Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Disclaimers

It became evident after a rather jarring phone call from a loved one that perhaps last night's recent blog, "Letters from my Father(s)" needed a disclaimer.  It needed an explanation, perhaps, for the feelings behind the faux letter written, presumably, by my father.  Raw, insensitive, and as real as my childhood memories could fathom.

Then I began thinking that my life needed a disclaimer as well.  A sign from the car window:  WARNING, CONTENTS FRAGILE.  HANDLE WITH CARE.  BABY ON BOARD.  There's a certain amount of trust I must have with myself, a sense of humility to have the desire or will sometimes, to put fingers to keyboard and scribe a witness account of my life.  Its future has not yet been written, and the future cannot unveil itself to me because the past keeps wanting to "hang out."  God places a feeling, a wanting, on my heart, and grudgingly at times, change happens.  Sometimes I think I can change my future on my own, manipulate the present into life-long fix-it moments.  Good prayer, devotions, smiling.  As I've found, none of those things have a bearing on the next, as events happen sometimes without warning.  All these good works are meaningless.  This outward character building, on a strictly human level, is respected perhaps, maybe scorned by the cynic.  But as I've found out all too well, even being in deep prayer does not help you withstand the onslaught.  It helps you handle it better.  Quiets the meltdown.

OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN WHAT THEY SEEM.

So it was not without some trepidation that last night's post was sent to blog hell.  I have been leading a "Wild at Heart" study by John Eldredge.  It's all about realizing that man, us, me, have been placed on this earth for adventure, purpose and heart.  Most men who acknowledge they are Christians have lost their heart and their sense of adventure because the church has made them a "nice guy", work has desensitized their aggression, and their wives have emasculated them into domestic automatons.  Most men find that in their journey for adventure realize they have wounds, and almost always these wounds were given by their fathers.  The silence of their dads when they needed validation.  The dad who wasn't there.  The abusive dad.

My (two) dads were hardly abusive.  One was passive, the other aggressive, both distant.  In dealing with my hurts I was to write a letter as if they had left one behind.  Would they validate me?  Would they be proud of me?  Or would they simply reinforce the failure mentality that has been encrusted on me like the look of old rusted metal that flakes to the touch--lethal if embedded within the skin.

WARNING: CONTENTS MAY BE HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED.

And so the emotions came without regard to who read them.  They are MY memories.  Mine to embrace!  No, to embrace them means I become the very person I despise.  I teach that to my son.  The distant dad.  Go away.  Go play.  Be quiet.

Mine to dismiss.  The wounds don't matter.  No, they really don't.  Seriously.  Nothing to see here.  Move along, move along.

Mine to forget.  Bury.  No exhumation needed.  Scatter the ashes in the sea.  That's not sweat on my brow. Smile.  Wipe sweat.  Repeat.

THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE REPRESENT A SINNER.


Eldredge says that the wound can rule over men.  In our meager efforts to withstand, we seek validation through women (pornography?  um, yeah) or in our work (yep, me too).  This came as a total shock to me.  I sat watching the video with my classmates and felt the punch-in-the-gut moment.  The devil loves this. You thought you had it all figured out.   I can make you feel better.  Liar!  And then I began writing.

The letter, in some form, will make it back on here.  Possibly not.  Healing only comes when I acknowledge that it mattered.  There has been forgiveness.  Does there have to be confrontation?  There is no sense bringing up hurts the other person wouldn't think to admit.  Instead, I'm breaking the cycle the only way I know how.  It takes throwing footballs with my son in the backyard.  Reading to him at night.  Praying together.  I have left wounds on my son I probably haven't even realized.  Or he may grow up to realize the blessings he had were training for something in his life.  What do I know about the future?





Sunday, April 15, 2012

Swimming with the Ducks

It is not without some irony that I find parallels between my mechanical ineptitude and aspects of my life that are beyond my control that I always try controlling.  Perhaps this is man's curse.  We, with these minds of ours, can craft so many tools to fix just about anything.  Some special, some small, some that even make us dependent.  But with so many tools, a man feels empowered to fix any obstacle in their way.  We can make a motor purr anew, we can make a computer come back to life, and we can cover the scratches and holes in drywall.  With that being said, the gaping holes that reside in us are left to be filled by our own methods.  This, of course, is our human condition.  We think, I think, that I can fix everything.  This is my form of idolatry.

This past week I attempted to fix my pool problems that stemmed from last season.  Late August, just before we were to use the pool for my little daughter's birthday party, the pump suddenly stopped working.  I went to the breaker box first, having had similar problems before.  Flipped switch, went back out, nothing.  So the pump sat silent all fall and winter.  The subtle day to day changes in the pool grew more evident.  First a cloudy film.  Then a slight green haze.  A bug here, a stray wiffle ball bobbing along the edge, a wayward floatie aimlessly searching for its twin.  Eventually it became a green pond.  Winter came, and the pool remained a reminder of work that had to be done come spring time.  Tax money had already been reserved for the new purchase of a motor.

So spring temperatures awakened this urgent need to get the pool up and running.  Even the ducks that have been aggressively flying into the pool to drink of its green waters mocked (seriously, I threw wiffle balls at them and was short of using my fabled BB gun on them but was worried someone would film my animal abuse) this eventual return to the outdoors.  So, I began using what limited tools (another irony) I had to prove (to whom? I guess just me) that I could master this without intervention.  I shut off valves, twisted hoses and pried loose clamps.  Eventually I brought the offending materials to box heaven and purchased new ones.

Now, here comes the dreaded moment of truth.  After some serious twisting of hoses, cursing and sweat, I conceded to help.  Uncle Tommy was called, I awaited his return to the land of the Misfit Mechanics, and then realized after the amount of toil that it had been an electrical problem the entire time.  No need for a new pump (at that time) and cursing and dirty knees.  Just a simple safety valve my original electrician installed that needed to be reset.  I would have thrown a grenade in the entire pool just as my excuse to not fix it by that time.  All the work for nothing.

And the week of Easter was another reminder of this fix-it idolatry.  I have been struggling with this need to love with conditions.  I want so much for others around me to have this sense of fulfillment (or what I believe to be fulfillment) that I began to manipulate those men I should have been loving the most.  I saw flaws in every mirror.  Each act of faith by others was questioned of its validity.  I began yearning for such a bond of brothers that I would accept nothing less.  In the end, I wanted to hammer away at other people's lives into some kind of sculpture that would look best for God.

What the hell was I thinking?

I might as well have swam in these murky waters with the ducks.  And there is this fear of water I sometimes have, that when I open my eyes underwater, I won't see a thing.  I'll never scuba dive for fear of some fish, magnified by my goggles, swimming behind my ear.  Electric eels and their open mouths.  Stingrays and their flat bodies, most likely smooth and clammy, the feeling of a cold crypt in October.  But for all the fixing I was doing, I had done just that.  My tools, my life, my outcomes.  Remember the movie "Magnolia" where William H. Macy is sitting amid a shower of frogs tells John C. Reilly.  "I have so much love to give, I just don't know where to put it."  And the duck squawks.

Currently the green water will eventually turn a gray.  It will look like river water.  Eventually I will be able to see my feet at the bottom, and the smell of chlorine will remind me once again about maintenance and ritual.  Devotions, prayer, worship, repeat.  My friends undoubtedly will remember my actions.  Perhaps I won't get away with my schemes the next time.  Friends are forgiving.  God is too.  I have been unwilling to change the most important thing about myself--that arrogant confidence.  Losing weight, one major change, has given me more confidence.  I love the feeling of a 3x shirt rather than a 4x one.  Other changes too--less drinking, more study, less distractions.  I feel that the last 33 years were my way, and conviction has warranted some changes in my lifestyle.  But in this effort, why am I worried about the changes in others.  Love wins, right?  Grace wins.  Always.

For now, the pool water must be cleaned.  The ducks need a new home.  I'm ready for a swim.




Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Sword Swallowing

Moments.  

What else could summarize chasing your son around the babysitter's yard, his pants wet from water-vomit, crying hysterically?  I'm running from the deck (and trying not to fall in my brown Croc shoes) down the yard, trying to grab him like my wayward dog (who, ironically, ran through the neighbor's basket-weave style fence and into the side street where he found the sound of his barking a reverberating exercise in freedom and defiance).  Why did he have water vomit on his shorts?  Because on his third day being on medication for his attention, his gag reflex (a sword swallower he will never be) erupted into full force upheaval.  I have some to blame (no, I don't mean in my DNA, but laugh at me if you must!) for the lack of timing, whereby my waking up late led to him being forced to chug his medicine.  I knew the medicine would not hold simply because the thought of something grody and pilly setting in the back of my son's throat would be too much.  First came the crying.  Next came the screaming.  These were the birth pains of an inevitable vomit storm.   

Off to the doctor.  

Good news on my health.  After dropping about 44 pounds (dear reader, did I mention I have been on Weight Watchers?  Well, now you know) all my levels have gone considerably down.  I am no longer designated as diabetic.  I saw myself in a picture this weekend.  Sometimes when I see myself I still think, "Damn, I'm huge," but I know that being 300 is better than being 360, which is where I was headed.  

Then to church.

There are more posters to be made for the people you meet who inspire you.  Lately, from reading the book "Wild at Heart" and other events that prove more than coincidental, the lure of being around strong, devoted Christian men of faith has given me a new perspective on my own faith-walk.  I was coined once as a "baby Christian" which I took as a compliment.  I was learning, yearning for a relationship with the one person not of this earth that can fill those gaps and lift me from the crib.  Hold me, God.  Carry me around and let me be coochie-cooed by other Christians.  No drug or relationship can fill this void that men (and I mean this as a species, men as in the human race, and men being gender specific as well) yearn for the minute they are birthed from their mother's wombs.  Somewhere an angel has on a button with my smiling mug on it, like some doting parent at a softball game.  "That's my kid playing second base!"

And now I'm growing in the only way I know how.  I'm invested in reading books that mess with my life instead of messing with my head.  I want to spend time with like-minded people, and it almost becomes a source of frustration when others around me don't feel the same way.  Why are so many men deferring their faith to their wives?  How many women at church are toting around their kids, their bibles, sitting alone because their husband has another excuse?  How many times will husbands refuse their calling because they think their house or parenting skills were better than their fathers and simply "good enough"?  Somewhere, we lowered our standards (and this is a world problem, not just husbands).  We compare ourselves to other people to measure our own commitment.  But if the person we are comparing ourselves to has little faith, aren't we just brow-beating?  

So I'm beginning to raise my standards.  I invest in men and couples that have it together (it's not unlike looking for the best practices in education).  I want to spend time with them, watch them around their kids, watch how affectionate they are with their wives.  I want to give them a hi-five like some kid on the playground.  And in doing so, I'm conflicted with just how to motivate others to want more.  When does love become overbearing?  I'm sure God is laughing at me and rolling his eyes.  "Dude, you were like this for 30 years!"  I'm the only person in a packed Adam Sandler juvenile comedy (especially the ones lately), feeling like a snob because I don't think the pee, poop and fart jokes are that funny.  

School.

On a day when I felt I needed some time to reflect, duty calls.  I was swarmed on the playground upon my arrival.  You'd think I was giving out chocolates (I admit, there was a time when I would have).  All day the kids were side stepping me, talking about their days, their weekends, their random thoughts.  Gone for just a few hours does that to them.  We began discussing government rights and the government's role in society.  They got a kick out of the fact that their homework was designed for their parents to work and not them.  We have been discussing subsidized housing, welfare, government jobs and even Trayvon Martin lately.  I know none of this will ever show up on a standardized test.  So what.  They learn more when they think for themselves.  

But I won't fool you with my smile.  I didn't feel "right" all day.  Perhaps it was that yearning again to be picked up and delivered to a place of unknown destination.  Perhaps it was the water vomit episode, that feeling that everyone was watching my kid run through the street like our dog, barking his disapproval.  Birth pains.