Looking For The Long Ride

As I was walking along the river today during what is normally my lunch hour I had the thought that maybe the poem I am looking for is one that I haven’t written yet.

I have read a lot of poetry lately and while much of what I read can—thought for thought—translate loosely into my lifes’ experience—it is still a somewhat vicarious attempt to explore the depths of who I am, where I fit in and the course I am to follow the rest of today and tomorrow.

The Bard said: To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.


In other words—you can’t give to someone else what you haven’t got yourself.

Scripture warns us not to think to highly of ourselves, but never says that you can’t love yourself. In fact we are asked to treat our neighbors as we would treat ourselves—knowing full well that we wouldn’t keep those who live around us in the freezing cold if our house was warm and well stocked with food.

I don’t even know my neighbors anymore. As our little subdivision has grown over the years, there are very few people I can call by name. We might wave as they pass by in their cars or we might say hello to those who venture out for evening walks, but I can’t say I have been to dinner at anyone’s house in our neighborhood in ten years, nor have any been to ours (Danny & Cathy, our longtime friends, the expception to this). We did have a “get to know you” back yard thing a year ago and a few people showed up but other than that, they have their lives and we have ours.

20 years ago, most of the people who lived around us went to the same church and had built their houses together. I don’t know anyone from that era who lives in this county anymore. It is a trend and more than likely post-modern in its individualism but that is a rabbit I will not follow today.

I guess the original train of thought was that I have always had this feeling that I would like to be a Christian poet. But in my former Christian life I was always falling a little short of getting to the point where I was “good” enough to even consider this to be an option. Besides, what would I really have to write about anyway—I always seemed to be learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.

What I saw around me was either syrupy or to serious and disciplined—both extremes seemed pretty far from the vibrant life I had once believed Christianity was meant to be. I couldn’t find a place to begin so I never really took the leap until recently being more or less forced into looking at my life and Christianity from a whole different perspective.

What I have begun to discover is that you can progress as a Christian and not be required to turn off your mind or intellect and that church is a volunteer organization not a club where you check your “real” life at the door every Sunday and pick it up again on the way out.

What this thought led to is the fact that there are many interesting stories and poems waiting to be written about the character and nature of the people we read about in the Bible. And that is where the title of entry came from….there is indeed a pathos in their stories and one could do worse than to lend a thoughtful ear to hear what their lives are saying to us today. And that is where the Jot and Tittle came from….I certainly don’t want to add something to their stores that is not there or leave out something that is.

But in some sort of reality, these are my neighbors too and giving them a chance to sit with me on a cool evening and tell me about their hopes and fears is the least I can do. Just as the flower proceeds the fruit, the theme comes before the first verse is ever written.

It will be another interesting ride. Enjoy yours.

There are so many thoughts rambling around that I don’t really know where to start other than to just take a stab at it and hope I hit some sort of target somewhere on this planet.

I have reached that point in my life where things that came naturally to me for so many years are now beginning to require a little maintenance. Relationships that seemed to flow without effort, now seem to take a little more time and energy to keep healthy and vibrant.

To this end, Sandi and I went out for breakfast this past Sunday morning at a place called the “Village Cafe” in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. It’s a bistro type place right smack dab in the middle of this little touristy town and most of the tables are out doors under the trees on a large patio. When we arrived we were asked if we wanted shade, full sun or a combination of the two. We chose a combination and I kept my sunglasses on and let Sandi sit on the shady side of the table.

If we had been in New York City we would have been doing the same thing. We ordered coffee and eggs benedict and talked and thoroughly enjoyed the time together.

After breakfast, we walked around a small little park built around a man made lake and then explored a trail that we had walked several years ago. The trail begins at a parking lot and follows a creek for about two miles—most of it downhill. After that, we found our car and made our way home—Sandi to the garden and I to a 23 mile bike ride with a couple of buddies.

Then it was lunch with friends and off to church—almost a “normal” Sunday.

It seems we have a tendancy to get so caught up in the drama of our lives that we forget to put time into the stuff that really matters. In the process of trying to make some sense out of the loss surrounding us leaving a church—a body of believers—we had been a part of for 22 years—I have not taken as much time to enjoy the daily journey as I should. I have let the “worries and cares” of life take the edge off of who I am. That would not be so bad if who I am was easy to come by—but I am a work in process—just doing what I do and being who I am takes a little extra effort each and every day. The sentences of my life are run-on and filled with words that I have to look up on dictionary dot com just to make sure I am using them correctly.

I am almost convinced that what I am feeling can be accurately expressed but am not as sure that I can ever reach that place of understanding with words that are currently in my backpack. Or that in reaching that place I would feel a release that would propel me into the creative future that I have envisioned. What kind of movie would this make anyway—it would be a critical favorite but the box office take would be way off expectations.

I must once again remind myself that flawed men were inspired by God to write the Bible.

I wonder if Moses ever figured out what was going on as he thought back to that incident about striking the rock instead of speaking to it so that the water would flow. I wonder if David had a clue as to why Absalom turned out the way he did.

If anybody ever really figured it out in my mind it would have to be Paul—another flawed hero of mine. But then I remember that he had plenty of time to reflect and ponder while he was under house arrest.

In all of this I must remember that life doesn’t always come at us in an easy way—sometimes we have to struggle to make sense out of what is happening around us. The beavers in our life are busy chopping down the little birches that will eventually block the flow of whatever creek they fall into. Sometimes instead of clearing the blockage, we simply re-route the river and continue our lives—and although the flow of fresh water is reduced there is still enough flowing to sustain growth.

I have often wondered what was really going on In Moses’ mind as he climbed Mt. Nebo in order to look at the promised land and be told that he would not enter into it. That at 120 years old he would die on that mountain, even though we are told that his eye was not dim not his natural strength abated. That’s a picture for the ages right there: to be able to see the face of Moses as he realized that he had traveled his last mile on this earth. Was he relieved or broken-hearted—did he “…go gentle into that good night” or did some deep emotion well up in him as he began to think about all the work that there was still to do.

We may never know and that may be the point as well—life is worth the effort—friendship is worth the effort—becoming all that we can be in this body is worth the effort as well—though we may never reach the point we are aiming for. Perfection will never be attained this side of the veil—so we might as well go a little easier on ourselves and enjoy what is left of our lives. That’s a ride we can really write about.

Lately I have been giving a lot of thought to how we get to where we are personality wise and how this affects our lives. In many respects as people, we are the epitome of the definition of dichotomy which is defined as: a division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups.

Even though I am in Christ and am a new creation, as I listened to the Beatles “With A Little Help From My Friends” the other day in my car, I realized that the person who first heard that song—and the album it came from in the summer of 1967—is still a part of who I am. And in many respects I still deal with people and the reality that surrounds my daily life in much the same way as I did way back then.

It is not like I haven’t had that same thought before—I have—many times over the years.

Today, as I listened to that song I was back walking the streets of Greenwich Village in New York and hearing “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” coming—it seemed like—from every direction and every little shop that had a radio station turned on. In a very real sense, I was a part of what the Beatles were all about—it was the summer of love and long-haired hippy’s were everywhere but in school.

I had left my home and school and begun my quixotic journey to New York City’s lower east side. I lived in a cold-water flat on 11th steet between avenue B and C and most of the residents—aside from a few artists—were Latino. There were two rooms—a bedroom and a kitchen-dinning room-living room—where the bathtub was covered with a fitted metal piece which turned into a counter top where dinner could be prepared next to the small two-burner stove. Nobody really knew who owned it, but rent would be collected every so often and delivered to an older man who lived on the first floor. We ate a lot of rice-a-roni and I would panhandle on many of the busy streets around my apartment to make ends met.

That’s actually another story altogether but the little that I have shared will give you a sense of what I am alluding to personality wise which leads us to how we think about life and the daily drama’s we face.

Though I am nearing my late 50’s, there is still a little kid inside me who is prone to long walks, introspection and not paying as much attention as he should to what I am doing and the people around me. What is perceived by some as aloofness is really just me looking out the window in 4th grade and wishing I could be out playing in the summer day instead of inside at my desk.

Little did I know then that the techniques we “invented” to cope with our childhood would become the subject of books, movies, poetry and songs—that we would be called the “Boomer Generation” who begat the x’ers and so on and so forth. One person’s coping could be another’s copping out.

I remember my mother lamenting the fact that our family was not like the “Father Knows Best” family—as siblings, my brothers and my sister were not “best” friends by any stretch of the imagination and if the truth be known—I haven’t talked with my one brother in over three years. I don’t even know where he lives although he has been to our house (where we have lived since 1985) several times over the years. People who have grown up in best-friend type families probably can’t relate.

So, when I say I “know” these people, it is really more from an outside perspective than it is from having had lots of fun times together at family picnics, theme parks or on vacation. We each did our own thing and found—as it were—our own ways to cope with our family dynamic. It wasn’t all bad of course—there were many “good” times—and certainly more underground and undefined melodrama than what you would have expected.

We weren’t the huggy-feely types but grew up liking books and having strong work ethics.

Not to shabby you might say—and you would be mostly correct.

But as we now know, life is more than just learning coping techniques that will enable you to get through the day with something left to begin another with. In reality, where we really live is somewhere in between—we aren’t stuck in Alice’s rabbit hole but we don’t feel like we’ve reached the promised land yet either.

We are a transition people—a people of the overlap—we like to think we are in control, but really are far from it. We are caught between feeling to much and not enough—between fitting in and feeling like we have a “kick me” sign on our backs. We are in process and all we want is to feel like we have finally arrived.

This train of thought cound continue for a while but I will end today with a verse from the aforementioned Beatles song:

“What do you see when you turn out the lights,
I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine.”

I get by with a little help from my friends. Enjoy your ride today!

My day began at quarter past four when a car alarm when off in our neighborhood and sounded for a minute or two before who ever owned it awoke and turned it off. By that time, my mind had already entered the day and after a half hour of trying to regain what I had been jolted out of, I gave in to it and rolled out of bed to sit and read and watch the new day begin on our small patch of land in the outskirts of our little town.

What I found this morning is that I have begun again to believe in the power of a transformed mind and the ability to find healing in faith and friendship.

There is what I would call a “Divine Tension” taking place in my life and from what I gather, the lives of many others as well.

Dictionary dot com defines tension as:

A balanced relation between strongly opposing elements: “the continuing, and essential, tension between two of the three branches of government, judicial and legislative” (Haynes Johnson).
and: The interplay of conflicting elements in a piece of literature, especially a poem.
As Christians our struggle is between the old nature and the new: what we once were and what we are in process of becoming. Each new formation or snapshot of what we are becoming can take days, weeks or years depending on how we react to the forces in our lives that act as water on rock, a chisel on wood, the potter’s hands on the clay—to conform us into the image of Christ.

Doubt and disappointment can and do take their toll in making the surface of who we are less likely to be easily changed. A hard heart can take weeks or months to soften to the point of being able to hear the directions that will map out the way for us to go.

What I have realized lately, is that in the process of our lives, there are not many straight paths leading to where we need to be. What I mean by that is each and every one of us has many layers of existence all operating at the same time. What we “do” with these layers on a daily basis is a measure of what our day/week/month will be like. This is a hard thought process to paint a picture with words that are only to me becoming a little clearer as I gain the language to do so. I guess this is what I meant in a earlier post when I said that other people’s words are a comfort to me during these days of movement and transtition towards fully accepting myself and the state I find myself in. These poems and writtings have once again given me a vocabulary to process my thoughts with and come to some conclusions about where I am and the next steps to take.

For instance, what do we do with the loose ends of our lives as we begin each day and head to work? Some of us are like the animals who chew on things for a long time before digesting them. Sometimes we can even see where this food will get stuck somewhere and remain undigested for a time—even as we go about our daily routines. We may have taken too big a bite or been put in position to eat something that was placed in front of us that we would have really not put on our plate in the first place. And an over-the-counter antacid won’t get that lump of undigested food any further along the alimentary canal of our being.

Some of us put the un-resolved matters of life on the shelf and basically leave them behind as we plow into the day. Sometimes we have to build bigger shelves to hold all the stuff that is waiting for us to deal with—and there are those who have to build bigger houses to store all the containers and shelves.

The point being is that none of us has a perfect “WB TV Life” and that some of us deal well with that fact and some of us don’t. We have all seen or known those who don’t—we can even feel the weight of it as we work with them or meet them in the grocery store, gas station or restaurant. The “walking wounded” are all around us or “are” us. And the ways we get there are as numerous as “we” are. My parents didn’t love me—my boss doesn’t appreciate me—my church doesn’t understand me or my needs—etc., etc. and so on down the line.

The tension can be as subtle as going to bed aggravated with your spouse and carrying that aggravation into the next day. It’s no big deal we tell ourselves as we get dressed and wend our way to work—albeit with a little edge in our voice or our step. In the case of leaving a church you have attended and been a part of for 22 years—the hurt is a little deeper and I might add—a little less defined or indentifiable.

I was surprised the other day by how I dealt with feelings about my—shall I dare say—sinful nature or general feelings of un-worthiness. Even before I reached my car I had decided to play a particular song from an International House Of Prayer CD that has been a favorite for several years. It is music extemporaneously recorded at IHOP which is a 24 hour, praise and worship and intercession ministry in Kansas City. The particular song lasts 25 minutes and in the course of spontaneous worship has the verse “..even in my weakness, I am lovely” repeated several times over. It’s about the Father’s love not being taken away from us in the course of us dealing with our carnal nature. As I listened it was if I was able to leave the negative thoughts I was having in the very song itself—like just listening washed me somehow and I was able to walk into my life a little cleaner and clearer than I had been a few minutes before.

Are you weary and heavy laden?, Christ asks—come to me and I will give you rest—he replies, fully knowing the answer. Can we trust Him?—if not who else?

Like I began with: …I have begun again to believe in the
power of a transformed mind and the ability to find healing in faith
and friendship.

Enjoy your ride today—you are not alone.

“Other people’s words and even my own give me comfort at this time”, I wrote in my journal Friday morning last week as I took time off work to rest in the days following my mother’s passing.

On impulse, after a lunch on Thursday at our local burrito place, I stopped by a coffeshop/bookstore and looked through their poetry section thinking that maybe something would jump out at me that would comfort me and spur me on creatively at the same time. It was a whim—and since I had nothing to lose and maybe a cup of afternoon coffee to gain, I followed my thoughts up the stairs and to the poetry section.

First, you look for names that might interest or sound familiar—then titles and covers entice you to open the book and read a few lines in order to ascertain if a connection exists. A book entitled “Little Girls in Church” by Kathleen Norris peeked my attention and I guess what ever it was I read said “buy me” and so I did.

As I read I realized that each and every poem was a little story that I didn’t have to struggle to understand—the depth of the poem was not hidden in language only an English professor could relate to—but was pleasant and pleasing and edifying. For the first time for poetry, I read the whole book through in two sittings.

One of the first poems in the book was loosely about New York City and the second verse whet like this:

We set up battered lawn chairs
on the apratment roof
and sat down to see
how the sun went on.
Across the way a child played at sweeping
while a woman pulled laundry
off a line. It was New York City,
but the air seemed full of spices,
more like Jerusalem
than any town I knew;
the pale red roofs
of the East Village
turning gold
then blue.

The noise of the city was as constant as the sea. It was like Renne Zellwiger telling Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire, you had me from the first hello. And the rest of the book didn’t disappoint.

It is lines like these that are sometimes used to keep me afloat in the sea of life as it is. It is llines like these that keep me thinking that what we live and see and think on a daily basis can be understood enough to put words to our experience—that we can really relate to one another.

We have all been to the sea, or the ocean, either Atlantic or Pacific—the coast of North Carolina or off of Pawleys Island, SC. It is one of natures miracles—the ebb and flow of the tide and the constant background music of the waves working their way up the sand and being drawn back into the water from where they came. I am always amazed at the people who walk the beach with Ipod ear buds plugged in listening to “unatural” sounds while walking on the beach.

Another book (yes I bought two) is called “As If It Matters” by Eamon Grennan, an Irish poet from Dublin. Buying it was kind of like getting two movies at Blockbuster thinking that if the first one is not very good, then there is always the second one. As they were chapbooks, they were not all that expensive anyway.

Those Irish: they certainly do have a gift with music and with words. In a poem entitled “Circlings” Grennan writes:

The full-bellied dress you move in
is a sail of light purple
to match the purple flowers
you’ve planted on the porch:
morning glories.
When it rains
I smell your patch of basil
in the back garden: come mid-winter
you’ll draw pesto from the freezer
and give me again this dark
green fragrance, this
one touch of summer.

I can relate. My wife loves pesto and so we grow basil and cilantro in the back yard just for that very purpose.

It is a joy to intersect with someone in the process of being who they are meant to be. Whether it is the poet, the author, the musician or the local janitor or the widow lady in her garden full of asiatic lilly’s, the effect is the same—you feel that much richer for having known them, even for a moment in time.

As I said at the beginning, words have given me comfort this past week. To follow a wordsmith as they wind their way through a day in their life, with words, that with rhymn and alliteration, work their way into your experience, is almost a lost pleasure. To construct and/or read a sentence that almost explodes off the page is exciting and something that fills me with hope for the future.

And lest you think I have forgotten my Christian roots, one of my favorite verses of all times comes from the book called Ecclesiastes. In verse 1:7, the writer describes something that is poetic and at the same time very scientific in nature. Every time I read it I am amazed at the clarity of the image invoked.

All the rivers flow into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full.
To the place where the rivers flow,
There they flow again.

Think of clouds and the circle of life and all that poets and writers have tried to explain in verse and song since the time of the first printing press. In my mind I have wrtten a thousand poems with that verse in it and have spoken it out loud at open-mike, hippy type services a time or two.

Life is complex, yet at the same time, at some points in our living in it, we can grab ahold of some sort of understanding as to what it is all about—it’s like that mountain top experience—you can’t live there forever, but you can see a 360 degree view while you are up there. And that is certainly worth the climb—anytime in my book.

In once sense I can’t say that I really “Knew” my mother and that thought surprises me. At least not in the way that we can say we know the characters in our favorite televsion shows. These people who appear on the small screen in our living rooms every week, have had their lives broken down for us and parceled out every week in understandable pieces within a plot line that sometimes even lasts for more than the hour-long segment.

I do know her but have never really sat down to think about her in this way. I have my memories and the pictures in my head that go along with the events that span grade school and senior high and then some college and visits after Sandi and I had kids. But to say that I ever sat down with my mother over a glass of Merlot to discuss the issues of life, our hopes and our fears, I can’t remember that we ever did. That generation is just like that, I guess, in my experience. It was the same way with my dad as we visited after he had been diagnosed with cancer. Try as I might, I was never really able to engage him in the feeling type stuff that my generation thrived on with all its analysis and drama. My memory is that he just sat there and kind of squirmed until we changed the subject to something else entirely.

What I remember best about my mother is that she liked a good sale and would stash stuff away all year that would eventually end up wrapped in bright paper and given out as Christmas presents in December. Socks and ties and after shave lotion; little books of poetry and art and invention along with rings and watches and jewelry that ended up in a drawer someplace. It was almost embarrassing the amount of gifts she would send us during the years when she was working and still making good money. Lots of times, when the kids were young, we would put stuff into the closet and give them a present from grandma every week or so until they were all gone—Christmas could almost last a month or two at least. And when they were young they believed anything we told them about where the gifts were coming from—as they got older they knew better and wanted everything that came in the big boxes from grandma on the morning of the 25th.

She was a crafter and was always into something to decorate. We were the only family I knew of who had scuplted brick walls in our bathroom and barnwood wainscoating in our dining room years before it became fashionable.

Skipping ahead to later years when I left home for the first time in search of myself, I remember that she took my leaving very personal. She felt like she had done something wrong or else I wouldn’t have quit high school with only three months to go in order to travel around the USA and Europe. It didn’t matter what I tried to tell her about why I needed to go and find myself—she thought she had failed and that it was all her fault. That if she had been a better mother everything would have worked out right—it did work out right, just not according to our human time tables. I took a little longer to mature than the average bear and if the truth be known, am still being worked on in that area.

She had me before she was really ready to be a mom but in all those early black and white Kodax pictures she looked  happy and that is what I will remember.

Like I said, we never really talked about our lives that much but what I remember gleaning from what she alluded to over the years, indirectly, is that she never really got to live the life that she thought was hers to live. Whether it was the late model cars we drove (my dad hated the thought of paying for a new car) or getting four kids through school before she could go back to work and make her own money, she never felt she ever fully arrived anywhere.

Our house was full of great looking antiques she found at sales wherever she went. One of her best friends was a dealer and that helped her always find the best deals. As I write this I remember feeling like a bull in a china shop and maybe that is why I mostly remember going to friends houses rather than them coming to mine. Of course back then we just did what we did and never really thought about the why’s and the where-for’s. My memories of childhood are like a bunch of events put into a blender and then mixed at high power for a few minutes—what is left is a great big smoothy with a lot of different flavors but all mushed together in one big cup. If you close your eyes you can begin to distinguish all the little nuances of taste that still remain, but it is easier to just take a big spoon and get on with the eating.

My mother was a card person—every birthday and holiday and anniversary was indexed by her with a card that always came a day or to early or right on time—never late. Hallmark made a lot of money over the years on my mother—I wish I could say I picked up that trait from her—but I can’t. I am always putting those things off until the drop dead moment and keep my fingers crossed hoping the stuff gets to where it is supposed to be on time. I got in the habit of sending flowers for that very reason—I could call a shop and get them delivered on the day I needed rather than miss the event all together.

During her later years, as her heatlh began to leave and the money with it, she found ways to keep herself occupied by reading and cutting up art magazines and making collages and decoupoge plaques out of the pictures which she would then send in boxes full for us to distribute at family affairs that distance keep us from being together at. She was more creative that she ever gave herself credit for and I guess in the end, that is what rubbed off on me. I love the Metropolitan Museum of Art and never met a door handle I couldn’t figure out and fix.

She loved Stan Kenton and Billie Holiday and music that had that swing. And she always wanted more for her kids than what she had for herself.

That’s certainly not all that I could say about my mother—but like I said at the beginning, I didn’t really know her all that well. She was my mother.

Norma Henry (1927-2007)

In the beginning there was a difference: I believed in God and the bible because I didn’t have any reason not to.

The Grace window was open wide and I jumped through it and found that it was really easy to quit smoking and walk away from many other bad habits I had picked up during my late teens and early twenties.

In the beginning it was easy to hear the Holy Spirit speak because there wasn’t much of anything else happening. Becoming a Christian was a major life-style change—it was all or nothing and the “all” seemed to go on forever.

It was easy to be the odd man out because the apostle Paul was that way—not to mention Moses, Noah, Samson, Jacob and John the Baptist. I was in good company—surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who were rooting me on in my journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.

In the beginning it was easy to eat from the Tree of Life rather than from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—even though my penchant for wanting to understand everything was never fully put out to pasture.

In the beginning it was easy to spot the Pharisees—that is until I became one myself. I am surprised at how easy it was to let form take over function—to let the organization supplant the organism and to eventually get to a point of disarray and disillusionment about it all.

In the beginning the only limits were the ones that we put on ourselves—speaking to the mountains in our lives and seeing them removed was something we were constantly working towards.

In the beginning we learned that God is the same yesterday, today and forever—therefore divine healing was for today and hadn’t passed away. We prayed with fervor for those in wheel chairs and for those with cancer and waited for the miracles to happen. When they didn’t—or at least in the way we thought they should—our faith began to take on a little water and the boat didn’t wander out in the open water as much as when we were new.

In the beginning we met for church three of four times a week and wondered about those that didn’t. We invited “sinners to dinner” and really thought that the whole world could be fixed in just a matter of a few years. We gave out lightbulbs and gospel tracts and visited those living in trailer parks and housing developments. We sowed much and harvested little and wondered why.

In the beginning, people would invite us over for dinner and more good stuff took place in kitchens and living rooms than in the official sanctuary—it was very “Organic” even before we were aware that what we were doing was “early” church stuff. Homegroups were the glue that kept everything together for us and for the church—we were all on similar rides and took time to listen to each others journey and then pray accordingly. Not every prayer was answered but we were looking forward to a day when they would be—it was that hope that was like an anchor to our souls. We hadn’t arrived but knew that one day, if we kept walking, we would be closer than when we started.

In the beginning, the men in the church would be asked every so often to raise their hands if they felt called to leadership. What would follow, if you raised your hand, was a series of Saturday meetings where the principles of leadership and basic bible stuff would be presented in hand-out form. Discussions would follow and after several weeks, we would feel further along than we had before the meetings began. Then the meetings would fade and things would go back to normal until several months later, those who felt called to leadership would be asked to raise their hands and the process would begin all over. After a while, it was only the new people who would raise their hands, as the older and “wiser” brethren would know that in the overall sceme of things, this was the way things worked and no “real” progress would ever be made. The boat would be launched, take a test sail around the bay and return to the dock in very short order.

After all these beginnings (there are many more I could have added—but you get the point), I guess we began to look in other areas for reality, since the church didn’t seem to want to live there. That’s no excuse, but the way I remember it was and has been, over and over again, all these many years.

I don’t remember when I partially checked out but it’s been a while since I have experienced the joy that Jesus felt which enabled Him to endure the cross and despise its shame—the joy that I know exists within the true fellowship that the body of Christ can be and has been and maybe is somewhere—even at this very moment.

I am told that the glory of the latter house will be greater than that of the former house—that he will restore what the canker worm has eaten—what the devil has stolen.

After the laundry comes out of the washing machine, I am going to hang my clothes on this line and wait for them to dry. All the stains may not have come out in the wash, but there is still a lot of wear left in them.

At first you might think the title of this entry is a verse from a Bob Dylan song and you would be right—although that is not what this post will address.

In one review of the book I read online, the author distilled Mander’s  first argument in one succinct paragraph which states: “Mander’s first argument centers on the mediation of experience. Speaking not so much about television and more so about how society has progressed, he explains that as humans have moved more and more into controlled living and working environments, we have lost touch with true direct experience. To his mind, this has led to a crisis in knowledge. Everything is interpreted and processed and packaged to the point that the true nature of things is completely lost. This alienating experience narrows the field of vision on life.” (Ali Asadullah)

This statement, in my mind, begs the question: What is Real and what is Not! Or more directly I guess is the question we can ask about the technology we are surrounded with: Is it real or is it not?

But I am on the trail to find out what is and what is not real. It is a ride that I am looking forward to. Happiness is not a warm gun but a conversation with a wife, a husband or a good friend.

It’s been a dry time here in the mountains of North Carolina—physically for my garden and spiritually for me.

It seems I reach a point in my life where my thoughts—after having been on the mountain top for a while—sort of slide off the side and go into hiibernation.

So, this past week end we took a road-trip to Raleigh where my daughter and son live to touch bases and celebrate my son’s graduation from NC State. It’s almost worth the drive to have dinner with the family at PF Changs and the subsequent stops at Barnes and Nobles and Starbucks for iced coffee.

In the spiritual dimension, we live in a “high place”, where it seems the enemy of our souls roams around looking for people to oppress and disturb. So, when we leave the mountains for even a couple of days, the tension and mental warfare subside and we are not just talking about a change in scenery. Sometimes you are not even aware of the change until you realize that you haven’t had an anxious thought for several hours.

Not that there aren’t other battles to fight in the flatlands—consumerism is like a wild stallion galloping at a break-neck pace across the shopping malls that seem to line every major highway. I wonder what kind of jobs those people have that allow them the “luxury” of being a part of all that spending?

But I digress.

While in a two-story Barnes and Noble bookstore this afternoon, I browsed the poetry section for a Langston Hughes poetry book, and after waiting in line to pay for it, got into another line at the coffee shop to prepare myself for the long drive home. Two people behind me was a mid-sixties woman, coffee mug in hand, talking out loud. At first I thought she must have a cell phone somewhere but I couldn’t locate one after a couple of furtive glances her way. It was almost like she was memorizing something or composing a poetic treatise out loud. The words I caught were kind of conspiracy theory type stuff and part of me wanted to ask her what whe was doing or who she was tuned into or whatever. The other part of me thought that it might just be a thin line between passive and wacky violent and so I kept my distance.

What did I have that she might want—other than a wife and friends to talk to when I feel the need or in the natural course of daily events. I could tell her that Jesus loved her but really didn’t feel a release to enter her world and then quickly leave. After I got my coffee, I sat at a table and watched her for a minute or two and then moved on but not after having thought about all the lonely people in the world and the kinds of things we might be prone to do lacking a normal relationship with someone. People go to public places for a reason—and malls and coffee shops serve as a modern day equivalent to the parks and town squares of times past.

How people get to the point of talking to themselves I don’t know. Maybe for the lady in line it is a defense mechanism—since she feels uncomfortable around people she talks to herself in order to seem crazy and keep the very people she truly needs away from her. But in large public places in big towns, the lonely people are all around—all you have to do is look.

I guess I recognize them because I can imagine being lonely too—but I am not lonely—only quiet and observant on this day before Memorial Day 2007. There are eight million stories in the naked city, the cop show used to proclaim over the credits, and this is one of them. Someboby probably has even written a book about it and the book is on one of the the shelves of this same Barnes and Noble bookstore—only I don’t know where to begin looking for it or am really even sure that I would want to read it if I happened to find it.

On a grand scale I sometimes imagine I have the answer to the world’s problems but it is really the multi-million individual people that need immediate attention that I can’t seem to get past.

In retrospect, I probably should have asked her who she talking with or what she was saying—but being an observer is who I am today.

Maybe next time I will act on the impulse and put my life on the line—if only to say—there is hope and friendship is worth the risk. Maybe next time.

Today is one of those days where there are a lot of thoughts and emotions running around inside my head and it would be nice if I could take the day off—go for a long walk or ride—and process them.

There’s a lot going around me as well. The local weatherman says that except for the chance of pm thundershowers—today is the last day in May we can expect any rain. It’s been a weird spring time in the mountains. After early record breaking high temperature days, we had a late cold spell that lasted longer than expected and took with it the apple and blueberry crops for this year.

Now the grass is turning a light greenish/brown and the garden is very dry. Not a whole lot of short term balance in nature at this point.

As human beings it seems we are always looking for balance yet at the same time living just this side of it. If one glass of wine is good, wouldn’t two be better. And the popularity of all-you-can-eat buffets almost lends itself to a binge and purge mentality. Whatever happened to leaving the table just before you feel so full you can’t eat anymore—don’t even think about the spiritual discipline of fasting.

As I was driving to work and processing some of what has transpired the past couple of days I was struck by a couple of things.

The first one is who we are and the thought patterns that have formed us over the years of our lives—for better or for worse.

And the second is that we all have a tender spot within us that when touched by action or circumstance can respond with passion and complete understanding. This place can and has been manipulated by books and movies—but hopefully we have all felt the real thing—like those times the Holy Spirit is moving and we are touched by His mercy and kindness which then translates into us feeling better about ourselves and those around us. That spot that when activated can and will inspire us to greater heights—it’s like R & R for the weary soul.

I think part of what has worked to my coming  partially unglued surrounding the circumstances of leaving a church after 22 years is the foundational thoughts which when taken all together make up who I am and what I am able to accomplish and believe.

When I was growing up I remember watching a television show called the “Miilionaire”. Each week featured a rich man’s butler showing up on someone’s doorstep and delivering a check for a million dollars. The rest of the show then played off what happeded to the lives of the people who had suddenly become rich. I don’t remember much more than that or how long the show lasted, but it certainly made an imprression on my young mind. Following that shows entrance into my mind, I actually remember wondering when the knock would come to our door—and that maybe I would find a large sum of money on the sidewalk or something to that effect. Pretty far removed from reality, but part of a comic book reading kids life—we know it is not real—but at the same time the thoughts persist like a pie in the sky dream of sorts.

What I am reaching for here is the fact that much of who we are today is based on emotional and sometimes irrational constructs of thoughts and imaginations beginning in our childhood.

It is this type of thinking that allowed Archie Bunker to exist and led me to believe that people who drove BMW’s or Mercedes cars were better than me and inherantly good people—that this was something to aspire to.

It wasn’t too long ago that I was in a rest stop off Interstate 81 and saw firsthand that the people in the 45 thousand dollar car next to me were not very nice people. They were cursing at each other and the car was cramed with all sorts of trash—as if they had been living in it for some time. Obviously they were not living an overcoming life and seemed like people who the fast food generation had taken its toll.

I was in my mid fifties at the time and remember being surprised by this thought—I guess it just shows how far a little insecurity or irrational thought can go if left unattended. It is so obvious that there are some loose ends in my life and some train tracks that run off into the woods—never to be seen again.

In the writing of all this analytical stuff over the past several months it has never been my heart to hurt anyone—but I know that that possibility exists. It is as though I can see it in the faces of some of the people involved—if the truth be known they are probably just as hurt but for different reasons.

I do know that it is harder to pay off financial debts than it is to get into debt in the first place. It is easier to keep the weight off than it is to diet and deal with it later. Where we are today has occurred over time—we have all made some good choices and some not so good ones.

I guess that is why King David implored the Lord to create in him a clean heart. He knew that his thought processes would get him into trouble one day and said that we should meditate on the word of God day and night and that if we did we would be like trees planted by rivers of water, that would bring forth fruit in season.

And that may just be the whole point: when we trust in ourselves (our natural nature) too much or trust others to be our problem solvers, we are setting ourselves up for disapointment. Not always, but often enough in my experience that we need more Godly wisdom in how to proceed with our lives than I would have ever thought.

I may see you on the road today—please give me a little space—remember I am still learning to ride