Number 3

MAYBE BECAUSE IT’S FLAG DAY… If we were to do a survey on the streets where I live and asked, “Which is your favorite of the 10 Amendments listed in the Bill of Rights?” I’m just guessing, but I think we might get some of these:

• The Bill of Whats?
• Thou shalt not commit adultery.
• Definitely #2.
• I like them all, but if I had to choose one, I would go with #2.
• Which one is the one that says I get to keep my guns? [That would be #2.] Then #2, for sure.

I like #2 as well. Search my house though and you’re not likely to find evidence that I like #2. Oh, in case you’re wondering #2 is this one:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The only “arm” I have is a Red Ryder BB gun. Some might advise that I shouldn’t publish this publicly as it could make me a target of ne’re-do-wells or worse. Be forewarned, if there is a BB in my Red Ryder, I will shoot your eye out; unless I miss, the BB ricochets and I shoot out my own eye; as we were all warned could happen.

I have to say that my personal favorite is #1. Maybe it comes from my time at the University of Tulsa as a journalism major. Maybe it’s because I can still feel the rush of joining an all-night campus protest following the shootings at Kent State University, May 4, 1970. Maybe it was from a wonderful sense of simple freedom that came when we thought we were redefining “church” during the “Jesus Movement.”

Whatever it is or was; I love #1. All of it. Here, read it:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Isn’t that beautiful?! But this blog post isn’t about #1 or #2. This post is about #3. The one that is often called the “runt piglet” of the Amendments.

It goes like this:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

I guess they call it the “runt piglet” because it is the least cited section of the U.S. Constitution and no Supreme Court decision has ever used the Amendment as its primary basis. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “as the history of the country progressed with little conflict on American soil, the amendment has had little occasion to be invoked.”

And I’m not about to start invoking it now. Other than the occasional visiting brothers-in-law, I’ve not been faced with the issue of quartering soldiers in my house.

The reason #3 is fresh for me right now is that in a few days, with button-busting pride, we’re headed to Fort Benning, Georgia to pick up our soon-to-be-graduated U.S. Army Infantryman. And this new soldier can quarter at our house anytime, in time of peace or not. 

I have always leaned to the dove-ish side, politically speaking, and even more so now, with a son standing ready to deploy. But if war should come, help us God; I am honored to have a son who has raised his hand and said I will go and defend this country, it’s Constitution, it’s Bill of Rights with it’s ten Amendments and all the rest too, along with the people who enjoy these rights, even the Ss-Of-Bs that won’t stand up off their fat asses and take off their filthy hats when our flag passes and our National Anthem is played.

Well that’s not exactly the oath… just saying.

O Brother

WHEN I THINK OF CALLING SOMEONE "CREATIVE", I think of someone who has artistic leanings: visual artists, musicians, quilters, storytellers, poets, etc. I know there are creative people in the business world as well. I’ve met many of them. I work with some. Obviously, creatives can be found in other fields: science, education, church, sports and more.

Here are some other things I know about “being creative”:

From The Daily Artifact project by Corey Lee Fuller

1. There’s some of it in all of us. Believe what you will about the Creation narrative, but the fact is that we are created in the image of God, and the first thing we learn about God is that he/she is creative.
2. If getting our education system further oriented toward math and science at the expense and even demise of meaningful programs and classes in music, art, drama, creative writing and the humanities, we are doing irreparable damage. Because,
3. A product of “creativity” is beauty, and we need to be in awe and wonder sometimes.
4. Creative people are often compelled to depths that are often dark and darker.
5. Despite that fact, I long to do creative work; not to be labeled “creative” necessarily, but because I will not be satisfied otherwise.

One of the many on-going rhetorical questions in my own mind is, “Would I be willing to be at risk of some state of mental anguish or dis-ease in order to be optimally creative?”

Remember the Faust story; the whole “Selling your soul to the devil” storyline? One of my favorite versions of that theme is in the movie, O Brother Where Art Thou. In this movie, three prison escapees are on the run in a stolen car. They see a guy standing at a crossroads—literally and metaphorically. They pick him up and ask him his story. He explains that his name is Tommy Johnson, and that at midnight, he met the devil at that crossroads and bargained with him: his soul for the ability to play blues guitar.

If you know your Blues lore, you might think that that story belongs to Robert Johnson, who wrote the song “Crossroad Blues”, which was later wonderfully covered by Eric Clapton and Cream. 

The first line of the song goes:

I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the lord above “Have mercy, save poor Bob, if you please”

But in the movie, the soul-seller/guitar player is named “Tommy Johnson”. I assumed that the writers didn’t want to directly attribute the story to Robert so used the name Tommy instead. It turns out though that in all likelihood the story is true for Tommy Johnson, but maybe not Robert.

If you’re interested in that whole saga, I highly recommend you listen to this episode of RadioLab (it’s pretty long so you might want to save it for later).
CLICK HERE for the story about Robert and Tommy Johnson on Radiolab: 

In the O Brother movie, two of the three convicts have just been saved and are still wet from baptism when they come across Tommy, the hitch-hiking guitar player. They discuss their respective Crossroads experiences with the third convict, played by George Clooney, claiming that he, having chosen neither God nor the devil, “remains unafiliated.”

But as Bob Dylan (who attributes Robert Johnson for inspiration) wrote:

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Click on this movie poster image to see a clip from the movie.
 

So back to the conversation I have in my mind: “Would I be willing to be at risk of some state of mental anguish in order to be optimally creative?”

The question comes up in my discussion with myself because there are times when I wonder if maybe I AM a bit crazy. (I heard that.) I often find my perspective and thinking to be so different from the mainstream that I don’t feel normal.

It turns out that maybe the leap from creativity to craziness is a short one:

“Psychological theories propose that the schizophrenic spectrum is accompanied by a decrease in practical reasoning, as schizophrenia patients outperform controls in logical deduction that is in conflict with practical reasoning. Furthermore, it has been suggested that those less restrained by practical cognitive styles may have an advantage in artistic occupations,” study researcher Robert A. Power, MD, of deCODE Genetics and King’s College London, and colleagues wrote. “These results provide support for the notion that creativity and psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, share psychological attributes.”

CLICK HERE to read more about this research.
 

We just saw the new biopic Love & Mercy. It is the story of the song writing genius, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. 

The IMBD Database describes the movie this way:

“In the 1960s, Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson struggles with emerging psychosis as he attempts to craft his avant-garde pop masterpiece. In the 1980s, he is a broken, confused man under the 24-hour watch of shady therapist Dr. Eugene Landy.”

CLICK the image to see the movie trailer

Now put on a really good pair of headphones, close your eyes and listen carefully to The Beach Boys sing “God Only Knows”. Listen again and hear the french horns, the jingle bells and that amazing bass line. Listen one more time and hear how Brian uses amazing chord progressions, unique rhythms, and those tight Beach Boys harmonies to create a masterpiece.

You can’t get stuff like that out of a normal brain any more than you can get The Starry Night out of Van Gogh’s.

If I could interview Brian Wilson, I would ask him, “Would you have traded your ability to write “Good Vibrations”, “Sloop John B”, and “I Get Around” for a more sane existence?

WHY?!

I'VE BEEN THROUGH INTERROGATION BEFORE. It was seventh-grade. Unwittingly, I had been swept up in an organized crime ring. (That was my story then, and I’m sticking to it.)

We lived on the south edge of Tulsa, but in the Jenks school district. Jenks was then a thriving small town. Most of the stores along Main Street were open for business (before Wal Mart), except for the movie theatre which had long been shuttered.

One afternoon after school, I was invited to climb the fire escape on the back of the theatre building, to the roof where there was a hatch door into what was the projection booth. Word was, there was free soda pop there. What I didn’t know at the time was that the pop had been stolen off a Pepsi® delivery truck sitting at Parker’s Grocery at lunch time.

The fun lasted for several days until one day; boy by boy, summons were issued from the principal’s office, and the interrogation began: who, what, where, when, WHY. Claims of innocence fell on deaf ears. And Mr. Burchett’s paddle fell on my backside. Despite his prophecies, I have never served hard time.

Last week, (maybe in payment for past sins, ha) our two oldest Grand-Girls (six and three) came to visit while their parents took a well-deserved vacation. We had a great time, but by the time we watched the taillights of their mini-van disappear in the distance, I was feeling the weariness of interrogatives:

• Why can’t I have an ice cream sandwich for breakfast?
• When will it be my turn? Why?
• What are you doing? Why?
• Why can’t I have some of your special, old grape juice? (Just kidding)
• Why can’t we swim when it’s lightening?
• What’s a crispy critter?
• Once, I rolled out the old tried and true: “Because I said so. That’s why?” To which the six-year-old replied, “Oh Pops, you’re silly.”

My last resort answer to the unanswerable “Why” was: “Maybe someday you’ll understand.”

[graphic by Molly Hennesy]

Saturday, we attended a memorial service for little twin boys, the children of some very, very special people. This memorial service was on what would have been the one-year birthday of their brother, had he lived. I am not making this up. Even as I type this, it doesn’t seem right in any sense of that word. This amazing young couple I’m sure, has been haunted by the question that they undoubtedly hear regularly from their beautiful three-year-old daughter, “Why?!”

I know they are people of deep faith, but I don’t presume to know what they are going through. There is no way I can begin to understand.

I do know this: for me, sometimes, faith doesn’t answer the Why question. It just says, “Maybe someday you’ll understand.”

God. I hope so.

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Here are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs. It’s by a band called, Jars Of Clay. I encourage you to give it a listen.

SILENCE

Take, take ’til there’s nothing
Nothing to turn to
Nothing when you get through

Won’t you break?
Scatter pieces of all I’ve been
Bowing to all I’ve been running to
Where are you?

Where are you?

Did you leave me unbreakable?
Did you leave me frozen?
I’ve never felt so cold

I thought you were silent
And I thought you left me
For the wreckage and the waste
On an empty beach of faith, was it true?

Yes I, I got a question
I got a question, where are you?

Scream, deeper I wanna scream
I want you to hear me
I want you to find me

Yes I, I want to believe
But all I pray is wrong
And all I claim is gone

And I, I got a question
I got a question, where are you?

And well I, I got a question
I got a question, where are you?

Where are you?

Morphing, Again

You know how sometimes you sort of come to the realization that somehow you’ve changed; somehow. It just sort of happens gradually, sneaking up on you, like getting older, gradually, maybe you don’t even know its happening.

Then there are those times that something happens and you are changed more suddenly, like when you’re first married, or your first child is born, or you have your chest sawed open to fix an issue or two.

Last week we went on a roadtrip through the south: Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. On our trip we toured the Civil Rights Institue and museum in Birmingham. We visited the Carter Center in Atlanta, a museum and the presidential library of President Jimmy Carter. Then we toured the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning, Georgia, with our son/soldier.

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“When I consider the small space I occupy, which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there: there is no reason for me to be here rather than there, now rather than then. Who put me here?”  —Pascal, Pensees, 68

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Each of these museums marked seminal moments of my coming of age. With roots in the south and being from Tulsa, Oklahoma, I grew up seeing the ugliness of racism. One of my first jobs was driving a school bus for the Tulsa Public Schools during the integration of schools. My route included picking up black children in north Tulsa before daybreak and driving them miles and miles south to the “white” schools. I hated the unfairness of it but had no better solution to offer.

I really believe Jimmy Carter meant well. I believe he had integrity and compassion. You can still see it in the way he lives his life to this day. I applaud his fairly recent commentary condemning the narrow, blind, dogmatic view of women in much of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Infantry Museum was sublime. It was breathtaking—not necessarily in the sense of seeing something awe-inspiring, like Multnomah Falls or the Grand Canyon; more like breath-taking when you have the air knocked out of you. The message is overwhelming: the cost of war in terms of young lives is too high. The price of freedom is incomprehensible.

We saw pictures and artifacts from all the wars like World War II in which my father served; the war of my generation, the Vietnam War, a war in which my only involvement was to protest it. And now standing with my son in his army uniform, trained and willing to serve in whatever hellish movement is bubbling up now.

I am so proud of him and so grateful for his service and the service of those who have gone before and those who will take the oath next. I am also afraid.

I wish you could have been with us when he and those of his company said the Soldier’s Creed in unison at the tops of their voices:

I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values.
I WILL ALWAYS PLACE THE MISSION FIRST.
I WILL NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT.
I WILL NEVER QUIT.
I WILL NEVER LEAVE A FALLEN COMRADE.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment, and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.

All of this has changed me somehow. This Memorial Day is different than any I’ve lived before. It is more than a day off work and an excuse to throw some burgers on the grill.

Maybe I’m still “coming of age.” Maybe there’s hope for me yet.