Unknown

I’m writing this from a lovely campground where we spent the night and woke to a cool, refreshing rain. It’s a lot of pressure though, these words have to be good. You couldn’t script a scene more conducive to inspired writing.

Because my own inspired words are flowing meagerly, let me start with a few from one of the most inspiring writers of contemporary time—Wendell Berry. BTW: happy birthday, yesterday, Wendell.

““Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into.””

— Wendell Berry

I’m not going to lie. As retirement draws near, I’m feeling a bit of “the ancient fear of the Unknown”. It’s not that I’m a workaholic or job-junkie. It’s not that I believe the role I play in the marketplace can’t be played by others. It’s not that I have some Trumpian savior-complex. It’s simple really: I’m addicted to a paycheck.

Is it science or speculation behind the statement that the two biggest fears people have are speaking before an audience and dying? Although I’m an extreme introvert, I’m not really shy and public speaking doesn’t bother me much. And when it comes to dying; I hold to the position of Woody Allen: “I’m not afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

For me Fear has pretty much been centered in those things like the Unknown, and lack of trust.

Take amusment park rides for example. While I have ridden a few of the mildly daring rides at amusment parks. I would never ride one at, say, the state fair. It’s not that I doubt the physics, or the compentency of the guy who engineered the ride. But, have you taken a close look at the guys who put those rides together after taking them apart two weeks ago at the carnival up the road? I’m not saying they don’t know their nuts from their cotter pins; but… I know this, I wouldn’t want to ride a ride that I had put together. (Note to self: Don’t try to put this ride called “Life” together by yourself. You have to ride it in to the sunset once it’s built.)

I try to own my fears, phobias, trepidations, and angst. I do know from whence cometh my hope; although you might not be able to tell it sometimes. I only hope that I can truly trust that HOPE.

Thining of Wendell Berry’s words again, imaging them as a conversation:
Here are the big woods.
   But the familiar ground is so; familiar.
But isn’t it exciting, aren’t you curious about the new place?
   But the nagging dread is real. There’s a reason it’s called the ancient fear of the Unknown.
It is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into.

It's Not All Black & White

There is something that stirs within me this time of year. I think it has to do with feeling like summer is slipping away and the start of school is just around the corner. I haven’t started back to school in years, but still this haunting feeling returns.

Soon now, good times at the pool will be replaced with learning locker combos, class schedules and how to conjugate a verb. No more sleeping in or staying up late. Not that it’s all bad. There are some things to look forward to, like Friday nights, when the air begins to turn crisp and the atmosphere crackles with the excitement of a high school football game. Yes, I’m a band nerd, but at least I was in the drumline—the rowdy rebels and evil necessity of every band director.

I better be careful or I will reminisce myself into a longing to go back to school.

Recently, My Amazing-Missus took the grand-girls shopping for their back to school supplies. I got to playing around with the boxes of crayons and created one that was all black and white crayons. I showed it to our oldest grand-girl and she looked at me like I had jerked a rainbow from the sky and strangled a unicorn with it. Then she said, “That can’t be real. That would be horrible!”

She’s right.

Attention boys and girls. Today’s lesson is about the importance of having colors in your crayon box.

Here’s the thing about politics and religion and dogma and institutions and fundamentalists: They will steal all the colors out of your box if you’re not careful. Everything will be reduced to this or that, right or wrong (their version of it of course), black or white. When it happens, our worldview narrows, we become narrow-minded and single-minded and mean and bitter. We think everyone is out to get us. We believe every conspiracy theory that comes along.

Worse yet, we miss out on the wonder, the beauty, the possibilities. I asked Karlee, our oldest if she knew who Roy G. Biv is. “Of course.” Of course she knew. We could all learn something if we would pay more attention to Roy G. Biv.

I am sick and tired of politics. I’m tired and sick of the religious right telling me who I should hate and why. I’m tired of people saying, make up your mind. It’s either black or white. 

No it’s not. Meet Roy G. Biv, or as Karlee knows him, the colors of the rainbow: Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo and Violet.

Make a note of that, it will be on the test. And put some color back in your crayon box.

Take These

BEST I CAN REMEMBER, I was about 40 when my body began to repay me for the abuses I had wreaked upon it. Thankfully there are medications. But damn the side-effects.

I saw a lovely ad on TV, a happy looking, senior couple, pulling their new Airstream to a pastoral setting alongside a stream. Apparently the old guy was suffering from an arthritic hitch in his get-along and his doctor prescrbed a medication. It was an inspirational scene until the narrator began the fast talking litany of potential side-effects. I don’t remember them exactly but I think they included: loss of hearing and hair, foaming at the mouth, irritability, frequent going, abnormal urges, dizziness, your favorite NBA player betraying you to put on the enemies uniform, and death.

This morning, I was thinking about the state of things and listening to the promises of our political aspirants. So I turned to First Samuel Eight in The Message version of the scriptures (or as one political aspirant might say: "One Samuel".

When Samuel got to be an old man, he set his sons up as judges in Israel… But his sons didn’t take after him; they were out for what they could get for themselves, taking bribes, corrupting justice.

Fed up, all the elders of Israel got together and confronted Samuel at Ramah. They presented their case: “Look, you’re an old man, and your sons aren’t following in your footsteps. Here’s what we want you to do: Appoint a king to rule us, just like everybody else.”

When Samuel heard their demand—“Give us a king to rule us!”—he was crushed. How awful! Samuel prayed to God.

God answered Samuel, “Go ahead and do what they’re asking. They are not rejecting you. They’ve rejected me as their King. From the day I brought them out of Egypt until this very day they’ve been behaving like this, leaving me for other gods. And now they’re doing it to you. So let them have their own way. But warn them of what they’re in for. Tell them the way kings operate, just what they’re likely to get from a king.”

So Samuel told them, delivered God’s warning to the people who were asking him to give them a king. God said (the side-effects may include), “This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates. He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves. But don’t expect God to answer.”

But the people wouldn’t listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We will have a king to rule us! Then we’ll be just like all the other nations. Our king will rule us and lead us and fight our battles.”

Samuel took in what they said and rehearsed it with God. God told Samuel, “Do what they say. Make them a king.”

And some lifted their red hats in the air, the ones that read “Make Israel Great Again”, and beat their chests. Others yelled, “We want a Queen this time around”. And others looked at the ground and thought, “Oh dear God, is the cure sometimes worse than the illness?” (This paragraph is not actually in the scripture.)

Summer Rules

A FEW DAYS AGO I walked into “the second room on the left”, ushered by a young woman who told me to remove my shirt. Then she left.

Thirty-six minutes later another young woman came in, accompanied by the first. She ran her hands over my face, shoulders, arms and pointed out the obvious, “You grew up in the days before sunscreen.” More of a statement than a question.
“But I wear it now!” quickly springing to my own defense.
“What SPF?”
“Thirty, I think.”
“Throw it in the trash and buy some Eighty-Five minimum and reapply every hour.”
“Every hour! That stuff’s expensive.”
“So is skin cancer.”
“I HAVE SKIN CANCER?!”
“Not yet.”
Then she blasted liquid nitrogen on several spots atop my bald head, gave me a coupon for $2 Off a tube of approved sunscreen, and ushered me to the money lady.

In the headlines, again, “Don’t Eat Raw Cookie Dough.”

When school was in session the rules were clear and ever present. (at least back in the good-ol’ days.) No talking, no gum-chewing, stay in line, color inside the lines, no wise-cracking, don’t walk up the down staircase, etc.

Summer’s rules were different (back then). No swimming until the temperature is at least 80. Only one on the diving board at a time. Wait 30 minutes before going in the pool. Don’t pee in the pool. No horseplay. Don’t run. Quit popping your brother with the towel.

The summer’s of my youth were pretty much spent at the pool. (I have scars from nitrogen burns to prove it.) My Aunt Betty belonged to a church that not only permitted “mixed bathing”, they apparently encouraged it. There was a pool at their church, so she would take us swimming there most every day. I loved it.

For a few days each summer we would go to visit our maternal grandmother’s house. The rules were few there, but the ones she had were strictly enforced. She would whip the backsides of your bare legs raw with a switch she made you cut yourself from the old elm tree in her front yard. 

We were allowed to roam freely in her hometown of Okmulgee, Oklahoma. She would give us enough money to see a matinee or buy some candy at the Kress Five and Dime.

Adventures there were sweet. I remember asking her if it was true that if you put a penny on the railroad tracks the train would smash it flat. She confirmed it would. On our next trip to downtown she gave us a penny with instructions to “stay away from those tracks.” A train will indeed smash a penny flat.

You never, ever got sick at Nan’s house. The first time you mentioned to her that you weren’t feeling well she would ask, “Do you think you need to have your throat swabbed with iodine or do you need a good enema.” “I’m feeling fine now, thank you.”

Many of her rules made practical sense (as opposed to some of the rules at school like: Boys must keep their shirttails tucked in.) (Nevermind that that rule ended in a preposition—a rule breaking a rule.) Not far from her house was an overgrown lot, that we imagined to be a forest for adventures. “Don’t go in those woods,” she would warn, “You’ll get a chigger on your wigger.” No one wants that.

Here we are at the season for Independence Day which of course means Fireworks. The Summer Rule Book has a chapter dedicated to this topic. Most every rule comes with a horror story to reinforce it. For example, we apparently had a distant uncle that chose to hold a roman candle in his hand while it shot firey balls into the summer sky. Well, it back-fired (or maybe he was holding it backward), anyway, the ball of fire hit him in the belly and he apparently had the scar to prove it. So we were taught to hold no fireworks in our hands, and as it turns out we were also to no longer put them inside frogs. 

So, have fun this holiday, but be safe with the fireworks, wear sunscreen, and mosquito repellent. Don’t eat raw cookie dough or warm potato salad, and don’t go in those woods.