exploring life as growth
shout aloud
i wish i could
like the madman king living in the field
eating grass but he will learn his lesson well
and be restored to the greatness that once was his
seven years off
the dew on his back a banner of his state of mind
but i have none
i hold it in
eruption eminent and so i write it down
i write it loudly
i look to see who is around
i quiet down
i write it meekly
shout aloud
i wish i would
like the madman king living in the field
May 2007.
Last night was that time of year when people from all over the planet, from all walks of life-colors, creeds, genders, persuasions, and differences-come together for one magical purpose…the Super Bowl.
I admit it…for the past two years I also have succumb to nearly omnipresent call to plant my fanny on a couch, eat some dip and watch this thing…the whole thing. I watched the pre-game show, the first half, the half time show, the second half and, of course, the commercials. To me, the game was fun to watch, the half time show knocked me over, I won’t say anything about the pre-game (remember what thumper’s dad told him), but it is the commercials that have me typing away. They had a theme.
One after the other, the theme became more and more clear.
I suppose this is not new by any stretch. In the 80’s and 90’s we heard that “sex sells” and commercials were thusly filled with statuesque, sweaty nakedness in slow motion trying to sell you a pair of shoes. Interestingly enough, there was little to none of this last night. So, what happened? Did sex stop selling? Have we become a more chaste society? I don’t think so. It seems to me that something else simply sells more at the moment. This is the theme that I saw again and again: Violence.
When the first commercial aired with the friends playing “rock, paper scissors” and the one friend actually beamed the other in the head with a rock, I admit that I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. As the parade of man to man violence continued, I still thought little of it and laughed at most. Then, a new commercial for a car company aired. The commercial depicted a robot losing his job, being in despair and eventually committing suicide by throwing himself off of a bridge (it turns out it was only a robotic dream, but the story was already told). And at this, I had to pause.
What was I laughing at? When did the idea of hopelessness become funny? What is it that makes suicide a good depiction for a commercial? Sitting with my friend, we wondered how many people were watching this who have experienced suicide of loved ones? We wondered what the coach of one of the teams-who experienced the tragic suicide of his own son not too long ago-what he thought of it. And none of the commercials were so funny any more.
It seems to me that the root of our (and I include myself in this) ability to be so callous at, and even attracted to, violence, hopelessness and death, is our falling asleep to the preciousness of the gift of Life. It is so easy to do. So easy to forget.
The problem with this forgetting is that if we lose appreciation for Life, we lose connection with the Source of Life. If we lose these things, what reason is there to live at all? Perhaps one will see reason when things are going their way, but what about in times of hardship? What about when the cancer returns, or she doesn’t, or the bills outweigh the income or the pink slip comes and all is lost for sure this time? If I have lost sight of the gift that is Life…if I have lost appreciation for the most basic and yet most essential of all things…what else is there?
So, some may think me a bit oversensitive. Maybe too square or prude or lame or buggin’ or whatever…maybe. But today, I will think about what matters most and I realize that the best commercial of the night (for me), was Coca-Cola’s.
It started out looking like a violent video game where the hero speeds through the streets then gets out of his car and annihilates people. You see him driving through the streets, get out of his car, go up to a man…and buy a Coke…and pay for it…and smile and walk away. Then, he moves through the street performing random acts of kindness for the rest of the commercial. It sounds sappy of you didn’t see it but it was actually quite cool.
Sappy or cool, either way, I think Coke got it right. The reality is, I will interact with many people today: in the office, on the highway, in the market and maybe even on the street. And I will have the opportunity to impact a moment of their lives. Will my impact be one that springs from a celebration of Life or from a place of forgetting how precious Life is?
I hope I will remember that all life comes from God and is precious, precious, precious. I hope that I will remember that falling asleep to this fact is much easier than I think sometimes.
Here’s to Coke for reminding us that Life is worth staying awake for.
colors fly like Hermes ecstatic
racing for the one trajectory
that will form the ever perfect curve
nimbly run with dampening comrades
shiny toothed grins on every sprightly prism face
joining the ranks to fly in formation
for the joyous spectacle you will perform
reactions invariably all the same
from the old zoo keeper who’s time was not up
to the vigilant child and her awe filled stare
joyful reverie
praise for the beauty
and the end of the storm
and so for a moment the glory is without parallel
the world will stop and look and wonder
what is the fount from which you spring
but soon you will fade and hide once more
disporting the time in the nomad clouds
until you are called
to join formation again
i spoke the winter words
my heart in autumn leaves
but i dreamed the summer dreams
that’s the way it always seems to be
i see the ships go by
i feel the tug in my own sails
but my anchor wont give way
its like it never fails
i think the deepest thoughts of anyone you’d meet
but where i’m standing the water barely clears my feet
so i relinquish all my charts and plans
to the wonder of your guiding hands
and i will find my way in you
i will find my way in you
for free i will be to join the stars in their midnight dance
free i was meant to be guided by your hands
i think it over now
all my many twists and turns
and where it’s gotten me
and all the things that i have learned
i think i see it now
like i’ve never seen before
too many choices
and all too long this corridor
so i rejoin the race but with a very different notion
i hold my running, and set my face to feel the motion
of your breath, of your direction
Henry Nowen writes in his book “The Return of The Prodigal Son” about the concept of first love and second love. Both are loves that every human being has the need for.
Second love is the need we all have for human love, affection, connection. It includes the entire range of human relating from camaraderie to friendship to family love to romantic love to all levels of human intimacy.
First love is the love that can only come from God. People have referred to it is the “God shaped hole”. It is the need for intimacy and friendship with God.
Both the need for first love and the need for second love are good things that God has created in all of us.
The problem is when we seek from a second love that which can only come from first love.
Last week I sat in a room with three pastors and four soon-to-be priests. We talked about the struggles in our lives right now. We talked about difficulties with motivation, stress, anxiety, direction and other things. We talked about how it can be that we could be struggling so much with these things.
As we talked it through, it came down to this: when I am seeking anything other than God’s love as first love and first fulfillment in my life, I simply do not do well.
It is not that I do not have many things to seek and desire and enjoy and love and look forward to, etc. It is just that when I get into trouble is when I forget that those things are only good and life-giving for me when I remember that they are second loves and they will only be fulfilling when I am fully experiencing connection with first love…well…first.
Like all little children, my seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter gets scared sometimes when she is trying to go to sleep. If the wind is howling just right or she happened to see something scary on TV, her imagination can begin working overtime and she may see a figure in the shadows or hear the sound of a sinister laugh in the wind.
This past Monday was one such night. Shortly after putting her to bed, she came into my room crying that she was scared. She said she was sure she heard the sound of a bad guy laughing and she was petrified that someone was going to get all of us. Her tears cut my heart, as they always do, and I held my daughter tight and assured her that I would not let anything happen to her. I walked her back into her room and lay down beside her to continue to assure her that all was well and I would keep her safe.
“Yes I know you will always protect me, Daddy, but what about when you go to sleep?” she asked.
I think I may have begun to get a little nervous myself at this point.
“Sweetheart,” I replied, “there are great big angels all around this house, and they never sleep. They are here just to protect us. They can stop any bad guy from getting in here, so you can sleep well knowing they’re around.”
A brilliant and irrefutable answer, if I do say so myself!
“But, Daddy, what about when the angels miss? I mean like when kids are kidnapped or robbers do break into people’s houses or like that great big tsunami that killed all of those people—what about those times? I mean, at least some of those people had to have had angels too, right?”
Ya know, sometimes kids have a really sneaky way of interrupting perfectly comfortable theology.
“How do I get out of this one?” I wondered. And then it struck me—when did I start avoiding these questions? When did I begin to put blinders on my beliefs so as not to consider the most obvious questions and problems of our existence? I mean, I deal with problems and traumas and tragedies every day—and I am taken aback by this simple question.
Ironically, I think I may have started ignoring these questions a bit more when my daughter and I began talking a few years ago—when she started to ask questions. And this question brought light to a simple trap that I have fallen into in my own thinking: the belief that I must have answers that will make her feel good. I don’t really know where it comes from, but there it is.
And so I considered her question and realized there is no perfect answer. I realized that making my daughter feel good was not my highest call. And so I drew my breath and simply stated, “I don’t know, sweetheart.”
And so I lay there a little longer, I held her a little tighter, and I went back to my original answer, “I am with you.”
Like Walking Trees 