A Lament

Metal shack huts
Electricity but no plumbing
Door to protect what little is inside
God is good

Mismatched outfits
Hand washing clothes that never seem clean
Thrown away by others
God is good

Dogs, mangey and hungry
Wander through town wishing for food
Man's best friend
God is good

Babies clinging to mothers
Seeing the world for first time
Soon to have children of their own
God is good

Children running in the street
Snot covered faces
Eating candy off the pavement
God is good

Fathers sitting in the sun
Ambition is worthless without opportunity
Wondering where to wander today
God is good

Poverty is handed down from mother to child
Like the family silver
The sins of the father to the seventh generation
God is good

God is good
God is good
God is good

Turkey Time

Thanksgiving in South Africa. Of course South Africans are thankful, but-and this comes as a surprise to most Americans who've never thought about it before-they don't actually celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday in South Africa. And so it is with great excitement that our team was able to put together something that looked vaguely like a thanksgiving dinner to share with the South Africans on our team and to remind us of home.

One of the first things we realized we were thankful for is how easy Thanksgiving is in the US. Canned yams, crunchy fried deep fried onions in a can, cranberry sauce, ovens-Thanksgiving is like a take out dinner at home. Here we had to figure out how to make a casserole on the stovetop and learn how to get cranberry sauce to act like sauce instead of juice (it was actually based on cranberry jelly, the only hint of that particular fruit we could find). We toasted our garlic bread on the grill in back and sprinkled corn flakes on our green beans. It was amazing.

As we sat down to eat, the conversations around the tables (one of them invariably being nicknamed the "kids' table") were centered around holidays and what we ate during them. It struck me how much Thanksgiving is centered on food. It's not Thanksgiving unless there's a turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans and some sort of jello substance. In my family the entire holiday is almost exclusivley centered on the Yam Casserole-a creamy, buttery, crunchy, sweet bowl of yams and sugar and pecans that blurs the distinction between side dish and pie. We joke that we only serve the other dishes to moderate our intake of yams, for if we were to feast only on that casserole, we would all have heart attacks by the next morning.

So it seemed good when James climbed up on the brick barbeque and proclaimed to us the three things he was thankful for. One by one we followed, balancing on the metal grate and making each other laugh and cry with our gratitude. Thankful for the amazing provision we had seen through the rather difficult financial year, thankful for relationships that were budding or had bloomed, thankful for our familes and their health, thankful for a God to whom it is easy to thank.

Some would say that Thanksgiving is just another example of American gluttony. That the thankfulness is just a cover for our unrelentless search for more pleasure. That Americans love to eat so much, we've even invented a holiday to do nothing but.

I think this takes the wrong idea of what it means to be thankful though. You cannot be truly thankful until you have enjoyed the gift you are supposedly thankful for. I cannot thank you for the gift of a diamond ring and then refuse to wear it-even pawn it off. Thankfulness is the memory if the giver in the gift. It is the enjoyment of the present for the reciever and the enjoyment of the presenting for the giver. And so it is right to gorge ourselves on Yam Casserole once a year, just as it is right to gorge ourselves on the love of friends and family, the the thrill of making that backyard football touchdown and the sweet peace of a late afternoon nap.

God is good. Enjoy Him and his goodness. Then climb up on a barbeque and tell us all how good it was.

Origami Wads

It was hot. Not I-could-really-enjoy-a-cool-glass-of-lemonade hot, but more of a mind numbing, head pounding sticky clammy hot. And yet she found herself more comfortable than she'd been all day. The games had gone by in a confusing blur, one minute wondering how anyone would know how to play the game through the din of the crowd as it was explained and the next being mobbed by hundreds of South African children desperate to get the much needed mark on their arm so they could get a point. She wondered if they even got the point or if having an American draw a short line on your forearm with a Sharpie was reward enough.

Then it was craft time. The origami crane had seemed simple enough when they had practiced it the day before, but then she hadn't realized how much shared "language" and "experience" had gone into that practice session. Things that she and her rowdy bunch of ten year olds did not have in common. They had ended up making balls instead of cranes and even those wads of paper weren't properly round thanks to the random creases and folds they had awkwardly applied to the paper beforehand.

But now it was worship time, and this she could do! Sing, dance, put an arm around the kid next to you-this was what she'd been waiting for. So as the song began and the children started singing and bouncing as if they'd never even heard of dehydration, much less experiencing it now, she suddenly saw the girl in the front row. Her friends her dancing with wild abandon while she moved carefully back and forth, careful not to jostle the baby sleeping on her shoulder. "Why does that child have a baby," she wondered. "And why was it here?" So she made her way over to the young pair and asked where the mother was. "She's at work," the girl replied in a thick accent that sounded like the origami ball was in her mouth. "Can I hold her for you?" she asked. "Yes!" the girl replied, eagerly handing over her burden and launching herself into the air to join her sisters in the last verse of Brother Friend. And as she made her way outside, into the unrelenting sun and away from the joyful ruckus of the singing, she realized that this was why she was here: to hold a baby so a child could sing.

For The Record

My wife and I are currently in South Africa. We are helping to run a camp for disadvantaged kids from the townships and will be there and other places through Christmas. I just wanted to let the interweb know on the off chance that a) anyone wonders what happened to me, b) anyone has noticed that my commitment to daily writing has slacked off, or c) (the mot unlikely in my opinion) anyone misses the writing itself.

You can know more (a little more, anyway) about our trip by visiting http://www.allianceredwoods.com and finding the Camp South Africa link. You can donate there as well ;)

And one more thing: this means I'm blogging on my phone. So give me some slack in the punctuation department.

Cheers.

It's a Pity

Just after college, I was a member of a tight group of friends in Redding. We referred to ourselves as our "Redding Family", as most of us had little to no actual family within several hundred miles. One by one we started coupling up and today all but two of us are married to other "family" members. As one of the last to get married, this was a little hard for me at times. One of the couples especially were quite cuddly and affectionate. They were (rarely) inappropriate, but as a single person who wished very much to experience what they were experiencing, I found myself wishing they would tone it down just a little. It was all well and good to be in love, I believed, but if it could express itself a little less publicly, it would be easier for the rest of us lonely people. Have a little pity on us, would ya?

I realised yesterday that this attitude was wrong. It happened because my wife and I were sitting rather closley--not cuddling, really, but very nearly so--and a friend next to us asked us if we could stop touching each other so much. After a moment of the kind I've heard referred to as a "pregnant pause", he added that it was because it made him miss his girlfriend. I immediately felt sorry for him--after all, I've missed my girlfriend before as well and I would agree: it sucks. And so my first thought was that maybe we should tone it down a bit--or even a lot. It's cruel of us to rub our love in his face, he who has such unfulfilled longing. But then I thought, "wait a minute. Why should I stop enjoying my wife's presence just because you cannot enjoy yours?" It suddenly seemed very unfair of him to even ask. And I suddenly saw my former requests of my Redding Family as what they were: jealous attempts to hold their joy hostage.

I get that phrase from C.S. Lewis' book "The Great Divorce". In it he describes the difference between true pity and perverted pity. True pity makes you want to help a person get out of their sadness, their poorness or their misery and enter into the happiness, riches or joy that you are experiencing. Perverted pity makes you want to give up what you have so that together you can be miserable. The thing is, people don't normally feel perverted pity on their own, their pity has to be twisted by the other. Why would anyone want to give up their joy? But when we are miserable, we ask others to do it all the time. 'Misery loves company', the saying goes, and it's true. We try to take others' happiness hostage so that we will know that while we may still be miserable, at least there are few people who are less miserable than us.

This, I believe, is why the Bible says to rejoice in each others' joy and suffer in their misery. The second part calls the joyful to have pity, to not flee from the sadness that inevitably surrounds them. But the first part calls the miserable to not pervert that pity. While they are commisserating with you in your down times, rejoice with them in their uptimes. There again is that theme of selflessness that runs so strongly through the Faith and so weakly through our lives.

For now I'm going to enjoy my wife (what he didn't know was that we were already making an attempt to 'tone it down'!) even as, when I talk with my friend, I allow myself to remember the loneliness I felt not that long ago. God give me the grace to do so.

Four Eyes

I've never really been a fan of the Fall.  I blame it on growing up in Arizona...and, quite frankly, the process of growing up.  Fall meant school was starting, there was another year until my birthday and it was going to be getting cold.  It never gets that cold in AZ, but when it's all you know, it gets pretty dang cold.  Some days, I wished I had a hat.

Anyway, as I was saying, I've never been a fan of the Fall.  Even moving up here to Northern California, where we have at least three seasons (Rainy, Hot and Pleasant), I never really got excited about it.  Here, it meant the end of daylight savings time (and in the Redwoods, where I lived, that meant night starts around three in the afternoon) and the beginning of the fall season of outdoor education at the camp I worked at (a significantly more rigorous schedule than the summer one).

And so, it was my hmphh-ing and  silence that accompanied my new wife's exclamations about the beauty of the Fall.  She loves the vineyards, the maple trees, and the crisp cooler weather.  She loves to walk to the coffee shop and take the route that has inadequate sidewalks and low hanging branches just because that's the street that has all the leaves along the side.  She likes the sound of the leaves under her feet and giggles when she finds just the right kind at just the right stage of decomposition to make just the right crinkle.  She ooohs and aaahs and points...and its catchy. 

Another thing my wife loves to see--which I had never really noticed before--is the golden light of sunset.  I mean, I don't usually close my eyes during that time, but I've never stopped and said "Wow".  She has.  She's done it several times a week since we've gotten married.  She'll stop whatever we're doing, wherever we are and point at some wall or rock or telephone pole and exclaim in reverant awe how beautiful "this time of day" makes everything.  Its her favorite time of day.  I think if the sun set in the morning instead of the night she'd get up early every day. 

Needless to say, I notice these things now as well.  I noticed the vineyard behind our house this afternoon, all decked out in a pantheon of color that says to the still green oak tree standing in the middle, "I'll see your evergreen glory and raise you eighteen shades of yellow."  I noticed the golden glow of the sunset splash across our wall--the big blank wall we'd put pictures on if we had any--and realized that if we could just capture that particular shade of golden rapture, the pictures would just be in the way. 

There are a lot of things I see now that I've been married for a few months.  My wife is like that sunset illumination, taking objects I considered ordinary and commonplace and revealing the beauty that's been there all along.  Showing me, without ever actually showing me, what is good and pleasant and beautiful right here, right now.  Things in nature, things in other people, things in myself.  I think that's one of my favorite things about marriage--even just community in general.  The way it helps you to see and feel and experience things you'll never have time or opportunity or ability to see or feel or experience for yourself.  Our world is just too big, too beautiful and too exciting for one pair of eyes alone.  Good thing I now have two.

Expect the Unexpected

This was my favorite wedding gift.  It was a grey box with a silvery pillow top and pretty white lace.  We were expecting a nice gift inside, but instead we opened it to find a seemingly bottomless pile of money not just sitting in the box, but actually springing out and overflowing the sides.  Each note was a $2 bill (remember those?) and was folded into a bow-tie shape.  Just to be sure, we dug through the bills making sure there was nothing else inside--moreso for the thrill of digging through a huge pile of money than the expectation of anything else.  It was like an episode of DuckTales (remember that?) with Scrooge McDuck swimming through his vault full of coins.  I have always been somewhat dissappointed whenever I've put my hand into a pile of coins because it never really feels like it looked when he dived and flipped like some ecstatic porpoise.  But this pile of bills came about as close as anything.

Yesterday I finally finished unfolding all the bills and they now sit in a slightly crinkled pile of financially artistic beauty on our coffee table.  One of these days we'll take them to the bank, but for now they are the most expensive piece of art I've ever owned.  As I went through them (there were a hundred bow-ties), I came across one that was reversed.  Instead of a picture of Thomas Jefferson smiling regally at me from the knot, there was the chests of three unidentified men signing the Declaration of Independence.  It struck me odd that this one somehow passed through quality control and joined the other ninety nine.  Then it struck me that maybe there was a reason.  I imagined seeing my brother and his wife (the generous givers of the box of bow-ties) at christmas time and my brother telling me that if I could produce the bill that was folded backwards, there was another $100 for me.  So I set that bill aside.  It's now the bottom bill of that artistic crinkly pile I mentioned earlier.

The thing is, it's not going to happen.  I noticed a long time ago that the general rule of thumb for my life was that if I imagined it happening, it probably wouldn't.  Like some sort of anti-predict-the-future superpower.  I have no idea what's going to happen later on, but I can come up with all sorts of things that won't.  It seems to work for bad things as well as good things also.  So far, I haven't been decapitated while riding my bike, or fallen onto a piece of rebar and impaling myself at a construction site, or been in a plane crash.  Also, my teeth haven't crumbled and fallen out like so much sand.

The future is such a pointless place.  I mean, when it becomes the present then its all well and good--unless it isn't--but until then, its just the future.  A friend of mine has started studying Revelations and has been really frustrated to realize that all the things that she thought everyone knew about the end times is really just a second-class set of novels sold in Christian book stores and at Walmart.  There's a really angry guy on TBN that thinks it's real too.  I think he needs anger management classes.

An interesting thing to notice about Biblical prophecy is that even though a lot of it gets fulfilled during the history recorded in the Bible, nobody at the time of its fulfillment saw it coming or realized it was happening--if anything they realized something was up, then dismissed it because it didn't fit their interpretation.  So what do we learn from this?  That prophecy is for hind-sight, not fore-sight.  It gives us hope that in the end things are going to work out for the best; that when it's all said and done the good guys win.  It allows us to indentify who the good guys are because they fit the criteria.  But nobody fits the criteria until they do.  You can't see it coming.  You can't say "oh, there's another big storm this year and China's about to take over the world, so that means Jesus is on they way."  Because that's ridiculous and pointless.  Jesus is going to sneak in here and tap us on the shoulder and say "sshhh, come with me, we'll surprise them all!" and then we'll both sneak around some dimensional corner and come out the other side and yell "Boo!" and then ...well, some other stuff will happen and how you feel about it will depend on how you feel about God and then everything will be the way it's supposed to be and not screwed up anymore.  That's my take on Revelations anyway.

Until then though, I'm a little disappointed I'm not getting another $100 from my brother but quite thankful my house didn't burn down yesterday.

Hm.

Pumpkin spice lattes, if you make them yourself, have actual pumpkin in them.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Once, I listened to a guy tell a story about meeting a bear in the woods.  He described in great detail how beautiful the bear was, how graceful it was as it climbed up into the tree.  The sheen of its fur, the bright intelligent eyes, it made me get teary listening to it.  And then he shot it.  He was a hunter and this was one of his best stories.  Apparently, hunters like the kill even better when it's a beautiful animal.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Apparently, according to some people who really believe they know what they're talking about, the new health care plan of Obama's is going to make us all get on a six month waiting list to buy Tylenol.  But the only insurance plan I can afford right now only covers Tylenol--and only if the condition isn't pre-existing.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I'm not really a fan of this particular blog entry.  But the point was to write for 15 minutes, not necessarily to write well.  And its been at least thirty.  So I'm calling it here.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Radio Voice

Today, on the way to the library, my wife and I were listening to NPR.  We do that sometimes because it makes us feel cultured and snobby.  And other times there's something interesting on.  Today it was a talk show where some director I've never heard of was being interviewed about his work on several movies I've never seen and what it was like to work with actors I didn't recognize.   It was fascinating.  No, seriously, it was.  Well, maybe not "fascinating" per se, since when we got to the library we summarily turned off the car as if the radio wasn't even playing, but it was interesting enough to keep on and not resort to the ipod.  He (the director) had had many different jobs all over the entertainment industry.  He'd been an actor, an actor's agent, a screenwriter, producer and a lot more jobs that I've heard about and been impressed by--but can't actually say what it is they do.

As he was beginning to tell a story about this one time when he was an agent, I was suddenly struck by the thought that really this guy was just some guy.  So he'd made a movie that played real big in independent theaters in Berkeley where only truly caring people live.  Ultimately, he was just some guy who got a job--or rather a string of jobs--that he happened to really enjoy and who had a lot of fun stories to tell about them.  But that could describe a lot of people.  And this led to my next thought.

What if there was a radio show where actually ordinary people were interviewed and their lives explored as if they were really fascinating?  Because I think they actually are.  Here's how I see it.  We get a NPR type interviewer.  They have to have one of those great radio voices that lilts and tilts in on all the wrong words and who speaks really clearly with just enough of an accent to make you think they're not only better than you, but also honored to be talking to you.  And then they'd find guests who are from all over the place and do all sorts of things.  But they can't be public figures.  They can't have names that have scrolled by in credits or have been plastered on billboards.  They can be popular, in a sense, but not so popular that random passerbyers on the street would recognize them.  You know, people like you and me.

Then the interviewer would spend some time with them getting to know them.  She'd actually have to spend time with them because these are the kind of people who haven't written memoirs or had articles about them in the newspaper.  She'd ask them questions about their hobbies and their children and funny things they did in college.  She'd be good at it though, so the only stories to come out would be ones that would be entertaining and show us how interesting and good the guest is.

Interviewer: Our guest today is a barista at the local Starbucks.  He works the morning shift and spends his afternoons renovating his car, walking his dog and playing basketball at the local YMCA.  Tell us, Peter, what it is about car renovation you find so addicting?

Peter: Well, its not really "renovation" as much as it is just trying to keep it working.  Its an old car and half the time I'm praying I can get to work in the morning.  Its tough trying to hitchike at 3 am, you know?

Interviewer: [understanding and commiserating laugh]  Yes, I'm sure it is. Have you actually had to do that?

Peter: [I-knew-you-were-going-to-ask-that chuckle]  I don't normally.  But one night last week, I was walking down the road and I was going to be late.  This car came down the road and I don't know what came over me, but I just stuck out my thumb and gave it a shot.  Amazingly enough, the car actually pulled over!  So I walk up to the passenger door--a little hesitantly--and just as I arrived the engine sputtered and stopped.

Interviewer: Really!?

Peter: Sure did.  So I leaned over and it turned out to be one of our regulars!  The guy couldn't get the thing to turn over, so we decided to try to push start it.  After several tries, it just wouldn't work.  So we ended up throwing it in neutral and coasting almost all the way to the Starbucks at the bottom of the hill. 

Interviewer: Wow.  So did you make it on time?

Peter: No, I was about 45 minutes late and they'd already called in someone to replace me.  He needed the hours and my ride needed the help, so I just gave him my shift and spent the rest of the morning getting the guys car working.  Turns out it just needed a new battery cable.

Interviewer: You gave up your shift to fix a stranger's car?

Peter:  Ya.  I figure one of these times he'll pass by me at 3am and the car will actually work then!

Interviewer: Fascinating.

I'd listen.  On my way to the library anyway.

私は残念である

There are some days that I sit down to write and I don't feel like I have anything to say.  There are, I suppose, a plethora of topics, but none seem to be grabbing me tonight.  Really, the only reason I haven't "forgotten" to write at all today was because my wife remembered.  But its not like I've committed to writing anything in particular, just that I've committed to writing something.

It reminds me of playing team building games with the kids at the camp I used to work at.  I usually gave the kids an objective, told them everyone has to participate and then gave them no more than three rules.  Just three.  For instance, in one game where they have to cross a bridge over a river of boiling peanut butter, the only rules are that (1) only one person is allowed on the bridge at a time, (2) They must step onto an adjacent tile of the bridge and (3) they may not use a tile twice.  Its not really that hard and there's no reason anyone should fail.  And yet I never had a group finish it perfectly.  And it was always because someone thought up at least one more rule that I never gave and which made the game really hard.  I, of course, would just stand there and watch this whole thing play out because that is the nature of team building games.  And then I would share my wisdom on how they shouldn't make up rules to make life harder than it needs to be, how to stop from judging each other based on those non-existent rules and why peanut butter would have to be boiling if it was going to be flowing, so of course it makes perfect sense for it to be doing both through the redwood forest.

So anyway, I've decided to write a haiku.  Why not.

Screen glows on her face
Her words pour into the light
Hands dancing out life

I probably need to apologize to Japanese poets in general, but I promise I'm just trying to kill twenty minutes, not the art of haiku.

No I Don't Play Basketball...Do You Jockey Horses?

I'm tall.  Maybe you wouldn't know that from just reading this blog or from the title, but its true.  I'm pretty sure I've always been tall.  I have to say "pretty sure" because there was a time in my life when I didn't know I was tall.  The moment of realization was sudden and I remember it well.  It happened in the courtyard of my high school at the beginning of my senior year.  I was walking between C Hall and A Hall was was near the gazebo where my friends and I would eat our lunch.  My backpack was over my right shoulder and the weather was sunny and mild.  Like I said, I remember it well.

Anyway, it was the first week of school and I was noticing how many new freshmen were about.  They were everywhere--ours was the last small class and the classes to follow were getting bigger and bigger.  That year's freshman class was huge compared to ours.  And, like I said, they were everywhere.  The other thing I remember thinking was that not only where they, as I mentioned, everywhere, but they were also really small.  Like child small.  All of them.  Tiny.  Like little elves.

I remember stopping (and this is where my memory has probably taken the liberty of dramatizing the scene a bit) and looking around the seemingly endless traffic of freshmen students move past me.  It was like that scene in The Matrix where Neo is being shown the computer simulation for the first time.  And it dawned on me: These kids weren't "short".  I was "tall"! 

Duh.

The thing is, I didn't just wake up one morning and find myself suddenly a whole head taller than everyone around me.  Growth spurts are one thing, but I started walking across that courtyard as a totally average person who didn't--and didn't want to--stick out in a crowd, and I left that courtyard as "Ben" [hold arm above head with palm out flat to signify height and to which "Ben" you are referring to].

Its funny how we don't know stuff like that about ourselves.  Everyone around me knew I was tall.  But for some reason, I didn't.  I'd be willing to bet that people had even told me I was tall.  Especially because nearly every day since that moment someone has.  But I didn't see it about myself.  I had never really noticed.