Looking For The Long Ride

Hey 3:30 am bloggers, it’s me again.

According to the commercials on television, most adults have some sort of sleeping disorder at least a couple of times a week. And the big drug companies would have us believe that they have the answer to all of our problems.

They probalby think that they have everything solved because of the success of Viagra and other compounds like it that help men with those kinds of problems. I mean I get at least 25 e-mails a day at work telling me how much better my life will be if I would order Viagra or Cialis from their barely legal internet drugstore. It’s the thing that dreams are made of and the reason advertising exists in the first place.

Find something that someone can be bothered about (bad breath, underarm smell, pimples) and make people feel so self-conscious about it that they will run to the store to buy the product they think will solve the problem or make it go away. Let’s face it, car commercials are really not about buying a vehicle to get you to work and back. Buying a car is about part of the american dream….it is about sex and the perception of success and happiness that is bandied about like it is our constitutional right.

What about the tribes in Africa that have never even seen a coke bottle. They don’t yet realize how much better their life would be if they could just take a couple of sips.

I say this because i just watched “The Gods Must Be Crazy” again after maybe 20 years. It’s about a tribe in Africa that find a coke bottle thrown from an airplane. They believe that everthing they come into contact with is put there by the gods for their use and soon find that they can use the coke bottle for all the little things that they do everyday as a nomadic tribe.

However, there is only one coke bottle and you can guess the rest. Everyone wants the coke bottle and soon they begin to be jealous of one another and begin to fight over possesion of that coke bottle. Up until they found the coke bottle, the tribe had never known these types of emotions and it was making them all miserable. So, the leader of the tribe decided to take the bottle and throw it off the edge of the earth. They couldn’t figure out why the gods had given them this thing that in the end made them all feel so bad.

But that’s really another story.

Back to sleep or the lack thereof. I read a story in a newspaper magazine that the best thing to do when you wake up at night and can’t seem to get back to sleep is  to get up and write or read for a while. It takes the pressure off getting back to sleep and then when you return to bed you can go right to sleep.

It may really be a gift from God because I guess it (getting up during the night) is really a way to fit things into a busy life. And while it’s a drag pulling yourself out of a warm bed into a cold house, I have never regreted getting up after the fact.

I have talked with some people and they say they pray when they awake during the night and that seems like a wise use of the time. They may be praying for you or me right at this very moment.

So, while part of me would rather sleep through the night each and every time, I am almost getting used to the fact that this time is allright too. And it would be shame to take one of those little pills that the drug companies have invented to help me not wake up at all.

Although, you may be asking yourself if what you have just read is really “wake-up worthy”. I would have to say yes. To a writer, even the act of putting together one sentence after another in some fashion is progress. Just the shear pleasure of watching as the words and thoughts pop out and get wrtten down is worth it.

So, now that my mind is a little less clogged, I will go back to sleep and try to blog during a normal waking hour. And good luck to you as well.

It’s 4:30 am and I am wide awake.

Well maybe not “wide awake” but up anyway.

I was thinking the other day about patterns. Patterns that we get into with our lives that really limit our movement forward. Watching TV at night is a pattern. We have our favorite shows and since they are serialized, we watch from week to week to keep up with the lives of the charactures we have come to know.

It is like a modern day “catharsis”.

According to the dictionary, catharsis is:

1.the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.

In other words, instead of living our lives through ourselves and the stuff that happens to us on a daily basis, we live them through the actors who are paid to keep us entertained and emotionally satisfied.

A pattern is:

1. A consistent, characteristic form, style, or method, as:
   1. A composite of traits or features characteristic of an individual or a group: one’s pattern of
      behavior.

Winter time in the mountains brings with it a pattern. The days get shorter and colder and the things that we did during the good weather, we stop doing.

We don’t take our evening walks because it’s dark after dinner.

There are other things we can do to occupy our time but in order to do them we have to create new patterns. In other words, we have to have a plan, a goal, a destination.

But what happens a lot is we just let the TV entertain us. After a long day at work…it’s nice to just chill because we are emotionally drained and all that.

It is hard to come home every night and eat dinner and then spend a few hours writing the next great american novel. That takes real planing and dedication. But if we only wrote for 15 minutes an evening, at the end of the year we would have 5,475 minutes logged. That’s 91.25 hours of writing…more than two work weeks. Can one write the next great amercian novel in 92 hours…I doubt it but it’s a start.

That’s one reason I started this blog. It’s a new pattern…something to get me out of the old patterns. I started it knowing that at the end of a certain point of time I would have a journal of thoughts and stuff. However, you can only be so honest in a blog. So the “real” stuff must still be journaled in a book.

And that’s sounding a lot like work and TV is looking even more appealing….but you know what I mean.

So, I guess my prayer this morning is this: that God would grant me the wisdom to carve out a little more time each day for playing the guitar or violin, writing, reading the Bible, spending a little more time with my wife and kids and Him.

Maybe I could then sleep a little better.

Sunday mornings have become a lot more relaxed since we started attending a new church. It meets at 5 in the afternoon rather than the standard 10 or 11 in the morning.

So…I can lay around in the bed and let my mind float around and process things that seem to get pushed aside during the workweek.

One of the images that came to mind this morning was that of my wife and I exploring the woods around our house in Ashe County back in the late 1970’s and early 80’s.

This was before kids mostly…which gives us about a year and a half of being totally unencumbered. After kids, we used the front pack and back pack as each one got older and heavier. We didn’t skip to many beats, our trips into the wild just got slower and less frequent.

Anyway, we lived in an old house that was surrounded by several hundred acres of forests and mountains. We were mostly city folks who liked our subdivisions and would head to the state parks when we needed to get a nature hit.

So the thought of having all this property to explore was rather exciting.

I guess the point being this morning is the feeling of heading into the woods…not knowing where you would end up and being pleasantly surprised to find a spring, a valley or an old house you had no idea was there. And then there was finding your way back.

Life at that point in time was an adventure…each and everyday. We’d take different paths each time out or go a little further on the one we had explored the day before.

These adventures were our entertainment. We had a stereo but no tv in our house. Most nights were spent reading books and talking…just like I imagined the early settlers must have done. We did have electricity, but the old home place was electrically challenged with only a few outlets and bare bulbs hanging from a wire in the middle of the ceiling.

This is a part of my ride that I will always fondly remember.

The woods, my wife, our walks, talks and exploration. It doesn’t get any better.

When I was in high school and junior college I was not really a part of the “cool” crowd, nor was I part of the uncool squad. There were “frats” and “greasers”. College bound and blue collar bound.

It was as simple as that.
Or was it?

Why do we look to things that are outside ourselves to get our identity?

I could go in several directions at this point…what point?

Over a period of several years I preached at the church I attended two or three times. Each time I preached ( I call it sharing ) I would work Bob Dylan into the sermon somehow. Just as he seemed to always fit when I needed him in high school, he fit during those times of sermonizing. This may sound heretical to some, but trust me, Dylan had a lot going for him.

#1…the Bible says that God gives gifts to men and that he doesn’t repent after He gives them. Bob got his gift from God (the Creator) and during a period of time (from Slow Train Coming through Saved) he had a decidedly Christian message.

All God wants is a little credit.

#2…Dylan helped me make it through some tough times.

High school in the small town I grew up in was mostly brutal. The haves and the have nots. This side of the tracks and that side. During my stay, I lived on both sides and in the middle. You can imagine how confusing my life was.

Many times I would come home after a night out (read into that whatever you want) and feel a little lost or out of sorts with myself and the world. The only thing that would help me settle down would be to put the stereo headphones on, turn off the lights, and listen to Dylan ( I also listened to Miles Davis, but that is another story ).

The album I remember most is “Bringing It All Back Home”.

It’s Allright Ma was the song I remember most.

Even though the lyrics were a little bleak, I would gather some solice from them and after a time, calm down enough to go to sleep and look forward to another day.

I memorized them. I knew every guitar lick and harmonica chorus.

Here is one verse that has stuck with me.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

Some people stopped at Dylan’s voice. I took it in…hook, line and sinker.

I still think that he is one of America’s greatest poets.

I have no idea where he stands with God at this point.

His latest album Modern Times is a great one even though the poetry in it doesn’t peer into the great unkown looking for answers.

I got this weird compilation album several weeks ago on Amazon dot com and there was one cut on it that had this group singing lyrics from the Song of Songs in the Bible. So I read the whole book the other day to see where the lyrics came from.

Talk about imagery…that book is loaded with it.

But that’s another story….for another time.

In “My Back Pages” Dylan wrote:

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.


Later.

I have always liked words.

I used to use them to impress people. I am relatively sure that most of those people were more annoyed than impressed with my big words and obscure phrases.

The correct use of words can take our minds into places of understanding and open up vistas of meaning and sense that verge on the sublime.

It’s like the King James version of the Bible. It was translated during a time when words had more depth and complexity. A time when words had subtle inflections. Am I making sense.

Sort of like the Eskimo. Since their lives were lived around a lot of snow, I have heard they had 10 or 12 different words for it. Wet snow, dry snow, snow that was hard-packed or snow that would give way when walking, etc.

In the Hebrew and Greek (also Aramaic) languages that the Bible was written in, most words have many different inflections depending on the context within which they were used. When reading the Bible I like to look up the highlighted words in the Strongs Concordance and really get a feeling for the concepts being expressed.

Back to poetry and Gary Snyder. Snyder is considered to have been a part of the “beat” poetry movement which included Allen Ginsburg and the like. This poetry, at its’ core, was autobiographical. They took what was happening to them and around them and turned their experiences into poetry or prosody. They would break thoughts and sentences into lines and make it look like sonnet type stuff that historically had been viewed as poetry.

This would be like e. e. cummings, Lawrence Ferlingetti, and Jack Kerouac.

Anyway, Snyder’s peotry is about his life and his travels….his ride if you will. He was and is an enviromentalist and his poetry is filled with images of nature and so forth. In reading him, I am opened to the fact that a lot of stuff is happening around us all the time, which can, in and of itself, be quite overwhemling and sometimes frustrating.

That we often just bounce over the top of what is going on and never take the time to examine it…our lives in the context of prose or poetry.

So…here’s my poem to all of that.

Do our days mean “more”
when we can turn them into poetry
or a reality show
that everybody can tune into on national TV.

To really be awake
To Live a life full of hope and even wonder.
What will it take?
What paradigm do we have to crack open
to get there?

“An unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates

I think that is why I like a good film…if the characters are well done, we are more or less pushed into looking at our own lives while interacting with the movie.

Take the movie Elizabethtown, which I watched over the Thanksgiving holiday. In following the lives of the main characters, I get to take a look at my own life and where I am at. We are all somewhere between life and death…on a ride or a path. Everyday we make choices about what to take in and what to leave out.

I wrote a poem years ago and in it was the line….”the mindless maintenance of our days.”

This was during a time in my life when I was an apartment house manager in East Lansing, Michigan. I was also an off and on student at Michigan State. The routine of my life was so much the same everyday that doing a load of laundry was an event. So much for that.

Then later came the saying, “If you aim for nothing, you will hit it!.”

And Charles Bukowski wrote a book of poems entitled, “The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills”.

No matter how you say it, life is fleeting.

The Bible tells us that our days are numbered as are the hairs on our heads. That our time on the earth is but a second compared to all of time…a fleeting moment.

We can all attest to the fact that time seems to evaporate around us as we get older.

Brian Tracy did a series of motivational tapes entitled, “How To Master Your Time.” I might need to listen to them again if I want to make use of what time I have been given. Am I making a difference or just “biding my time”.

Only time will tell..oh well…ring the bell. I am ready for the next class.

I spent the morning trucking between Best Buy in Raleigh and the Barnes and Noble bookstore across from the Crabtree Mall. The parking lots were filled…people waiting for spaces.

I dropped the girls off at the mall at 7:00 am and was set to rendevous at 10:30. I only had one goal: buy a present for one of my daughters. That goal accomplished, I went to the bookstore, got a Starbucks coffee and headed to the poetry section. I was looking for Gary Snyder books. He’s a poet from the 60’s who was kinda like a  zen Witman: he wrote stuff about trailing bear and fox. I think he married a Japaneese girl. And they lived in a log cabin somewhere and heated with wood and enjoyed the uncluttered life. Kinda like Amish but with a distinctive American twist.

Anyway…I think I have about exhausted that subject.

Had Thanksgiving with our kids in Raleigh, NC. It was one of the best. Lots of food, a small kitchen/dining room and several different red wines.

After dinner (it might have been before) we watched “Elizabethtown” on a very wide screen tv. And that is really the substance of this whole entry.

The movie stars Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom and illustrates the dichotomy between realism and romance.

One definition of dichotomy is:

1. a division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action.

The realism part is that life occasionally sucks. People die and we have to deal with it.

The romanticisim part is that we have the potential to be so much more than what we live out on a daily basis.

The story is that two people meet and connect. We’ve all been there. They hardly know each other and talk on their cellphones all night. They are amazed at how much they have in common. We’ve all been there…right?

He’s dealing with his father’s death and she is a breath of fresh air. She is over the top…more that he deserves.

The movie opens us up to the potential that each life holds. We have the ability to be so much more than what we are every day.

Life really is short. We don’t need a movie to tell us that do we? Enjoy your ride today.

I am surprised at how quickly my time has filled up since I committed to entering the world of the “Blog”.

I was seriously intent for the first week and now I have let several days go by and entered nothing. Not that I haven’t had thoughts that could have led to an entry. I guess life is either focused on one thing “Your Job” / “Your Family”, etc. or something else.

My life has been focused on moving on….

Four weeks ago, my wife and I left the church we attended for the past 22 years.

It was not an easy decision…matter of fact it took over two years to get the feeling that we were doing the right thing…the only thing left to do.

It was “Grief” and “Relief” all rolled up into one big softball in my stomach. Grief for what we were leaving…and relief that we were finally at peace with a decision.

I have also come to that point in “blogness” where I decide not to hold anything back. It is actually for me anyway….writing my thoughts…in order to release me from having to hang onto them in an unhealthy way. If you read them…it is like reading a dream anyway. You don’t know whether I am telling stories or telling truth or a bit of both.

I am reminded of a poem by Czeslaw Milosz. He is a Lithuanian awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980.

The poem is called “Late Ripeness” and begins:

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

The poem ends with:

I knew always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

When one door closes, another opens. The journey is always beginning and ending.

I am once again excited about my future.

What about yours?

I have always been intrigued by the biblical concept of rest.

In Hebrews 4:9 we see this written:

9There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest….

Making an effort to enter into rest. The word rest in the Greek means:

1) a putting to rest

a) calming of the winds

2) a resting place

a)
metaph. the heavenly blessedness in which God dwells, and of which he
has promised to make persevering believers in Christ partakers after the toils and trials of life on earth are ended

It is an active word…not a passive word. As if to imply there is an action on our part that brings rest.

In the Kings James version of the Bible the word used instead of “make every effort” is “labour”.

Let us labour to enter into that rest.

The implication also is that by making every effort to enter into that rest, we cease from doing our thing and allow God to do His thing. In other words, you rest, I’ll work.

I read something interesting the other day by Graham Cooke which illustrates this very point. It has been Graham’s goal for several years to find the rest that God has promised. Part of his ministry is and has been to help churches in crisis find their way again.

He relates a story in which a church invited him to come to their place and deal with a number of issues. A week or so before the scheduled meeting, the church leaders sent Graham a 6 page letter outlining their woes. Graham said that he didn’t even read the letter but rather exercised resting in God even though there was much to be done in this situation and other arenas he was involved in.

When the time came to meet with the church leaders, he was rested and was able to exercise wisdom in helping them through their problems. They thought he was very wise and were pleased with his solutions. In actuality, he rested and then allowed God to speak through him and into their mess. God knew what was needed all along.

So, letting go of control, is allowing Him to be in control; which, in effect, is getting the best result for our effort.

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. What about you?

Until we know better, we all think we had a normal upbringing. Until we are older and look back on those early, formative years, we really don’t have a clue. Or at least that is what I think at this point in my life.

I recently remembered a time during my youth that seems somehow connected with something although I don’t know what it would be.

Even though my parents were not rich by any means, I had a membership to the local YMCA.

The school I went to, Grant Elementary, went from K through 8 and was located in between some old neighborhoods, some new subdivisions and some rather rough poor sections of town. So, there were rich and poor kids at Grant; black, Hispanic and white kids.

I remember Raymond Lincoln. He was a teddy bear kind of guy who just happened to be colored (the word we used in those days). As I remember he wasn’t a real smart guy but was a lot of fun to be around, at school that is. After school was a different story.

As my memory serves, Raymond followed me home one day. I lived within a couple of blocks of school and I know I had it a lot better than him. We must have been in sixth grade, maybe seventh. I even remember him having dinner with us at one point.

Well on that particular day that he followed me home, I must have mentioned the YMCA and swimming and that maybe he could come with me one time. I also remember thinking better of it and trying to get out of my commitment. The scene I recall is my mother on the front porch of our little starter house, me toward the side of the driveway and Raymond in the front yard by the big tree.

And my mother was making me keep my word and had me set a time (Saturday morning) when Raymond would come with me to the Y.

Scan forward to Saturday, at the Y, which is 99.9% white kids, and me standing in line to get in with a very black Raymond Lincoln. He was so excited and was bouncing around. I was slightly embarrassed by all the attention I thought I was getting because of him and was not really aware at the time of all the other socially significant things that were going on around me. That would come many years later.

All I was concerned with at the time was just making it through the morning and what I thought everyone else thought. I guess kids are like that. No excuses, just a fact of life in the 60’s.

Anyway, we were soon let in to the locker room and on to the pool where it was “free swim” time.

A picture I will never forget (getting over my self-consciousness) is Raymond jumping off the board and splashing into the pool and having more fun than anyone else around. It was truly one of those days, had I been older and wiser, that I would have enjoyed and even taken a part in besides being a spectator of my own life.

Things are fuzzy after that. Raymond was still around but I don’t remember him coming to the YMCA again. I know that my membership would be mostly off after that time as the monetary cost was a little high.

I often wonder what happened to Raymond.

Sometimes I even wonder what happened to me, but that’s another story, for another day.