Many of you have emailed me to check on how I've been these last few, quiet months. Rather than call via satellite or fiber optics, stop by your home for a visit, meet you for breakfast, run a tin can with twine from your treehouse to mine, get a gig at a major venue and send out a sensitive ballad just for you, make a personal documentary for viewing at your local cinema, send a singing telegram or a message in a bottle, pass notes in class, mail a Christmas card, offer an interpretive dance (or, "choreographed movement" we called it in the Baptist church), write an autobiographical novel (don't get me started), YouTube you, Facebook you, MySpace you, or otherwise assault you with personal messages from me to you, I thought I would objectify and dehumanize our relationship by catching all of you in this world wide net.
How have I been? Okay, I suppose. It has been a year of Sturm und Drang. I've questioned who I am as a father and a son. I haven't always been the best husband or friend. My faith has been tested, confirmed, and tested again. People who matter a great deal to me have taken hits. It would be easy to sit and pout as I pick the shrapnel of collateral damage out, but it hasn't all been lateral. Some of it has been internal, self-inflicted. When you walk stumble-drunk in a minefield, you're bound to lose a limb. But, hey, we go to war with who we are, not who we want to be.
I have had trouble finding joy. It has to find me. And it does from time to time. It finds me in the classroom and in the middle of a song. It finds me in the swing of a hammer and in the middle of a tight, tight hug. It finds me when we cut through the bullshit and tell each other the truth. Not the partisan, scriptural, or certified truth; just those moments when we get humble and honest and connect in those transcendent ways that can only happen when pretense is outlawed and self-preservation is replaced by love.
I haven't written much. Of anything. It's like I've run out of things to say. Cause for disappointment from few and celebration by many. I'm not exactly sure why I have been absent from the blog. I suppose some of it is the rancor. I know I dish it out as much as it is served to me, but consistent with my strong belief that the WAY we talk is more important than WHAT we say, I took the measure of you and me and found us wanting. That is not to say there aren't still plenty of people in high (and low ) places who need an occasional boot in their ass, me being chief among them, I just don't want to worship the gods we create and serve in our kicking. One of my favorite songwriters, David Wilcox, would say I'm becoming an "Atheist."*
Merry Christmas. And, as the old year gives way to caucus and taxes, classroom and faxes, theory and praxis, grinding and axes--the pitch and yaw of all that awaits us in 2008--may we all be atheists.
*Apparently this song is an adaptation from the original by Brian McLaren.
8 comments:
I can't believe what they believe...
but I believe in you.
Thanks for introducing me to that atheist song.
May all our self-inflicted wounds heal.
Amen, BL.
I've been feeling the same way, brother. Below is my self-mecicating way of dealing with it. What do I do when I feel bad? I write a song. Hang in there...this year's almost over.
Todd
Wisdom in the Well 12\21\07
You proclaim the truth
Well what’s your point of view?
I don’t have the proof
To sell my truth to you
And you won’t take the time
To talk with me a while
You’re just searching for a crime
In the absence of a trial
But should you find some guilt
Worthy of your hell
There’s mercy in the moment
And wisdom in the well
Your anger is just fear
In the absence of a touch
The darkness is never clear
And the burden can be too much
If I’ve stumbled along the way
If I’ve taken the lower road
The price is mine to pay
On the debts that I might owe
And should you find some fault
Cluttered along my trail
There’s mercy in the moment
And wisdom in the well
Regrets can’t stand alone
Change must follow suit
And you may never know
If the seed will bear the fruit
I try to do what’s right
As I find my way
As the sky turns to night
Tangled up in gray
There’s not much room for judgment
If everybody fell
But there’s mercy in the moment
And wisdom in the well
Well done, brother. Sounds like you've been listening to some Fogelberg.
Please tell me you are returning to posting here more frequently? ;)
Great lyrics (Wilcox and Todd). My thoughts lack such eloquence, but bear with me.
Sh*t happens. (They couldn't put it on a bumper sticker if it wasn't true). The test is in our perception. When it happens do we see ourselves trapped in the city sewer system tramping through the muck sans boots? Or do we see it as compost? That microbiological miracle that turns trash into rich, black nurturing soil that when spread upon the garden of us produces far more beauty and magnificance than ordinary soil.
[sigh]
all I really wanted for Christmas was to learn how to splel.
I myself have been having a character shaping year (or four) so I think I can relate somewhat to where you are in your life. In my case the struggles are harder and the mountains taller when I run away from God, something I've become quite adept at in recent months. Everyone should be good at something, right?
I'm not implying your walk has become a crawl; just reminding you that others struggle also, none of us are perfect, and seasons come and go.
Welcome back, Reacher. You've been missed.
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