Dream Lite Tonight

This past Monday would've been my father's 80th birthday. Since it's been fourteen years since he passed away, it's always been with a certain sense of melancholy that I greet the 26th of August each year. He's come and gone, but he still remains in so many ways and though all the healing that's ever going to get done has already happened, there's still a certain ache to that day which can linger.

So it was that I wandered through Monday and Tuesday in a bit of a fog. Until last night that is, when, for no particular reason at all, I decided to kick it with the kids at bedtime. It was an impromptu sort of thing. They were tucked in with the lights out when I realized I left something in their room. As I crept in, I found them both dreamily gazing up at the light display from Sophia's Dream Lite Pillow Pet (a ladybug, of course). This has become a nightly ritual that I've been missing out on somehow, so I abandoned the search for what I was looking for, laid down on Sophia's bed and asked my children to tell me about the star and moon lights up there on the ceiling and to share their favorite memories of the day.

For Sophia it was playing and learning "more math". For Anthony it was his science class, where he learned how to use a microscope for the first time. I also learned some Dream Lite secrets, namely that as the lights fade in and out, they do so on a fifteen minute timer (Anthony's observation, of course) and that if you follow the lights around the room it helps you go to sleep better (Sophia, Princess of Sleep's observation).

Before long we had talked and laughed ourselves out. Mom yelled from the next room that it was bedtime, the kids had to be up early, it was past 9pm, blah, blah. As I said my farewells, my son made me promise that next time I will lay down on his bed so he gets a turn and my daughter held me tight around the neck, ran her tiny fingers through my beard and whispered in my ear that, actually, tonight, this moment, had really been her favorite part of the day.

My melancholy blues instantly evaporated. Proving once again that in the face of life - of truly living? Death doesn't stand a chance.

Unpack Yourself

"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control." - 2 Timothy 1:7

As I mentioned in my last blog, when you welcome Jesus into your life the game changes. You might've thought you were playing "pro ball" before when, really, you were just still on the varsity squad in high school...as a backup.  But now things get real.

You cannot box your life up into neat little compartments anymore, where rationalization provides the wrapping paper and logic ties the strings. Justifying who you are, asserting yourself in the world, demanding things, expecting things and judging things become exercises in futility. As Rick Warren famously says in his opening line of The Purpose Driven Life: "It's not about you."

Now it's about a spiritual awareness that's supposed to take precedence over reality itself. You begin to unpack yourself. It's not an easy process and there are no guarantees save one: salvation, which brings with it eternal life, and even that payoff is one based on a future principal. In a world of "me" and "I" and "now", the math of the soul is counter-intuitive; it says "you" and "them" and "someday".

Along the way your journey can prove itself amazing. You never realized what you realize when you truly turn to God; the stuff you're carrying around on your back, the pains and hurts you've buried and the fears that you've wrapped yourself up in. Suddenly you are given a spirit of power and love and self control.

From there it's up to you what you do with it.

Faith Differential

"And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith." - Matthew 13:58

"For we live by faith, not by sight" - 2 Corinthians 5:7

Jesus came to his own hometown, to those he knew best and who should've known him best, and was questioned, cross-examined and doubted. In response we get the impression that he was saddened and disappointed. In part of Matthew 13:57 Jesus says "A prophet is not without honor except in his own home town and in his own home."  It was the reply to those around him. But the first part of that passage says a lot. The people had taken "offense at him".

Can you believe it? They were offended by the presence of Christ, right there in their midst. Amazing. And yet...how different do we sometimes act in his midst? I mean it. How different? I doubt by much. Some of us have turned to prosperity preachers, a holistic faith or self-help guru's all because we have taken offense at the message of Christ. Maybe we can handle the physical demands of the ten commandments but not the mental or emotional demands that Jesus brought to the table. Moses demanded a steadfastness of faith, firm as a tall tree. Jesus came and talked of faith the size of a mustard seed, then demanded that we grow. On the surface it is a faith differential. Two concepts of faith, one Old Testament based and the other New Testament based, asking us to "be" and to "believe" in radically different ways. Can I be honest? The first time I met Jesus, face to face there in my bible, do you want to know what my response was? I said, "You're kidding, right?"

Growing is painful. It hurts. I'm hurting right now. Maybe you were hurting last week, or last month. Maybe you will be hurting tomorrow. I will spare you the inspirational Pinterest post-it's and cheesy advice to keep a stiff upper lip and instead I will remind you that even Jesus hurt, so much so that he stopped performing miracles for awhile, rejected as he was, cast aside and sneered at. It was a precursor to what the Romans would do to him soon enough and the amazing thing is he knew that. In the midst of his suffering at that moment he knew there was still worse to come and yet he still pushed on.

If that doesn't inspire you? Nothing will.

Paint Me In Colors

“One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are” - Henri Nouwen

Have you ever noticed the inconsistency of "being"? Of who you are? Of who you think you are? Of who others think you are? Why is that? Because you are none of the above. You are who God thinks you are.

To submit yourself to definitions based on human perspectives is fruitless and a little insane. I mean, how often do YOUR opinions change about other people, in the course of a day or over the span of a lifetime? Now...if a hundred people know that person and you add all of their definitions to the mix? What chance does any human being have when weighed down with that many definitions? It's no different for you.

A lot of what we face in life - depression, anxiety, insecurity, insomnia, loneliness - are things rooted in fear. I mean, people spend thousands of dollars on a good therapist to dig deep enough into themselves to find exactly that: fear. Maybe of rejection, or of not being good enough, or of the future, or of the past. Take a soul and turn it loose in this world, then tie it down with ropes of worry and what do you get? A tortured soul indeed.

God did not create your soul and bring you into this world to be tortured. He did not ask you to ever, ever, ever be defined by what other people think of you or need from you or want of you. He asked you to love others AS YOU WOULD LOVE YOURSELF. Not in a vain way. Not in a "I'm more special than so-and-so" way. But in a simple, knowing and loving way.

Accept who you are. Strive to evolve. Acknowledge the scars and wounds this world has inflicted on you and that you have inflicted on yourself...then overcome them. Lean on God, who has painted you in all your many colors and knows where best you need a little more detail, a little more depth and a little more perspective.

Then open your eyes and see just how amazingly beautiful you truly are.

Anthony Says...

I pick up Anthony from school. He climbs into the car looking a bit perplexed.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
Anthony says "Girls are crazy, Dad."
I ask him why.
"Because you can never tell what they really mean."
I almost crash the car realizing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my 12 year old my son is a bona-fide genius. I'm thinking where I should take him for an I.Q. test when he belches and tells me that he also thinks math is stupid.
So much for genius.
We debate homework vs X-Box time for a bit. I tell him we've gotta swing by the bank.
"Why do we always have to go to the bank, Dad?"
"Because there's never enough money."
"So, if there's never enough money... why go to the bank?"
"Because that's where the money is at." I refrain from adding "smart ass". I'll save that for his teens.
But he's MY son, so he doesn't let it go. "So...what then?"
"So what then, what??? We need money, we're going to the bank to get some."
He nods. "Good. 'Cause I'm hungry."
"Who says we're going to get money to buy you food?"
"Well, I just thought, ya know...when we have money...well, why not?"
I do the unthinkable and go cliche on him, "Ya know, money doesn't grow on trees."
"What?" He says, looking at me like his sister does sometimes, like I'm stupid.
"I said money doesn't grow on trees."
He bottles up his face and looks at me quizzically, "Well, of course it doesn't."
We're getting nowhere in this conversation. So we begin to verbally fence.
"The point is, when you want money, you get a job. That's how you get money." (Strike)
"That's the only way to get money?" (Parry)
"Short of committing a crime, yes. So you better be ready to get a job soon." (Strike)
"I'm twelve."  (Parry)
"Exactly." (Strike)
"Exactly what?" (Parry)
"You're one year away from thirteen, when I got my first job." (Strike)
 Silence (Time Out)
We go to the bank and afterwards I decide pull one over on him. It's a Dad's right. I exercise it frequently, as both of my children know.
"You still want a burger or something, boy?"
Big smile. "Yeah, Dad."
I reply with a bigger smile."Good. We'll get your favorite kid's meal...and an application while we're there."
My son wears glasses, which only enhances his bug-eyed look of shock."No, Dad."
I can barely contain my laughter."Why not?"
The car is silent as we get to the McDonald's and go through the drive thru. He orders his cheeseburger mini-meal (alas the kid's meals days are over, sigh) but I can tell he's not so hungry anymore. When we get to the window I pay and...ask if they're hiring!
He resorts to the nuclear option immediately. "I'm telling Mom."
I smile and tell the drive-thru kid to never mind.
As we drive home I glance in the rear view mirror. My son has the look on his face of a man who has just escaped a drastic fate.
"I forgot," I say, just as he's finally relaxed.
"What?"
"We need to get your work permit first."
Bug eyes again.

Sing, Song, Sung

By now U2 is a well known band. The story is simple: four boys from Dublin get together when one of them posts a note on a school bulletin board. Their parents think they're crazy, especially the drummer's parents, who had him in formal lessons, never dreaming that - horror of horrors - he would turn to rock & roll. They were a heavily Christian band (with the exception of their bassist) until they realized it was taking them off point at the time (and out of the mainstream). From day one, they had a political objective and something to say about a whole host of things. So they said them and have continued to say them for over thirty years now.

One of the joys of going to a U2 concert is that you can tell the real fans from the casual fans right away. How? The casual fans know the songs. The real fans are the songs. They almost always have an intimate story of how one song or another affected them personally. I love getting to a gig early and swapping these stories because it makes the event much more holistic. You're there for a beer and some good music, yes, but you also discover how the same song not only helped you through the loss of your first love in high school but also, 1500 miles away, helped a young girl through her unplanned pregnancy. I'm sure fans of Springsteen and other bands have the same experiences. That's one of the special beauties of music: it connects us all in a very unique way. Think about it, we rarely talk about how the same novel, or movie, or play, or painting helped us through a moment in our lives. As a writer it pains me to admit that but I think it's true. Each form of art may have its own ability to influence, inspire and affect us (that's a topic for another day) but I think music is special.

As for me? "Eleven O'Clock, Tick Tock" will always be the soundtrack to the night I went to my first junior high dance, quaking in my Vans (where I did a great job of holding up the wall all night). "The Unforgettable Fire" will always remind of that bitch who ripped my heart out : ) "Surrender" will always be the song I wrote one of my first short stories to. "Bad" will forever be the song that made me sit still, and heal, for the first time in my life. "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" came along to coax me on, about a year after my father died, when I just couldn't get past my grief. "It's A Beautiful Day" will never stop being the song that came on the radio as I drove, worried sick and terrified, to the hospital where my son, having been born eleven weeks early, had been rushed, fighting for his life...as soon as I heard that song I promise you that I knew that Anthony would be just fine. Then there was "Lemon", an older song that I rediscovered by accident around the same time that Sophia's adoption process took a complicated turn, and those closing lyrics ("Midnight is when the day begins...") guided me with hope each day. And, lastly, spanning like a bridge from my 14 year old self to the old turd that writes these words today, there will always be "40", the lyrics  lifted from Psalm 40. Which, of course, led me to the Bible.

I smile as I write that. Because, you see, you can find entire websites now that break down the many hundreds of biblical references and/or quotes in a library of songs that covers over thirty-six U2 albums (singles and compilations included). The Christian band never stopped being so. They just went covert, amazingly weaving the soft whisper of scripture in between two guitars, a drum set and one of the most unique voices ever.

Think

"Under all that we think, lies all we believe, like the ultimate veil of our spirit." - Antonio Machado

So? What do you think? About life. About fear. About loneliness, and space, happiness and those quiet reflections you have from time to time, while you're driving in the car in the company of a good song that's on the radio, or when you're tracing doodles in the condensation of your beer bottle while sitting at the bar, with absolutely no company at all?

I used to believe that I was in everything, and everything was in me. Until I realized that was a state of spirit that required a constant state of mind, nearly superhuman, which I could not maintain even on the quietest of mountaintops. I used to believe that the more you pursued something, the further away you pushed it so, conversely, if you really wanted it you should be still and let it come to you, until I realized that a life of waiting for love or salvation was no life at all. I preferred Robert Frost and his Road Less Traveled over waiting for someone or something to come rolling my way down the road.

The magic of a human life is not about happenstance. It's not about will, either. You may choose a road, a path, down either side of the many forks that make up your life, but that choice is a beautiful conglomeration of thoughts, ideas, beliefs and desires that so many people have given you, flushed out of you, nourished in you or broken in spite of you. To this day I still make decisions with my father's help, even though he's been dead almost 14 years. Because his imprint is in me, like the twists and twirls of his fingertips I am his identity, left behind now, to bear witness to the wisdom of his lessons and the blessings of his presence. I get that. My tiny mind can understand and encompass it. So when I'm asked to stand firm for a Holy Father, when I study that relationship, there's no great epiphany for me. I just get it. That's all. Yes it's different in its holiness but oh, so familiar in its reality.

You're no different in theory, but very different in context. Your story is different than mine, as are your imprints and your hurts, your victories and your struggles. You are a map. So many roads. Don't worry. Just take the turns that feel like home, to who you really were, because that's what has led you to who you really are now.