DOWN(SIZING) TO THE ESSENTIALS

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”

— Oscar Wilde

My first thoughts: 1. Wow, that puts a lot of pressure on books. 2. Is Oscar saying we are what we read or at the very least we become what we read? 3. Do we really reach a place where we are what we are and we can’t help it?

Maybe I shouldn’t assume that he’s speaking only of books. He may be also referring to news sources, social media, electronic media, etc. I’m guessing his conclusion would stand.

We’ll be “down-sizing” soon, dispensing with a bunch of our worldly treasures. (I hope and pray that doesn’t mean a giant garage sale. I hate garage sales. So, if we have something you want let me know and I'll put your name on it and you can pick it up when we're ready.) We’ll keep a few things to set up a little household, but that’s for after living the silvery, nomadic dream: a year or two year's long cross-country adventure in our Airstream.

In preparation, I’ve been making a list of things I’ll want to keep. So far, other than the essentials for the journey, I want to keep my drum set. I would also like to keep my stereo and vinyl record collection—some new and some I’ve been hauling around since the 60s—but that may not be practical.

I will also keep some books. I’ve already given away a bunch and there will be more to give. I have a list I’ve been compiling of what is in the essential library. Here are a few (in no certain order) along with a quote from each:

“The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.”

― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us.”

― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

― T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be”

― Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

“I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.”

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”

― J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” - Atticus Finch

― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it.”

― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons.”

― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”

― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”

― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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So, that’s a sampling of what I’m keeping for my library. These make the cut because I’ve read all of them multiple times and I look forward to reading them again. They always seem to have something more to give.

Also, from Oscar Wilde:

“A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.”

— Oscar Wilde

I’m stretching Oscar’s definition to books, and these books provide great company within solitude. And, if these particular books help shape the person I will become when I can no longer help it; I’m okay with that.

What would you recommend adding to a library of essentials?

EXAMPLE SETTING

I DON’T REMEMBER the first time I was told, “you’re setting the example for others,” but I do still feel the weight of that admonition.

Recently, I had the privilege of speaking at the memorial service of a good friend, a man I hold in high regard. We’ll call him Dave. Also speaking at the memorial was Dave’s son, let’s call him Kent. Kent told this story about his dad:

One evening at meal time Mom (let’s call her Barbara) called Dave to the table and passed a bowl of mixed vegtables. “What is this!?” Dave asked and added, “I’m not eating this!” Barbara surprised said, “Why not, you’ve eaten this dish for 30 years?!” Dave replied, “The kids are grown and gone and I’m tired of setting the example.”

Example Setting is serious business. As I said, it’s weighty and fraught with danger. What if I hold myself up as an example and then prove unworthy? I mean, look at me (but don’t follow me), I watch too much TV. I need to exercise more. I don’t floss as often as I should. My attitude and outlook often is not what you want someone to strive toward. According to many I’m unpatriotic, although I disagree and therefore I am belligerent. You get the picture.

Thankfully, God provides grace and filters that somehow let our kids see a better version of ourselves than may be real. For example, look at me and then look at our two sons: they are good husbands and great fathers, they are honest, hard-working, humble and good example-setters.

I know what you’re thinking! And, you’re right! Look at their mother!

I’m trying to be a good example for our grandkids, but I’m still going to pick the mushrooms off my pizza and watch as much Sponge Bob as they want to watch.

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

— Mark Twain

BIG QUESTION?

THERE’S THAT PHASE kids go through around three or four, their favorite word is “Why?” You know the one. We offer a crescendo of answers (as if there is an answer that will pacify them).

Because one ice cream sandwich is enough… You’ll spoil your supper… You’ve had too much sugar already… You don’t want all your teeth to rot and fall out do you?

Then finally, you thrown down your coup de grâce: “Because I said so!”

AS WE AGE, the questions change; the routine, not so much. Can I get a new (fill in the blank)? Are we almost there? Can I have the car tonight? And my go to answer: “Ask your mother.”

I remember about half-way through adolescence I began to long for adulthood, when I thought I would either have all the answers, or I could at least answer my own questions. But here I am staring at 69 and I still have questions, and many times the answers I find are unfulfilling: “That’s just the way the electoral college works.” “Yes, tattoos sort of hurt.”

Just the other day, a close friend asked me a question. He put it this way: “Hey, I want to ask you a question and I want an honest answer.”

“Sid’s in El Reno!” I quickly answered, hoping he was going to ask me my favorite burger joint.

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“What is your concept of heaven?” He asked.

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When it comes to burgers, Sid’s is about as close as you get. But, he wasn’t talking about burgers.

Was this a trick question? Does he know something I don’t? Is it a test?

Certainly, there are ideas and imagary, in my head of heaven which come from my upbringing in church. As I page through those mental pictures now, I see that much of it comes from the old hymns I grew up hearing:

• “I’ll Fly Away”

• “We’re Marching to Zion”

• “When We All Get To Heaven”

• Or this from the old hymn, “Sweet Beulah Land”:
  I'm kind of homesick for a country
  To which I've never been before.
  No sad goodbyes will there be spoken
  For time won't matter anymore.

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I told my friend that at this point in my life, to say that I have a concept of heaven would seem pretty arrogant. Who am I to even guess what it may be like? Or, to quote the latest and greatest opus on heavenly speculation: “I Can Only Imagine”.

Part of my mental heavenly tableau comes from memories I have of traveling evangelists. I always thought of them as arrogant, pompous, flashy, hucksters. These guys would stand in the pulpit telling of a place with mansions, streets of gold, painless eternal youthfulness. One guy went as far as to say he believed everyone would be 33 years old. Rationale: “Because that’s how old Jesus was when he died.”

I remember thinking, surely heaven won’t be an eternity of hearing this blowhard and his ilk rant and rave and wag his finger and King James version of the Bible in the air.

And then, as if he were reading my mind, he would seem to insinuate that anyone who didn’t see things as he sees things wouldn’t make it past the pearly gate (or is it gates?).

Before anyone begins to wonder if I’ve abandoned the faith of my youth; I do believe there is a heaven, I just don’t think any human has the capacity to conceptualize it. Our imagination is too limited. Our vocabulary lacks the words. Our faith is too constrained. Our belief is too conditional. Our understanding of God is too small.

TAKE PEACE FOR EXAMPLE—the kind of peace the Bible talks about, the kind of peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7). Occasionally you get a sense of this peace (or, I hope you do), and when you do it is wonderful, but you can’t explain it or even understand it. There is a mystique about it.

For me, spiritual stuff is like that; and I like it that way. I don’t want a predictable, understandable, knowable religion. I want the mystery, the wonder. I’m okay with NOT knowing what it will all be like.

About that peace that passes understanding; we can get a sense of it from time to time. Here’s an example: not long ago, standing next to my dad as he died; at first, I couldn’t believe he had breathed his last breath. I even slapped his hand a few times to try to rouse him. But then———Peace. I don’t know how else to explain it. Because it is unexplainable. It passes understanding. Please don’t patronize me by pretending you understand it. Don’t try to preacher-splain it to me. Don’t try to dismiss it with some contrived rationalization or spiritualization. Please don’t assume a lack of faith. Can’t we just rest in the mystery of it?

I believe, as with this un-understandable peace, we also get an occasional glimpse of heaven—not a grasp, but a glimpse. For me, I see it in the sublime. The sublime defined in the Oxford Dictionary as: “of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.”

TAKE NATURE FOR EXAMPLE—some people see heaven as a mountain-top experience, thinking the valley is full of shadows of death. But I’m more of a valley guy (not the 80s dudes of southern California, counterpart to the Valley Girls) when it comes to the vast splendor of the mountains. Sure the mountaintop offers majestic views, but of what?

“We’ve got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.” A few hours after this speech, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray.

That’s a powerful glimpse! A perspective from the mountaintop seems to belong to true visionaries.

For me, I prefer to be knee deep in the mountain stream, the deepest point of the valley, where there is life. Here are a few of my favorite lines from literature, from one of my favorite books, “A River Runs Through It”, by Norman Maclean:

“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

“I am haunted by waters.”

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TAKE ART FOR EXAMPLE: I see the sublime and get a glimpse of heaven in art.

“If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.” — Oscar Wilde

Experiencing art is sensory: full-on, right? Whether it’s a walk through The Met, or The Philbrook, or sitting at a beautifully decorated table to an artful meal surrounded by good people and good conversation with good music playing in the background. Full-0n sensory. And even that sometimes passes understanding for me. There are times I get the inkling that I may have another sense beyond the five. I can’t explain it. But, what if, maybe one of these days as heaven-dwellers, we discover that we now have seven or maybe more senses? Because maybe it will take that many.

I’ll never forget the first time, my first Grand-Girl, the one who made me Pops, played her first piano recital. I was transported: how or where, I don’t know. It’s un-understandable to me. But, it gives me a glimpse.

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So, what is my concept of heaven? Maybe it will be many, many firsts—new and fresh every day. Like this:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

— Lamentations 3:22-24

Pups & Pops

Apparently it’s National Dog Day. I was hoping I had misunderstood and it was really National Hot Dog Day. That day apparently was in July sometime.

Malachi (grandson) and Ivan (his dog who is now the size of a Shetland pony)

Dad, me and Calidonia

Is it a bit existential to wonder if National Dog Day has meaning if you don’t have a dog? There have been many dogs in my life. The first was Calidonia. I have no idea where the name came from. I think she was a member of the family before I came along. I do remember the milkman accidentally bumping into her with his milk truck, sending her to doggie heaven.

Now, I guess my tendency toward self-absorption has made it unlikely that we will have another dog. I do like the idea of a dog. My ideal dog would be a rescue of course, who do you think I am? She would be a mix of golden dogs like retriever and labrador. She would unfortunately be unable to have puppies. She wouldn’t shed or go in the house. She would, like me, only want to go for walks if the temperature was between 69 and 74, humidity below 20%, pollen counts immeasurably low, with a breeze of less than 5 mph. She would love the grandkids when they visit. And, like me, when they’ve all gone home, she would want to recline and watch Seinfeld reruns. I would call her Pups, and she would bark softly which I would understand is dog talk for Pops.

Oh, and she would be really smart. If we were out for a hike and I fell in a big hole, she would run back home and bark at My Amazing-Missus. And she would sense the urgency and say, “What’s wrong Pups? Did Timmy, I mean, Pops fall in a hole again.” Then they would come and help me out of the hole and we would go home and have a bowl of Campbell’s soup. Probably “Bean with Bacon”.

Maybe we would write a series of children’s books called “The Adventures of Pups and Pops” and the first one would be “Pops Falls In Another Hole”. And it would be picked up by a Hollywood producer who would turn it into a successful franchise with stuffed Pups and Pops toys, and a really sugary breakfast cereal that looked like little dog treats. And we would be bigger than Sponge Bob and Lassie.

Of course if there was a dog like Pups, her list of what she was looking for in a good human would far exceed what I can deliver. I would rub her belly, buy her good food and bag her poop on long walks. But she would always want more. She would look at me in disgust and wonder why she couldn’t have a pair of those young “dog parents” who take them everywhere including places where food is served. She would think to herself, “look at this old geezer, he’s like 10 in dog years! Maybe I’ll go sit in a corner and chew the straps off his Birkenstocks-stupid old hippie.”

But then an episode of “The Adventures of Pups & Pops” would come on Netflix (you know the one where Pups and Pops sit in front of Trader Joes and make fun of cats) and she would remember the special bond we have, and how Pops always remembers National Dog Day with a treat and a new squeaky toy.