"painful, beautiful, aching madness..."

I have noticed a new trend in prayer requests. A hand goes up and information on yet another earthquake is dispensed with the tone of satisfaction that comes from being the first to proclaim ill news. I don’t know that I have ever had the privilege of knowing a more disaster-conscious group of individuals. I suppose that it stems from a quiet fear, a disquieting of soul and that nagging question that preys on us like a hound—is the end near?

I think first of all that we have a deficiency in the qualification of the terms. “Is the beginning near?” would be more accurate. We are not the reality, but the reality’s manifestation. Much the same as the Tabernacle was not a picture of a worship to come, but a system that always was and had as yet not been revealed. It is the picture Milton gave of God looking at Adam and Eve across the chasm of space and asking, “Who will redeem them?

I try to take each of these questions, these unspoken questions masked in a news bulletin with a sense of calm and lightly remark on the relative normalcy of quakes and their little known frequency. I don’t do this to give a false sense of comfort, or of time stretching infinitely towards that invisible line of the horizon; nor is it a pretense of bravado on my part. I personally feel that the end or beginning is near. I know I join centuries of Christians who say this and yet, Creation seems so restless, so full of violent wonder and trembling anticipation. Perhaps it IS a sense of false or pretentious bravado. I must confess, I do fear it, I fear it the way anyone fears the Unknown.

It is like standing at the entrance to a darkened doorway. There is a tension to that darkness that you cannot shake which is further exacerbated by a friend waiting in the shadows. You know the friend is there; you do not fear them, they are, after all, your friend. What you fear is that brief moment in Time when they leap from the shadows with a shout and all the collective tension collides in one instant of terror and then…quiet—the tension is instantly resolved. It is in every story, as in life, that the tension, much like the shape in a drop of water, keeps us in check in a sort of painful, beautiful, aching madness—longing for and fearing that last and final resolution to life’s shadows.

I am afraid I may fit into both categories of those waiting for Christ’s coming: I will be awake when he comes but fall sleep from cardiac arrest at the trumpet blast and therefore rise first after all.

idea-hating squirrels...

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but the good news is that I am rapidly breaking free from a naive assumption that is perfectly mirrored in this quote from "Finding Neverland" by Marie Ansell Barrie...or rather the script writer:

"I imagined that brilliant people disappeared to some secret place where good ideas floated around like leaves in autumn..."

If such a mythical Eden of verbiage and syntax exists then I am the poor sap who is repeatedly pelted with acorns by devious, idea-hating squirrels hidden high in the trees.

Until then, here is one more quote by that venerable Bard, a one, Edwin Arlington Robinson. Food for thought on the post-modernist's menu and perhaps I'll write more on it later:

“[the world is] a kind of spiritual kindergarten where bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”

So long. A post on the end (or the beginning) of the world coming soon.

Emily Dickinson madlibs...

During the Regionalists Unit in English 11, I decided, while studying Emily Dickinson, that it might be fun to play a little madlibs with some of her poems. They are mad, strange and incoherent. Enjoy.

Happy is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the steamboat-
And stretches the tune without the books-
And never stops-at all-

And grotesquest-in the scarecrow-is heard-
And excited must be the storm-
That could abash the bluish-gray bird
That kept so many warm.

I've perambulated (Joel's contribution) in the earthen land-
And on the oldest Sea-
Yet, never, in Extremity
It asked a Human-of Me.


This is absurd and almost obscene...keep in mind, they had no idea where the nouns, adjectives or verbs were going to go.

This is my letter to the Mud
That never wrote to Me-
The bulky News that Universe told-
With tender Majesty.

Her Mexico is committed
To toilet paper I cannot see- (That's just irony)
For love of Her-Portly-countrymen
Spanking-of Me.


And finally...

I NEVER ran a bird
I never ran the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a Liger must be.
I never threw with Obama
Nor jumped in Joel
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the teacher were given.

Unfortunately we didn't get to do the rest I had picked out. I was just getting the terms defined as to what kind of verbs, nouns, adjective, etc. that I was looking for. It could have become more and more creative.

I am the vinyl...

I had posted this a few days ago, but some response I received to it made me think it would be badly misunderstood. If you are looking at this as an autobiographical piece, you are mistaken. That being said, I think it is to a point autobiographical for many of us. We are pressed into the world's mold often times without at first realizing it...that is what makes a proper worldview so important. Again, these are just some thoughts I had, don't look at it as my life's story or my current spiritual state, because it isn't.

I am the vinyl. Pressed in a mold and placed on a turntable that spins at dizzying speeds with endless monotony and frightening regularity. The needle finds the groove; the speaker crackles with a dusty uncertainty and then spews maxims, dogmas and endless tenants and absolutes without warmth or conviction. The nostalgic “warmth” of sound is an art gleaned from hours of sermons and being that ear to conversations, that shadow man that was neither part nor parcel to the discussion…parroting, nothing but parroting. When will Love marry my discourse?

This is the external. Inside it feels as if another mold has crushed me into a peculiar conformity—a strange implosion of worldview, ethics and purpose. It constricts me, slows thought; reasoning disappears and before the dust settles, a new figure haunts my shelf.

I have been encoded with billions of sound bytes, video files and MP3 tracks. As if the whole world were a voice and I the indiscriminate Ear that bends low and strains for the beautiful, the grotesque, the lie, the bawdy, the banal, the cryptic and vacuous statements of the upper echelons of style and culture, and pandered to the esoteric philosophies that gild my image but further confuse my mind. I am the dictator, the oppressed, the democracy and the corruption. I have the Bible as my constitution while cutting its entries and pasting in my own like some hallowed scrapbook of personal freedom. I have lain with the Golden Mistress in secret then cursed the wealthy for walking through sunlight with Her, arm in arm. I am that sad paradox. I am man—clothed in religion.

haiti and my dad...

My mother pointed something out to me at dinner the other night. My mother sometimes does this and I have to thank her for it really. She will compliment me on my blog and what I have written and then comes “the clause.” The motherly critique, and in this case, as in most, she was dead on.

“You forgot to thank your Dad.”

So I did. I would like to say there are reasons, but when one makes such a glaring omission, none of them really seem to stand up to any scrutiny. A day or two before Dad got there, I was trying to run the show on my own, with Mike as my runner. No help. I thought, the MAF guys are too busy and I can’t ask them. They quickly realized that it was not working for me to do it alone and jumped in and helped me out on top of all of their own work.

So, when Dad came, that part of the rodeo had already calmed down and he simply slipped right into a place one of the MAF guys had been filling. It was seamless. I didn’t have to worry about him being there, or even think too much about it. Dad was crowd control. He took the bookings or reservations which was one of the more difficult parts of the job and one I didn’t particularly like…dealing with people; desperate people.

I can’t say that by forgetting to thank Dad in my wrap-up post that I was paying him a compliment. There is something to be said for someone who does a job well enough that they aren’t noticed because they don’t require constant praise, but there is also something to ‘giving honor to whom honor is due.’

I don’t think Dad needs me to thank him. Like myself, the greatest sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from that job were the handshakes and smiles you got from grateful people. I don’t know too many people who are privileged to do mission work side by side with their Dad and enjoy doing it.

So, thanks Dad for raising me to honor God and to love the work that I grew up watching you do. Thanks for never making missions or deprivation of ‘the finer things in life’ to be a drudgery. Thanks most of all for living a godly example before me. It was a privilege to work with you. Thank you.

greyskypanerathoughts...

It is one of those perfect days. Low, grey clouds and the rain that falls soft on the earth. The whole earth is still. Only the wind dares stir the trees, grass and leave ripples on the face of the water. I was late to class today; an accidental miss-call from a friend my violent alarm. Awakening shot like consciousness from the barrel of a gun as I stared at the dancing numbers on my stereo clock.

There went my first class.

Not perhaps the perfect way to start a new week, but my host teacher didn’t seem to notice and really, with a day as beautiful as today, I think everyone is at ease. I called my boss to see if he needed me at work…he didn’t and so it was plan A. Panera.

Jack and I found ourselves with a bowl of fantastic soup, the best fontega chicken panini’s I’ve ever had and good conversation. Add to that a cup of hot tea and rain drops on the floor to ceiling windows and you have the recipe for problem solving and the birthplace of thought…or the recipe for no thought at all. Either way, the tea goes down smooth and the talk rises and falls like the breeze through the door as it opens and closes behind each patron.

I watched the keynote from Apple for this year, the launch of the new IPad. Another in a line of gadgets no one needs, but everyone wants. It is an amazing piece of machinery and technology and I found running scenarios in my head to justify the purchase of one later this year. Nothing concrete yet, but I’ll keep you posted. Haiti helps me trump any large superfluous buy on the future horizons. Somehow scrolling the New York Times with my fingers or reading an IBook or painting a digital picture with my fingertips seems emptier than the stomachs of the street children staring at the cold lenses of newsmen.

A few times today I have felt the sinister shadow of self-pity slipping in behind me. I went with very little luggage and came back the same. I did manage to pack in a sinus and ear infection with the dusty, sweaty clothes I crammed into a worn, green, US military issue, duffel bag as I boarded the plane and turned my back to one of the worst disasters in history.

Self-Pity.

Can you imagine that? I who have all the antibiotics and at-your-fingertips medical aid and am sitting in a fully adjustable, heavily padded, office chair in a temperature controlled environment and a fresh cup of coffee a few inches from my right hand. Self-pity?

I grew up in third world countries. I’ve seen poverty, malnutrition, and the empty look of a soul bound in animism and fear. I’ve lived off the warm coast of Ghana on the western side of Africa and I’ve grown playing in the dry, cool, sandstone highlands of Lesotho in the Southern tip of Africa. I’ve known the heat, red dirt and stench of Nigeria’s Lagos suburbs. I’ve walked the winding, claustrophobic passages of Zambian and Namibian marketplaces with the smell of fish emanating down every corridor from the center square. I have seen a few things in my short life and yet I have never looked at food and other blessings quite the same as now. I think I have so much it has become a disease.

It’s like I’m standing in a doorway to a room in some great mansion. I’m looking around the room, but I can’t really see what I’m looking for and I can’t tell why. I see an old chair in the corner, but my eyes are stinging and my eyelids flutter from some invisible auto response. The far end has a window closed by curtains and I walk there and as soon as the curtains come back, a beam of bright light blasts through the gloom like a comet and in its tail dances millions of dusty particles. Haiti was that comet for me. I now see the trappings that blurred my vision, closed my eyelids and kept me from being thankful and for realizing God’s amazing gifts in my life.

There will be two things in the aftermath of this tragedy that will be difficult to balance and to keep in check. The first is to be thankful for all that we have. The second, is not to feel guilty for all that we have. That doesn’t mean unnecessary indulgence, but if God has blessed you, don’t slap His hand away, but thank Him and use that blessing to be a blessing for others. An ear infection doesn’t seem all that bad now does it?

haiti...wrap up

I know there is no way to remember everything that happened the last three days I was in Haiti. I was not pulling bodies from the rubble, no child's life depended upon my years of schooling and skilled hands. There was no M4 slung across my chest, right index finger at the ready. I wasn’t piloting a C130 bringing much needed relief, but God gave me the opportunity to do just a little to help bring change to the people of Haiti.

I scheduled flights. I suppose in the seven days that I was in Haiti I helped run the equivalent of a small, international airline, three to five flights a day out of a three-ring binder and a laptop computer. I ate one meal a day and whatever granola bar or power bar I could get my hands on. I had to deal with ten to twenty people simultaneously vying for my attention while keeping track of forty to forty-five passports, a few green cards and entering all the info into a manifest; all of which I knew nothing about before I got there. I can look at a visa and within seconds know if it is valid or expired and know reasonably sure of any counterfeiting. I have had people yelling at me, praising me, hugging, kiss me and yes, I thought some wanted to hit me and probably would have if a large helicopter pilot by the name of Brian Parker hadn't become my bodyguard one day.

Lest I give a false impression, let me tell you how I did it. I am not organized, I don’t have that type A personality for leadership, but I felt God's strength when I needed it most. Beyond that I had the most amazing group of guys that praised me when I felt I was doing it all wrong, helped pick me up when I would rather just have gone to my tent and did any errand they could for me even though they had plenty to do themselves. So, to the guys from MAF: Dirk, Tim, Will, Mark, Mike, Gregory, Fanes, Rick, John, Todd, Brian, Scott and Mike Labady from Agape and Roland Lussier, you have my deep gratitude and respect.

My world was an airport full of soldiers, helicopters, C17, C130 and every other type of military transport plane. I met famous people and rubbed shoulders with the greatest people the Nascar circuit has ever had. I rode jumpseat with pilots Ivan and Mike of Joe Gibbs racing, always had a friendly smile from Jackie, Stormy, Ken, and so many other names I can't even remember now from the Hendricks and Joe Gibbs teams. God has blessed me beyond measure and yet, even though I am grateful for being able to help and for all of these "extras" that God threw my way, there is one thing I can't get out of my head.

I was in an airport in a nice Coleman tent with an air mattress. The people outside the heavily guarded fences were in tent cities and on streets. If you drive through Port-au-Prince at night you'll see the people getting ready for bed. They block off one lane of traffic and in that lane they begin to spread their blankets. The children roll restlessly as they fight sleep laying on a single blanket on the asphalt. I don't even know if they've eaten. My stress and one MRE meal a day seem pretty good juxtaposed next to the hopelessness that stares those children full in the face.

We in the west in our comfortable arm chairs, designer coffee shops and flat screen TV's cannot comprehend it. I was there and I still can't. I do know this. Don't be like the media and be so quick to judge people like the ten that were arrested at the Dominican Republican border. I stared at a lot of paperwork this past week and I had to tell a lot of desperate parents that under the circumstances they couldn't get their child, the one sleeping in the street, out of Haiti. The Haitian's don't know the procedures, UNICEF is a mess and no one knows what is happening. The Embassy has closed ears and all of Haiti is in shambles. Next time the media says a church group or someone else was "child trafficking" don't be so quick to believe it. There are a lot of good people there and if you saw the hurting, you just might have tried the same thing. I don’t condone any law breaking, but if you had met Rob, you might understand the despondency of some of these parents.

Rob hung out with us for several days. He was from Colorado, his wife was in a rundown hotel in Ft. Lauderdale while he walked around Port-au-Prince, trying desperately to get his son and return to safety. He and his wife have known loved, visited, spent thousands and thousands no doubt trying to get their son adopted in Haiti. They have been victim to a corrupt government and greedy officials who see wealth and exploit helpless children, leaving their lives in limbo in order to get money from people (many who cannot have their own children) who long to show that child love. Rob was so discouraged. It hurt my heart to see him. The last time I saw Rob he said he was taking his boy back to the orphanage and he would have to return home the next day. The government and UNICEF had shut down all adoptions, even though they’d been in the process for years. I never saw Rob again. I hope he didn’t try anything desperate like those ten at the Dominican Republic border, but after looking in his eyes and hearing his story, watching him lay back on a tractor tire and just stare at the stars without the will to do anything, I can’ t say I would blame him.

I hope none of us in the coming months and years will forget Haiti. Like the AIDS crisis in Africa, Haiti is fast becoming a "sexy" issue that everyone jumps on because it makes them feel good about themselves and their compassion. It's easy to go to a concert, buy and album on Itunes or wear a trendy t-shirt...getting your hands dirty is another thing. My hat and prayers go off to all the missionaries, orphanage workers, doctors, soldiers, helicopter pilots and many, many others that are in Haiti right now. The flip side is this, if you have bought an album or a t-shirt in true compassion, than you’ve done your best. Not everyone can go down there and certainly not everyone should.

Sorry this is a bit disjointed. Some experiences you cannot pull into words and some images won't fit within the frame of a paragraph. Thanks for everything you are doing for the Haitian people. One thing to leave you with that Mark Williams, the program director for MAF in Haiti, a man who has lived over twenty years there said; no matter what we do, if we do it without Christ’s love, we are clanging brass and tinkling cymbal.