of the world. The fount of the magnetic field, the axis upon which the earth turns.

Still, in church I am not facing east or north or at the cross or at the lyrics. I am simply standing up, with my eyes shut, in the same direction my toes were pointing while I was sitting in the chair. Simply standing up.

I know the spot on our planet that is directly beneath my feet. It's a little over a thousand miles south of Perth, Australia. Waves in the Indian Ocean are rolling beneath me.

I almost always know where the moon is at any given moment. If I don't, I can estimate it in a moment, for I always know what phase the moon is in.

Knowing my directions became an obsession for me in 6th or 7th grade. I was certain my stepfather was going to leave me somewhere and I would have to find my own way home.

So, it occurred to me a couple of weeks ago I was not facing the cross or the lyrics, or the center of the stage as others were. I thought... why I don't face in any particular direction?

Did you know that on December 22 the earth is directly ahead of the sun as the sun races at 155 miles per second around the galactic center? On September 22 the Earth was exactly adding its speed around the sun to the exact direction in which the sun races.

"Ok Will... I think I understood what you are trying to say, but I gotta say, I can't for the life of me understand why you sit there and think of this sort of stuff."

That's what you were thinking, right?

Well there it is. I noticed I wasn't concerned the other day about what direction I was facing when I stood during worship.

Those who practice Islam know exactly where the city of Mecca is, for they kneel and pray in that direction five times a day. And I know where I am, but I make no move to face anywhere in particular when I worship.

I suppose if I were to choose to face any direction during worship, I think I would prefer to turn and face the others worshipping with me. I think it would be cool to think of my worship reflecting off someone on the other side of that group, and together our mutual worship might channel into the direction He is. But since He is sort of everywhere... seeing him as a part of the body of Christ, The Church, is as good a direction as any.

When I worship I do consider where God is.

I love to do that.

Scares the snot out of me.

The cells of my body are made up of all sorts of enormous chains of atoms, grasping onto each other with ionic bonds that make them useful for all sorts of things.... bonding oxygen so it can be carried to my cells, water's slightly imbalanced molecule acting as a perfect little magnet to make things flow together and drag them around.

It's cool to imagine one of those atoms in one of those molecular chains. Those massive neutrons and protons expending all their energy just to balance the tiny negative charge of the electron racing around it so very far away... If we considered the proton the size of a world, the little moon of the electron is circling around as distant as the furthest planet.

All that emptiness there.

I seem so solid. So here. But in reality I am far more nothing than I am something.

And, in the deepest part of who I am... I look at those protons in the center of those atoms, and imagine the tiny one dimensional threads which make them up. I imagine them as tiny violin strings, singing a song of existence... the vocal chords of God. I think of matter as the spoken Word. They exist because He sings them into being.

And then my mind, and heart, do a flip, and I think large. I think about this spinning galaxy, the Milky Way that less than a century ago we all thought was the entire universe. I see that pinwheel piece of jewelry spinning madly about, every 250,000 years, and how it is dancing toward other galaxies, and all of us...

the Milky Way and Andromeda, and the large and small Magellanic clouds, and dozens of other galaxies, all performing a dance of gravity in which we are all headed into the direction, Ursus Major, the direction of our supercluster, which in turn is a part of the virgo supercluster, which is too far/close for us to understand it's exact mechanisms.

But we have seen whole super clusters off in other directions, and we can discerned how they throb with a pace that is in the billions of years, and we can see the quicker heartbeat of those superclusters, an enormous blackhole in an enormous galaxy, shouting its beats of merely 10,000 years.

I think about those structures when I worship and I imagine that there are millions of these things, each with billions of galaxies, each filled with billions of stars.

I think about that when I worship.

I imagine that amazing universe observed by a being of pure joy, pure love. I imagine it moving to His breath, and sparkling beneath His mighty gaze as He views it all at once, from it's bright birth to the moment of it death (which only He can see), and it feels like He is immensely happy with it. I imagine a joy He feels, a love He shares within Himself, a trinity the muslims do not understand, and I feel Him through it all.

From outside the largest of all structures, including time itself, all the way through the world I know, and on down to the tiny strings singing existence on levels below the realm of light, for light itself needs more room than the spaces where He is.

And I think about this strange spark within my breast, this turning, flopping thing I think of as my spirit, and I feel it's joy in worshipping this grand spectacle. And how it sings toward Him, and He is somehow here, aware of me.

So the direction of the building, the cross, or the stage, or the lyrics, or the direction of the moon, or the rising sun, or the axis of the spinning Earth, mean nothing when I consider who it is I am standing before and offering a song of praise.

It doesn't really matter which direction I face.

:)

The call had begun about Rocky... She was telling me bits of info she had gathered, how his death wasn’t my fault. His symptoms matched a neighbor’s dog who had died of hepatitis B. That she had also heard of cancer of the liver that had moved that fast and his lumps had been near his liver.

Then she began to cry.

It began with a text message to her. Apparently I have been insuring her car. I sent a message asking she send me info on how long she has been insuring her car herself.

A text back... sympathy, regret, offer to provide info to help me get refunded.

Then a phone message at home.

Then the call just as Isaac and I were finishing BBQ ribs and Elsie’s Famous Egg Salad.

She told me she was sorry... that she didn’t want to hurt me. She was sorry.

She also said she had heard I was seeing someone and she hoped I would be happy.

I’m a bit of a sap; I do not want to see anyone hurting... but... there is a hint of vindication, an element of hearing that she knows I was not, am not, what she said I was, that she had run off for excitement, lust, that is perversely validating.

I imagine it is starting to run out. His words to me that he did not lover her, that he had tried to get rid of her, must ring more in her ears now that the dance music isn't playing so loudly.

Yes, I’m seeing someone.

She is kind. She is intelligent. She has great kids and a great heart.

I don’t know she is the one for me... After the trauma of watching a three decade marriage decay into a caustic sludge that ate and rotted every aspect of my life it touched, I am cautious.

But... I think of her all the time, and when I do I smile.

Perhaps it’s a part of being a sap, but I’m sorry to hear Brenda cry, to hear her sinking in regret.

The year is as begun great.

I love teaching English again. And I still get to teach technology... most of my day is spent being creative, thinking of new ways to help children learn how to better communicate, become self learners, discover who they are by providing opportunities to explore.

Isaac has been hired for his first job. He was told he will be trained to work in the projection room of the new theater in our formerly rural community.

Jeremiah is enjoying Special Olympics bowling. I’m enjoying coaching it.

Isaac is enjoying the early stages of adulthood.

Curious Servant is enjoying falling in love.

Permission to Fail

Life is a mess.

Or, rather, life is messy.

I'm hoping to get together soon with my moon howlin' buddies, talk about life's messes.

I'm not saying I'm a mess. Just messy.

I start back to work tomorrow. It is exciting.

What a great job I have. It is a lot of work. Demanding work. Important work.

Teachers get a couple of months to recharge their pedagogical batteries, continue their education, and simply catch their breaths.

I am ready!

I teach an interesting age, middle school. That is 6th, 7th, & 8th grades. Aside from the first three years of life, I think these three years cover the greatest changes of their lives.

Now I strongly believe in teaching my subject, delivering what I am charged to bring to them. But I think there is a more important thing for them to learn. They need to learn the skills that will bring them success in high school.

They need to learn to take responsibility for their learning... homework, study skills, meeting due dates, simply doing the work of a student.

If there is ever a time for a student to trip, to make mistakes and learn from them, it is middle school. No prospective employer will ask about their 6th grade marks, no college transcript will reveal their GPA from 8th grade.

I think this is true of life in general.

I would love to be successful at all I do. To be the perfect father, to shrug off my divorce easily, to be an always obedient follower of my faith.

13.7 billion years. That's how long this universe has been around. It's a long time. I whole heartedly believe my "future" will be longer than that. I'm comfortable with that idea.

God doesn't expect perfection. He knows me, knows us, better than that

It's OK to think of life as process.

My Boys

Wanted kids... like just about everyone else.  Basic instinct... procreate... replicate.

Wasn’t in the cards.  I guess.

When it was all too clear we weren’t having kids of our own...

First there was Willy.  Pretty exciting, having a newborn in the house.  Scary.  Fragile. 

At any rate... we lost him and a year and a half later adopted two boys from Haiti.

I never admitted, to my wife, to friends, to anyone, my reservations about adoption.

A couple of people had the courage to say what many, including myself, were thinking... can adopting fulfill that inner need for children?

I told everyone how wonderful it was having these two boys.

And it was.

OK... I had secret doubts.  My children didn’t look like me.  They’re black, I’m not.  I love science, literature, art... they... well... they aren’t equipped to... appreciate such things as much as me.

The other night I was watching a movie with my son Isaac (and a friend and her kids).  The climax of the movie came... the music swelled... the schmaltz swelled... Isaac started making his goofy happy noises, practically vibrating and jiggling, worked up at the emotional high of a happy ending.

I understand that.  Even though the ending was predictable, I felt it too.

I’m the sentimental sort.  I love art and literature and happy endings.

Watching Isaac, gleeful over the ending of that movie, I saw a bit of myself in him.

Isaac doesn’t carry any genes from me.  He can’t read the sort of things I like.  He can’t... well... doesn’t matter.  There are many differences between he and me.  And between my other son, Jeremiah, and me.

Through all those years I so loved those boys.  Sure, sometimes I wished I had a biological child... But when I think over all those years...  well... I like, Isaac does... like making goofy happy noises, vibrating and jiggling, worked up with an emotional high of a very happy ending.

Yeah... things got screwed up.  My wife, frustrated over her role in this family, frustrated over a lack of biological children, frustrated over the... the... well, the things our children will never achieve... 

But... though things got screwed up... it was all wonderful.  Full of wonder.

These are my children.

These are my boys and I see parts of myself in them.  In their hearts, in their actions.

These are my children, and I am a proud, very proud, father . 

Quick Update

Been too long since I wrote here...

I think partly it's because I've been settling back into the non-routine of the teacher during summer vacation, and partly because I wasn't sure what I should and should not post.

That isn't to say that I haven't been writing.  I wrote several pieces.  I wrote something poking fun at a friend of mine, but he has done me a couple of good turns of late and I felt it ungrateful to have a laugh at his expense (though in the end that piece held him up in a good light, honest).

It was good to be back home from my trip to the other side of the world.  That trip gave me much to think about.  I brought back many stories and have shared most of them with family, friends, and even a few on these digital pages.

I could write more of that now, but I think I'll give it a rest.

I've been spending time with my sons.  They are both doing well, settling into more independence than I expected of them.  Ambiguous feelings there...

One other reason I haven't written is because I am unsure how to write of the larger changes in my life... matters of heart.

I'm a very great distance from where I was a year ago.  I have traveled farther than the 7500 miles to Bangkok, or the temporal distance of once around Sol.

Brenda is far from my heart now.  I am not just relieved of being on a new road, a direction other than hers, but I am so much happier than I would have believed.

Over the past year I began a little dating... I tried dating a bit to just get out of myself, out of my funk, meet new people, smile a bit.

I've found someone in particular who makes me smile quite a bit.  And there's the awkward part to writing lately.  There is a huge part of this that isn't mine to share.  Though there isn't much there in terms of what is a secret, not known by friends and neighbors, it still isn't wholly mine, and therefore not something I feel comfortable in freely sharing.

But... I am free this much... she makes me happy.

OK... that's all I wanted to say there... for those of you who have been following this sentimental soul's little journey of heart break... there's been quite a bit of healing.

My gardens have grown wildly.... I have my vegetable garden.  The corn and pumpk

in have outstripped the weeds, but not by much.  The bees buzz happily between the purpled artichokes,well past being edible.  The strawberries are sweet and too plentiful for Isaac and me to eat by ourselves.  The other garden, what I call my metaphor garden, is a wild combination of flowers, shrubs, and even vegetables.  There is a sunflower there that rises over ten feet from the ground.  A mole is circumnavigating it with his tunnels, and so I am waging another small war between the clever little beasts.

I've been doing a lot of reading in scripture, placing my summer's experiences in the context of my recent travels (of asia and my heart) and though I have difficulty articulating what that means, there has been growth there.

I've made some new friends as well.  People of kind hearts and similar faith.

I've tried a lot of new things this past summer... and it's been, on the whole, very good.

The largest change has been my smile.  It is larger and more frequent than it has been in a long time.

I return to work soon.  I am so looking forward to it!  I will be teaching a class of language arts this year.  It has been five years since I taught that subject.  I know this year will be the best year I have had in a long time.  I am already biting off a lot of new responsibilities so it will be a busy year... robotics, local access TV, study skills training, probably teach a class at church, and I'm ushering back an annual event that has been missed for half a decade, "Untalent Night" (a conglomeration of silly skits, awful musical performances, and pretty much anything that might illicit more groans than applause.

So... a quick update on the strange journey of the curious servant.

Life is good.

My Metaphor Garden