Death by Funk

There was a moment this weekend amid the food, cooking, preparing and stressing that I slowed down to appreciate the smallest events.  It was the pause on the phone with a family member, the in-character stories you tell one another with the proper voice inflection and mannerisms of the person that never will learn they are being characterized.  It was the look of a best friend just after disciplining your kid, the spilling of a beer on a table, spray butter and dogs that steal cookies out of a little girls' hand.

Then there is school, where I found myself saying the phrase, "I will shut this down," with the insistence of a man who may have bit off more than he can chew.  I have a "split" class this year, which is a combination of fourth and fifth graders.  While I am able to teach them some of their subjects one on one, the afternoons are a failed attempt at classroom management and independent education.  

One part of my weekend was to properly spread icing on cupcakes.  I realized chocolate icing spreads much better than vanilla, but I also realized that no matter how careful you are with something, you're libel to make some mess.  

Family.

It was the look of my exhausted wife, the enthusiasm of my younger daughter who had just turned four (and then asks if she was turning five on the next day), the tantrum of a son who cannot share the spotlight.  It's the shy kid who doesn't participate and the oldest kid whose eagerness drowns those around him.  

It was the look of a man who is fighting the demons inside him.  What makes a man want the comfort of drugs?  Romans chapter 8 talks a lot about the grumblings and yearnings of the spirit.  I could see such yearnings in that face this past weekend.  It stunned me.  

At church I sometimes see the remnants of pain.  A bandage where a limb once writhed.  A sigh of a past miscarriage (I could handle the joy of a small heartbeat alongside you, beating with your every step.  How could I go on once that heartbeat stopped?  Only a mother truly knows.)  The soulful rendition of "Amazing Grace."  Do we cry in the comfort of our pews because it was us once?  Or do we cry knowing it could easily happen again?  

Mowing the grass on a chilly night.  Those little clumps of grass that wont mulch enough, mocking your steps with little hills of stubbornness.  The grass that blows on the concrete that wont blow away no matter how close the nozzle gets to it.  

And I even left that mower sitting outside.  Such is my mind.  I think I drove past three destinations in just four days.  Sometimes I am driving to work when I'm supposed to get ice.  Other times the music transports myself into a back road that turns into a short cut of confusion.  My uncle died behind the wheel.  Theories are he fell asleep, and there is plenty of evidence and family stories of just that fact.  I'd like to think he was peacefully singing along with the Isley Brothers into the wrong lane.  Perhaps if they find me in such a manner, the coroner will announce, "Death by Funk."

Where is this blog going?  Perhaps I should shut this thing down with the insistence of a man who has bitten off more than he can chew.  The questions will always come.  God loves them, so I keep asking.  Maybe I can write them down long enough to perhaps find an answer.