This Christmas feels a little different than Christmases in the past. There’s a little more excitement, a little more anticipation of what I’ll be getting than there has been for a long time. It’s not because I have no idea what my wife is getting for me or how many presents will be under the tree. Whatever it is will be will be less than $30 and probably add up to approximately four gifts—all of this stipulated by the Maki Family gift exchange list and budgetary requirements. Christmas hasn’t held much anticipation for me since my teen years when I learned to play it cool like my parents. That and the evolution of family gift giving policies designed to hold back the materialism of our culture have helped to make Christmas happy, joyful, family-oriented and fattening but have severely limited the anticipation of what’s to come. But this year is different because this year I’m anticipating a newborn son.
I can’t help but feel that this puts me in a somewhat unique position when it comes to considering what Christmas means. After all, the anticipation of a coming baby was basically what the Christmas story is about. Almost. There’s something that Mary and Joseph knew about their baby that ups their anticipation to heights I’m not sure I will ever relate to. Jesus wasn’t just the next piece of their family, a continuation of their family lines, a step up in society and economic status, a child who would grow up to be someone they could be proud of. Mary and Joseph knew that their newborn son was going to be the Messiah. The Savior. Of the World.
Mary and Joseph spent the first Christmas wondering about what was to come. What kind of man would this Messiah be? How would he save them? Would his people finally be free of Roman oppression? Would he make their fields more productive, their armies stronger, their people more respected in the world? Would there be war or would he conquer peacefully? Would they all become rulers or would there be no one else left to rule? What will the world be like when he is done?
I am sure the anticipation of all these things kept Joseph and Mary, the shepherd and the wise men awake with excitement for many nights that first Christmas. But in these days of corporation-driven celebrations and adult sensibilities we don’t find ourselves anticipating Christmas very often. For us Christmas is a time of remembrance, a time of looking back and being thankful for what God did that day. Maybe that’s why God orchestrated for Christmas to be so close to our New Year. Because the New Year still brings that sense of wonder of what’s to come. It’s the end of the old and the beginning of something else. Something that may be more of the same, but just might be gloriously different as well.
I know there are those whose collars ruffle when others wish them a “Happy Holidays” instead of a “Merry Christmas”, but maybe the two holidays together come close to what the first Christmas was really like. Christmas wasn’t a memorial, it was the day everything changed and the world became a new place. What hopes will be fulfilled this next year because of Christmas? What wars will cease, what sorrows will be quenched, what pain will be soothed because of Christmas?
As for me, I will be laying awake at night during the holidays wondering what kind of person my son will become and what kind of father I will be. May your nights be more restful than mine but may you also experience a sense of wonder at what kind of person you will become this year and what kind of Father our God has always been. And may you have a merry Christmas—and a Happy New Year.
12/16/11
9/18/11
Death and Taxes, Minus the Taxes
Last week I was asked to be the speaker at a camp that was being run by my coworker. I didn't want to. I actually kind of like public speaking, but public speaking about the things of God has always been something I've avoided if I could. And so I had, at least up until then.
My wife, of course, has been saying I should do something like this for nearly as long as we've been married. And then my boss suggested to my coworker that maybe I would be a good speaker for his camp. And then it turns out there's no money in the budget to hire a speaker anyway and I'm already on the payroll and nobody else really wants to do it either and, well, there's this little part of me that actually kind of wants to do it to and so it was just a matter of time. I pretended to be "considering" it for as long as I could so at least I didn't have to feel committed and then gave in.
It went well. It went really well, actually. And, after I had pushed through the agonizing torture of preparing a talk (someone once likened it to birth pains and while I won't know those personally I think its a good analogy), I even kind of enjoyed it.
I bring this up because yesterday I read Donald Miller's blog and the article was entitled "The Best Writing Advice I’ve Ever Received". You should read it for yourself because its as well written as any of Don's stuff, but I'll sum it up for you now: Love your reader.
Now if I had read that a month ago, I think I would have thought it was a great piece of advice and stuck it in my Reservoir of Wise Things I Heard Someone Say One Time. But it was yesterday, and it hit me a little differently. See, those talks I did for that camp were on the topic of Love being the greatest commandment. And I took the opportunity to go into detail about what it actually means to love and how hard it is to love. I'll sum up my talks for you too: Love means dying to yourself.
So this idea has been simmering in my mind for nearly 24 hours now. To be a good writer (or speaker) I need to die to myself if it means my readers and listeners will benefit. Which is true. I never actually want to write, I only want to have written. And those 2 days spent preparing my talks in earnest were torture. There were so many things I wanted to do besides locking myself in an empty meeting room and hashing my way through what is a much more difficult topic that you'd expect and making it relevant to people 20 years younger than myself. It may sound a little melodramatic, but for those two days I felt like a part of me was dying. The part that didn't want to work this hard, the part that didn't want to be embarrassed if I messed up, the part that remembered the critical comments I received on my sermons back in college, the part that always harbors that flicker of doubt that I actually know anything about anything.
Like I said, the talks went very well. The kids went home after the final talk and actually shared their hearts with each other in a way that their leaders were still in awe over at breakfast the next morning. I have to be honest when I say that I was a little surprised by the results of it. I only share it here because it still seems like something that happened to someone else rather than to me. But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. Isn't it written somewhere that love never fails? And that what greater love can there be than that someone dies for someone else?
And so I come to the reason I started writing this particular piece in the first place. I was contentedly reading my book, drinking my tea and waiting for my wife to come home. But in the back of my mind I just kept remembering my mother calling me nearly every time she reads my blog to tell me how much it meant to her. How Jesse comments on nearly every post and has always been an encouragement to me. How I hardly ever write anymore even though it seems like it brings other people such joy. How all I really wanted to do right then was just read my book and drink my tea. Getting up and turning on the computer felt just a little like death.
So I shall leave you with this question. It is actually the same question I posed to my campers just last week, though I am only just now realizing that I have been asking it of myself ever since then. What is it that stands between you and being a loving person? What part of you needs to die so that you can bring joy to someone else?
I haven't fully nailed it down for myself just yet, but I am confident in this: that there is One who will not fail to complete my transformation from the selfish person I am now to the loving person I was meant to be. Even if he has to do it one small little death at a time.
My wife, of course, has been saying I should do something like this for nearly as long as we've been married. And then my boss suggested to my coworker that maybe I would be a good speaker for his camp. And then it turns out there's no money in the budget to hire a speaker anyway and I'm already on the payroll and nobody else really wants to do it either and, well, there's this little part of me that actually kind of wants to do it to and so it was just a matter of time. I pretended to be "considering" it for as long as I could so at least I didn't have to feel committed and then gave in.
It went well. It went really well, actually. And, after I had pushed through the agonizing torture of preparing a talk (someone once likened it to birth pains and while I won't know those personally I think its a good analogy), I even kind of enjoyed it.
I bring this up because yesterday I read Donald Miller's blog and the article was entitled "The Best Writing Advice I’ve Ever Received". You should read it for yourself because its as well written as any of Don's stuff, but I'll sum it up for you now: Love your reader.
Now if I had read that a month ago, I think I would have thought it was a great piece of advice and stuck it in my Reservoir of Wise Things I Heard Someone Say One Time. But it was yesterday, and it hit me a little differently. See, those talks I did for that camp were on the topic of Love being the greatest commandment. And I took the opportunity to go into detail about what it actually means to love and how hard it is to love. I'll sum up my talks for you too: Love means dying to yourself.
So this idea has been simmering in my mind for nearly 24 hours now. To be a good writer (or speaker) I need to die to myself if it means my readers and listeners will benefit. Which is true. I never actually want to write, I only want to have written. And those 2 days spent preparing my talks in earnest were torture. There were so many things I wanted to do besides locking myself in an empty meeting room and hashing my way through what is a much more difficult topic that you'd expect and making it relevant to people 20 years younger than myself. It may sound a little melodramatic, but for those two days I felt like a part of me was dying. The part that didn't want to work this hard, the part that didn't want to be embarrassed if I messed up, the part that remembered the critical comments I received on my sermons back in college, the part that always harbors that flicker of doubt that I actually know anything about anything.
Like I said, the talks went very well. The kids went home after the final talk and actually shared their hearts with each other in a way that their leaders were still in awe over at breakfast the next morning. I have to be honest when I say that I was a little surprised by the results of it. I only share it here because it still seems like something that happened to someone else rather than to me. But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. Isn't it written somewhere that love never fails? And that what greater love can there be than that someone dies for someone else?
And so I come to the reason I started writing this particular piece in the first place. I was contentedly reading my book, drinking my tea and waiting for my wife to come home. But in the back of my mind I just kept remembering my mother calling me nearly every time she reads my blog to tell me how much it meant to her. How Jesse comments on nearly every post and has always been an encouragement to me. How I hardly ever write anymore even though it seems like it brings other people such joy. How all I really wanted to do right then was just read my book and drink my tea. Getting up and turning on the computer felt just a little like death.
So I shall leave you with this question. It is actually the same question I posed to my campers just last week, though I am only just now realizing that I have been asking it of myself ever since then. What is it that stands between you and being a loving person? What part of you needs to die so that you can bring joy to someone else?
I haven't fully nailed it down for myself just yet, but I am confident in this: that there is One who will not fail to complete my transformation from the selfish person I am now to the loving person I was meant to be. Even if he has to do it one small little death at a time.
8/24/11
Inter Romanorum quod VCR
I'm still writing, just not very often unfortunately. Here is a blog entry I wrote for the camp I work for:
Yesterday, as I was deep in concentration over some new problem that had cropped up in our soon-to-be-released redesigned website, Laura came in to ask a favor.“There’s a family here to visit the grounds and I need someone to take them around,” she asked. “You’re the only one available.”Generally, it takes me a few minutes to switch to people mode when I’ve been coding web pages all day, but when the woman who hands you your check every other week asks a favor…well…
The family turned out to be from Utah and they had come all the way to Prescott for a whirlwind one day tour of all that was special to grandpa when he lived here as a boy. Grandpa himself was leading the tour and from the smile on his face as we climbed into the golf cart I could tell this was going to be a fun trip.
Our first stop was the Chapel. After a family picture outside the door, he stepped inside and began describing in detail how it had looked so long ago.“There were pews and the front was on the end, over here.There was a banner on the wall that said ‘I can do all things through Christ’ above the stage. And I was sitting right here when I gave my life to the Lord.” He was standing right under the left projector, surrounded by chairs facing the wrong way and staring at a blank, banner-less wall, but you could tell that the decision he’d made so long ago on that very spot hadn’t changed at all.
Now I was born in the ‘70’s, so when people talk about coming to camp in 1948, it falls into that realm of history sometime after the Romans, but before the VCR.And the difference between that time and this one seems like an impossibly long time.But as we continued the tour (his level of excitement rising to an almost giddy level when he discovered his cabin is still—barely—standing), I was reminded of something a pastor once said to me.“I’ve made a lot of decisions in my life, starting from a very young age.What I was going to be, where I was going to live, what I was going to do.But there is only one decision that has stuck with me for all these years: the decision to follow Christ.I don’t know how, but I am who I am because of that decision.”
Like I said, I’m working on a new web site.We just built a new dining hall.We’ve got grandiose plans to make this place as unrecognizable in another 60 years as it is now compared to back then.But nothing excites me more than this:that when my own childhood joins the Roman Empire in ancient history, my work here will have helped people know the One Who Never Changes and who will still be loving me.
Yesterday, as I was deep in concentration over some new problem that had cropped up in our soon-to-be-released redesigned website, Laura came in to ask a favor.“There’s a family here to visit the grounds and I need someone to take them around,” she asked. “You’re the only one available.”Generally, it takes me a few minutes to switch to people mode when I’ve been coding web pages all day, but when the woman who hands you your check every other week asks a favor…well…
The family turned out to be from Utah and they had come all the way to Prescott for a whirlwind one day tour of all that was special to grandpa when he lived here as a boy. Grandpa himself was leading the tour and from the smile on his face as we climbed into the golf cart I could tell this was going to be a fun trip.
Our first stop was the Chapel. After a family picture outside the door, he stepped inside and began describing in detail how it had looked so long ago.“There were pews and the front was on the end, over here.There was a banner on the wall that said ‘I can do all things through Christ’ above the stage. And I was sitting right here when I gave my life to the Lord.” He was standing right under the left projector, surrounded by chairs facing the wrong way and staring at a blank, banner-less wall, but you could tell that the decision he’d made so long ago on that very spot hadn’t changed at all.
Now I was born in the ‘70’s, so when people talk about coming to camp in 1948, it falls into that realm of history sometime after the Romans, but before the VCR.And the difference between that time and this one seems like an impossibly long time.But as we continued the tour (his level of excitement rising to an almost giddy level when he discovered his cabin is still—barely—standing), I was reminded of something a pastor once said to me.“I’ve made a lot of decisions in my life, starting from a very young age.What I was going to be, where I was going to live, what I was going to do.But there is only one decision that has stuck with me for all these years: the decision to follow Christ.I don’t know how, but I am who I am because of that decision.”
Like I said, I’m working on a new web site.We just built a new dining hall.We’ve got grandiose plans to make this place as unrecognizable in another 60 years as it is now compared to back then.But nothing excites me more than this:that when my own childhood joins the Roman Empire in ancient history, my work here will have helped people know the One Who Never Changes and who will still be loving me.
5/1/11
Peachy, You Might Even Say
Montgomery Bartholomew Sodinsky III loves peaches. And not just peaches by themselves, but anything containing peaches. Peach ice cream, peach smoothies, peach candy, peach soda, peach air freshener, peach shampoo--he even sliced up peaches and laid them on his steak one time. (He insisted that it was delicious, but his wife is inclined to disbelieve him since he has never tried it again).
At this very moment, in fact, he is eating a peach. A very juicy peach. And this is pleasent for two reasons. One, it is a peach. A very juicy peach, his favorite kind. Two, it is a celebration peach. For Montgomery Bartholomew Sodinsky III has just finished his fence. Monty (as anyone with anything to do this afternoon would rather call him) has just moved into this house with his new wife. The house is exactly the kind of house that most newly married young couples dream of: quiet neighborhood, green lawn, two car garage, new carpet. The backyard was not finished though, in Monty's opinion, because the well manicured back yard is not fenced in. It backs up to a national forest and the former owners had enjoyed the idea that their backyard stretched for miles and miles. Not Monty. A backyard isn't really your backyard until nobody else can get there. So up went the fence. And since Monty was the kind of guy who hated to pay someone to do things that he could do himself, he was the one that put it up.
And so, standing back and admiring his handiwork, he takes the last very juicy bite out of his celebratory peach (which was preceded by a regular peach and would probably be followed by one as well) and throws the pit over the fence into the forest.
Well, lots of stuff happens after that, far more things than this story has time to tell, even if many of those things are worth telling. There is a funny moment when Monty's wife goes into the backyard just before Monty comes home and she comes back in after he's gone upstairs to bed thinking she'll be home later. So she stays up all night in the recliner waiting for him while he sleeps soundly upstairs. And then there is a sad moment when Monty's dog finally curls up in front of the fireplace for the last time and is buried in the backyard. But none of these stories are important to us here in this story, so they will have to wait for another time.
What is important to this story is that peach pit that Monty threw over the fence so long ago. It has done very well for itself in the passing years, having landed in a rather lucky place of good soil and light and is now a strapping peach tree with wide branches, brilliantly green leaves and--most importantly--very juicy peaches. Monty noticed the tree a little while back when it had just started to peek over the fence into his backyard. He didn't realize what it was at first, but as a few more years passed he started smelling his favorite smell every fall and began to be suspicious. It was only last year that he realized what he had just beyond his fence. A Very Juicy Peach Tree. The day he discovered it has been marked on his calendar and is celebrated each year with a peach pie. An additional peach pie, that is.
The problem Monty has now is that even though the peach tree is so close, he cannot get to it easily. Everyone else on his street have fences as well, so to get to the other side of his fence he has to walk to the end of the block, down an alley and then through the woods along the back of his neighbors' yards. It's a good twenty minute walk to the peach tree and another twenty back and he doesn't carry too many peaches with him for fear that the neighbors will notice his bounty and go collecting as well. His wife has become a bit frustrated with his absence and insists that she can buy just as good peaches at the store that don't require her husband to go out for an hour every night after dinner, but he won't have any of it. "These are the best peaches in the world!" he cries, as if it was sheer lunacy to think that his peach fetching hikes were not worth it.
One day, during dinner, his wife, a quiet and unassuming woman who, if it weren't for her love for her husband, would be quite happy to never see another peach again, suggests an idea: "What if you just took down a section of fence in the back yard? Then you could just walk out the back door and have a peach right off the tree whenever you want!"
"It's not our backyard unless there's a fence around it, honey. The fence needs to stay," he replies.
And she persists. "But honey, who is going to come into our backyard? It takes twenty minutes to get back there now; have you ever even seen anyone back there?"
"Everyone has a fence around their backyard. That's what makes it a backyard!" he answers again in a frustrated voice. The idea of a fenceless backyard disturbs him deeply for reasons he does not understand. He knows the reasons he gives for a fence sound silly, but he cannot think of better ones. All he knows, deep in his peach-sized heart, is that a backyard needs a fence.
And so it goes for several more months. Long evening walks to fetch the peaches, a lonely wife cleaning up the dishes by herself, a backyard that is never used and soon grows a bit disheveled. But something is happening to Monty that he finds fascinating and disturbing at the same time. He is beginning to see hints that backyards and fences may not be quite as symbiotic as he has always believed. The first time is a magazine in the grocery aisle that features a picture of a beach house along the shore in Virginia. His eye is first caught (though he'll never admit it) by the headline about two women fighting over a particular celebrity, but is then drawn to the house. The house just backs up to the beach. There is no fence. "It's a beach house," he says to himself, and that explains everything.
But it keeps happening. His brother talks about his in-laws' cabin which sits by itself in a quiet valley. "You look out your window and there's the forest!" he tells Monty, "Nothing stopping you from just walking for miles!" Another time it is a visit to a friend's house who lives on a golf course. He can tee off to the fourth hole from his back patio, only a row of pansies showing the course mowers where to stop and let him take care of his own grass. Bit by bit Monty's belief in the necessary boundary between his patio furniture and the outside world is worn away. And Monty is getting tired. Tired of walking to the peach tree, tired of arguing with his wife, tired of that stupid fence.
And so Monty, peach in one hand and hammer in the other walks out to the fence one afternoon. His wife is out shopping, he's chosen this particular afternoon carefully. Upsetting one's beliefs about fences is hard enough without someone watching you. He looks at the fence he built so carefully, so long ago and eats the peach. It's a good fence. And there is nothing wrong with it but for its location between him and the peach tree. He considers his options one more time. And then tossing the peach pit over the fence, he raises his hammer and grabs a slightly protruding nail head.
One by one the nails pull free, one by one the slats come down. Several more peaches are eaten and his wife comes home. She stays inside and begins to prepare a crust for the peach pie she expects to be able to make later on. And when it is all finished, Monty stands in the middle of his back yard and looks out at the forest beyond. The forest that contains a very juicy peach tree. Then he takes no more than fifteen steps forward and pulls a peach off the tree.
Today is the best day in Montgomery Bartholomew Sodinsky III's life.
At this very moment, in fact, he is eating a peach. A very juicy peach. And this is pleasent for two reasons. One, it is a peach. A very juicy peach, his favorite kind. Two, it is a celebration peach. For Montgomery Bartholomew Sodinsky III has just finished his fence. Monty (as anyone with anything to do this afternoon would rather call him) has just moved into this house with his new wife. The house is exactly the kind of house that most newly married young couples dream of: quiet neighborhood, green lawn, two car garage, new carpet. The backyard was not finished though, in Monty's opinion, because the well manicured back yard is not fenced in. It backs up to a national forest and the former owners had enjoyed the idea that their backyard stretched for miles and miles. Not Monty. A backyard isn't really your backyard until nobody else can get there. So up went the fence. And since Monty was the kind of guy who hated to pay someone to do things that he could do himself, he was the one that put it up.
And so, standing back and admiring his handiwork, he takes the last very juicy bite out of his celebratory peach (which was preceded by a regular peach and would probably be followed by one as well) and throws the pit over the fence into the forest.
Well, lots of stuff happens after that, far more things than this story has time to tell, even if many of those things are worth telling. There is a funny moment when Monty's wife goes into the backyard just before Monty comes home and she comes back in after he's gone upstairs to bed thinking she'll be home later. So she stays up all night in the recliner waiting for him while he sleeps soundly upstairs. And then there is a sad moment when Monty's dog finally curls up in front of the fireplace for the last time and is buried in the backyard. But none of these stories are important to us here in this story, so they will have to wait for another time.
What is important to this story is that peach pit that Monty threw over the fence so long ago. It has done very well for itself in the passing years, having landed in a rather lucky place of good soil and light and is now a strapping peach tree with wide branches, brilliantly green leaves and--most importantly--very juicy peaches. Monty noticed the tree a little while back when it had just started to peek over the fence into his backyard. He didn't realize what it was at first, but as a few more years passed he started smelling his favorite smell every fall and began to be suspicious. It was only last year that he realized what he had just beyond his fence. A Very Juicy Peach Tree. The day he discovered it has been marked on his calendar and is celebrated each year with a peach pie. An additional peach pie, that is.
The problem Monty has now is that even though the peach tree is so close, he cannot get to it easily. Everyone else on his street have fences as well, so to get to the other side of his fence he has to walk to the end of the block, down an alley and then through the woods along the back of his neighbors' yards. It's a good twenty minute walk to the peach tree and another twenty back and he doesn't carry too many peaches with him for fear that the neighbors will notice his bounty and go collecting as well. His wife has become a bit frustrated with his absence and insists that she can buy just as good peaches at the store that don't require her husband to go out for an hour every night after dinner, but he won't have any of it. "These are the best peaches in the world!" he cries, as if it was sheer lunacy to think that his peach fetching hikes were not worth it.
One day, during dinner, his wife, a quiet and unassuming woman who, if it weren't for her love for her husband, would be quite happy to never see another peach again, suggests an idea: "What if you just took down a section of fence in the back yard? Then you could just walk out the back door and have a peach right off the tree whenever you want!"
"It's not our backyard unless there's a fence around it, honey. The fence needs to stay," he replies.
And she persists. "But honey, who is going to come into our backyard? It takes twenty minutes to get back there now; have you ever even seen anyone back there?"
"Everyone has a fence around their backyard. That's what makes it a backyard!" he answers again in a frustrated voice. The idea of a fenceless backyard disturbs him deeply for reasons he does not understand. He knows the reasons he gives for a fence sound silly, but he cannot think of better ones. All he knows, deep in his peach-sized heart, is that a backyard needs a fence.
And so it goes for several more months. Long evening walks to fetch the peaches, a lonely wife cleaning up the dishes by herself, a backyard that is never used and soon grows a bit disheveled. But something is happening to Monty that he finds fascinating and disturbing at the same time. He is beginning to see hints that backyards and fences may not be quite as symbiotic as he has always believed. The first time is a magazine in the grocery aisle that features a picture of a beach house along the shore in Virginia. His eye is first caught (though he'll never admit it) by the headline about two women fighting over a particular celebrity, but is then drawn to the house. The house just backs up to the beach. There is no fence. "It's a beach house," he says to himself, and that explains everything.
But it keeps happening. His brother talks about his in-laws' cabin which sits by itself in a quiet valley. "You look out your window and there's the forest!" he tells Monty, "Nothing stopping you from just walking for miles!" Another time it is a visit to a friend's house who lives on a golf course. He can tee off to the fourth hole from his back patio, only a row of pansies showing the course mowers where to stop and let him take care of his own grass. Bit by bit Monty's belief in the necessary boundary between his patio furniture and the outside world is worn away. And Monty is getting tired. Tired of walking to the peach tree, tired of arguing with his wife, tired of that stupid fence.
And so Monty, peach in one hand and hammer in the other walks out to the fence one afternoon. His wife is out shopping, he's chosen this particular afternoon carefully. Upsetting one's beliefs about fences is hard enough without someone watching you. He looks at the fence he built so carefully, so long ago and eats the peach. It's a good fence. And there is nothing wrong with it but for its location between him and the peach tree. He considers his options one more time. And then tossing the peach pit over the fence, he raises his hammer and grabs a slightly protruding nail head.
One by one the nails pull free, one by one the slats come down. Several more peaches are eaten and his wife comes home. She stays inside and begins to prepare a crust for the peach pie she expects to be able to make later on. And when it is all finished, Monty stands in the middle of his back yard and looks out at the forest beyond. The forest that contains a very juicy peach tree. Then he takes no more than fifteen steps forward and pulls a peach off the tree.
Today is the best day in Montgomery Bartholomew Sodinsky III's life.
2/19/11
Let Us Re-joice!
It was a brisk and bright autumn day when I left my car along the side of the road and began my hike. The trail meandered next to a nearly empty creek that occasionally burbled and more often than not barely made the ground wet. The leaves were golden on the ground and the trees bare, letting more light into the small space between the hills than had been there earlier in the year. I followed the trail out to where the struggling creek made its way into a small lake and sat on a rock to look out at the distant kayakers and listen to the lapping waves.
At some point I looked up from my barely comfortable seat on the boulder to notice three large birds sitting in a nearby tree. They were larger than the usual birds one sees on a regular basis and being so close, their size was a bit offensive to one's sense of order in the world. Birds and toddlers should not be able to wear the same size shoe. And it did not help that these birds were not only very large, but also somewhat ugly. Not just ugly in a too-large-for-their-kind kind of ugly, like seeing a huge spider, but just plain ugly for any size of bird. They were Short Neck Buzzards. And they were bored.
Now Buzzards of any kind are a somewhat necessary if disturbing part of our world. The simple truth is that things are dying out there in the natural world all the time and buzzards perform the necessary act of cleaning up. I won't go into the details of what would happen should buzzards and the others of their kind suddenly took the vegetarian route, but let's just say it would not be pretty. Or smell pretty either.
Even so, it is a comforting thought to know that there are three buzzards in the world on this beautiful afternoon that have nothing to do. But even as I thought this, one of the buzzards suddenly perked up its head as if realizing something and fell forward onto it's outspread wings and up into the air.
"Where did it go?" I wondered. "What did it smell?". "What sad misfortune has befallen some poor creature?"
Before I had the chance to follow these thoughts to their end, the second short-necked buzzard spread its own wings and fell forward into flight as well. It hadn't just been a false clue then, the first buzzard really had noticed something evil afoot in the forest. My heart quickened its duties, my stomach sank in response to the thought that something very bad had happened nearby. But there was still a chance. One buzzard still sat in that dead tree and as long as that was true, maybe disaster had been avoided after all.
But it wasn't true. The buzzard was no longer there. At some point during my most recent reflections, alas!, he had left on his own grisly task. "Oh, what a shame!" I cried aloud to whomever was left alive to listen. This serene beautiful world around me had just revealed its true nature and I was horrified and frightened and desperately saddened by it. "It's not fair!" I sobbed, "It's just not fair!" And now, as I looked out over the lake, all I could see was that infernal Dead Tree. That Dead Tree that symbolized everything that had just come to pass.
But then Hope flickered. With a significant amount of whooshing, the first buzzard swooped in over my head and placed itself in its original place with an impressive amount of grace. I felt a tingle come over my skin as my clouds of grief began to thin.
And then it happened again. Another buzzard arrived and took its place next to the first. These birds had just brought me through such an emotional torment by this point I knew them each individually and had given them the names that seemed to describe their personalities. The first was Grace, the second was Hip-Hop because even now he was bobbing his head to some internal beat that I suddenly realized I could hear. It was the beat of Goodness. The rhythm of Holiness, the strum of Grace. The buzzards had returned! What had appeared as the true nature of the world suddenly could be seen for what it was: a costume, a disguise, a grimy covering hiding its true beauty.
And then my heart lept with joy to heights I had not dreamed possible before this moment because even now the third buzzard was taking its place next to the other three! My tears continued flowing, but no longer from my well of grief, rather from a fountain of bottomless joy and gratitude! I knew it could not last, this mountainous peak of Peace and Life my immediate surroundings and I found ourselves in, but for now All was Right in the world. All was Good. All was Alive.
And then I realized that the kayakers had made it to the other side of the lake and had found a place to jump off the rocks into the water. I smiled at how fun it looked, leaping safely into the air only to be caught without any other harm than the shock of the cold water. And I noticed that the barely comfortable rock I had been sitting on had at some point changed itself into a not-comfortable-at-all rock without my realizing it. So I stood, took one last look at my friends the buzzards to make sure they were still there and turned back along the leaf strewn path to my car.
At some point I looked up from my barely comfortable seat on the boulder to notice three large birds sitting in a nearby tree. They were larger than the usual birds one sees on a regular basis and being so close, their size was a bit offensive to one's sense of order in the world. Birds and toddlers should not be able to wear the same size shoe. And it did not help that these birds were not only very large, but also somewhat ugly. Not just ugly in a too-large-for-their-kind kind of ugly, like seeing a huge spider, but just plain ugly for any size of bird. They were Short Neck Buzzards. And they were bored.
Now Buzzards of any kind are a somewhat necessary if disturbing part of our world. The simple truth is that things are dying out there in the natural world all the time and buzzards perform the necessary act of cleaning up. I won't go into the details of what would happen should buzzards and the others of their kind suddenly took the vegetarian route, but let's just say it would not be pretty. Or smell pretty either.
Even so, it is a comforting thought to know that there are three buzzards in the world on this beautiful afternoon that have nothing to do. But even as I thought this, one of the buzzards suddenly perked up its head as if realizing something and fell forward onto it's outspread wings and up into the air.
"Where did it go?" I wondered. "What did it smell?". "What sad misfortune has befallen some poor creature?"
Before I had the chance to follow these thoughts to their end, the second short-necked buzzard spread its own wings and fell forward into flight as well. It hadn't just been a false clue then, the first buzzard really had noticed something evil afoot in the forest. My heart quickened its duties, my stomach sank in response to the thought that something very bad had happened nearby. But there was still a chance. One buzzard still sat in that dead tree and as long as that was true, maybe disaster had been avoided after all.
But it wasn't true. The buzzard was no longer there. At some point during my most recent reflections, alas!, he had left on his own grisly task. "Oh, what a shame!" I cried aloud to whomever was left alive to listen. This serene beautiful world around me had just revealed its true nature and I was horrified and frightened and desperately saddened by it. "It's not fair!" I sobbed, "It's just not fair!" And now, as I looked out over the lake, all I could see was that infernal Dead Tree. That Dead Tree that symbolized everything that had just come to pass.
But then Hope flickered. With a significant amount of whooshing, the first buzzard swooped in over my head and placed itself in its original place with an impressive amount of grace. I felt a tingle come over my skin as my clouds of grief began to thin.
And then it happened again. Another buzzard arrived and took its place next to the first. These birds had just brought me through such an emotional torment by this point I knew them each individually and had given them the names that seemed to describe their personalities. The first was Grace, the second was Hip-Hop because even now he was bobbing his head to some internal beat that I suddenly realized I could hear. It was the beat of Goodness. The rhythm of Holiness, the strum of Grace. The buzzards had returned! What had appeared as the true nature of the world suddenly could be seen for what it was: a costume, a disguise, a grimy covering hiding its true beauty.
And then my heart lept with joy to heights I had not dreamed possible before this moment because even now the third buzzard was taking its place next to the other three! My tears continued flowing, but no longer from my well of grief, rather from a fountain of bottomless joy and gratitude! I knew it could not last, this mountainous peak of Peace and Life my immediate surroundings and I found ourselves in, but for now All was Right in the world. All was Good. All was Alive.
And then I realized that the kayakers had made it to the other side of the lake and had found a place to jump off the rocks into the water. I smiled at how fun it looked, leaping safely into the air only to be caught without any other harm than the shock of the cold water. And I noticed that the barely comfortable rock I had been sitting on had at some point changed itself into a not-comfortable-at-all rock without my realizing it. So I stood, took one last look at my friends the buzzards to make sure they were still there and turned back along the leaf strewn path to my car.
1/4/11
Frozen Destiny
Strawberry. That was its flavor, its "kind", if you will. A scoop of ice cream feels about its ingredients the way most people think about their ethnicity. They are either passionate about whether they have real fruit or chunks of candy or if they're a purebred flavor like chocolate or vanilla--or they hardly notice it at all. This particular scoop was strawberry. With real strawberry chunks folded in. Nothing artificial, no preservatives, only real sugar. The real deal.
Proud though it was of its heritage, that didn't make it feel any better about its current state of being: Doomed. Doomed by a clumsy child, a complete lack of engineering ability in the waitress and the foolishness of the father who had ordered three scoops. It had been exciting at first, being on the top of a tower of delight, but it only lasted until they had all teetered and tottered out the door. Goodbye fellow scoops, goodbye waffle cone, goodbye Destiny. Hello, sidewalk.
It was hot too. The scoop could see itself slowly oozing away, following a crack that meandered towards the gutter. The child hadn't even bothered to mourn its loss, as there were still two more left and she was looking forward to the waffle cone at the bottom more than anything else.
Such a cliche. An ice cream scoop lying on a sidewalk, melting in the hot sun. Frosty the snowman at least had a song sung about him as he dripped away in front of his friends. The scoop's friends didn't even know what had happened. They all sat back in the freezer looking forward to their Day of Destiny. The ultimate event in the life of a scoop of ice cream. To be enjoyed. Savored. Every errant drip quickly lapped up before it was wasted.
The scoop turned its attention away from the crack. There was a large black bird eyeing it from the small fence next to the sidewalk. The bird's head moved in quick jerky movements looking first at the scoop, then up at something else. The scoop had never seen a bird before, but there are some things that need no explanation--even to a melting chunk of frozen dairy product. That bird was hungry.
The scoop turned again at a flapping noise coming from behind. Another bird had landed just out of reach, its sharp toes submerged in the thick stream of cream dribbling down the crack. Almost as soon as he had turned his attention he was brought back to the first which had landed just opposite and taken a small bite. The first bird cocked its head to one side as its beak opened and closed and its small strange tongue went up and down, tasting the strawberries, sugar and cream. Another sharp poke from the other side and the second bird stuck the same thoughtful pose. Like two fine wine tasters, the birds smacked and slurped and tried to identify the flavors swirling in their mouths.
The scoop felt a small tingle of pleasure as it watched this. The birds seemed to actually enjoy what they were experiencing. Not what he had expected or hoped for, but a little pleasure is not so bad when one is melting away in sorrow. Suddenly the birds began feeding in earnest, quickly pecking small bites and then hopping away to swallow in safety. The scoop wasn't really sure what they were wary of until it realized they were evading each other. Sure enough, after several more bites, the first bird moved in front of the second, who chose to take a bite of its tail instead of the scoop. From there it was a full on battle scene as the birds danced around each other and the scoop of strawberry ice cream, jabbing at each other, their feet and soon wings and heads pink with melted milk.
Through the flurry of feathery movement around it, the scoop began to notice the sun had been blotted out and a wall had begun to form around it. A wall of people! The very people who had up till now been avoiding the scoop of strawberry goodness as if it were a scoop of something else entirely were now focusing all of their attention on the scene around it. Fingers were pointed and smiles stretched across faces and a crowd began to form to watch the molten battle scene the scoop had become. This was not what the scoop had imagined at all when it considered its Destiny back in the freezer, but it reveled in the attention and joy focused on it and the birds.
That was when it decided to just go for it. Ice cream scoops rarely get second chances. If you fall off the cone, there's no getting back up. But fate had dealt this scoop a royal flush and he was betting all his chips. If the people wanted to see messy birds, then messy birds where just what they were going to get.
And so the scoop of ice cream, who until now and been doing everything it could to hold itself together in a dignified scoop-like shape threw caution to the wind and began to melt like no ice cream had ever melted before. In no time the two angry birds--who were having a very different kind of day--where covered in sticky gooey cream and could barely get up into the air when they realized their dinner was now gone and they were surrounded by Danger. Little drops of cream and chunks of strawberry flew everywhere as their wings beat their escape. Men laughed and women screamed as the dairy shower struck everyone with sticky deliciousness.
As the crowd broke up, the last of the scoop listened to them laughing about the various places they now needed to wash and the funny looks on their faces in the pictures they had taken at just the right moments. The scoop was very small now, but what it lacked in size and general "scoopiness", it had ten-fold in joy. Surely no ice cream scoop had brought such happiness to so many people.
And with a final sigh and the ice cream equivalent of tears in its eyes, the scoop of all natural strawberry ice cream welcomed the heat of the sidewalk and sank once and for all into the crack.
Proud though it was of its heritage, that didn't make it feel any better about its current state of being: Doomed. Doomed by a clumsy child, a complete lack of engineering ability in the waitress and the foolishness of the father who had ordered three scoops. It had been exciting at first, being on the top of a tower of delight, but it only lasted until they had all teetered and tottered out the door. Goodbye fellow scoops, goodbye waffle cone, goodbye Destiny. Hello, sidewalk.
It was hot too. The scoop could see itself slowly oozing away, following a crack that meandered towards the gutter. The child hadn't even bothered to mourn its loss, as there were still two more left and she was looking forward to the waffle cone at the bottom more than anything else.
Such a cliche. An ice cream scoop lying on a sidewalk, melting in the hot sun. Frosty the snowman at least had a song sung about him as he dripped away in front of his friends. The scoop's friends didn't even know what had happened. They all sat back in the freezer looking forward to their Day of Destiny. The ultimate event in the life of a scoop of ice cream. To be enjoyed. Savored. Every errant drip quickly lapped up before it was wasted.
The scoop turned its attention away from the crack. There was a large black bird eyeing it from the small fence next to the sidewalk. The bird's head moved in quick jerky movements looking first at the scoop, then up at something else. The scoop had never seen a bird before, but there are some things that need no explanation--even to a melting chunk of frozen dairy product. That bird was hungry.
The scoop turned again at a flapping noise coming from behind. Another bird had landed just out of reach, its sharp toes submerged in the thick stream of cream dribbling down the crack. Almost as soon as he had turned his attention he was brought back to the first which had landed just opposite and taken a small bite. The first bird cocked its head to one side as its beak opened and closed and its small strange tongue went up and down, tasting the strawberries, sugar and cream. Another sharp poke from the other side and the second bird stuck the same thoughtful pose. Like two fine wine tasters, the birds smacked and slurped and tried to identify the flavors swirling in their mouths.
The scoop felt a small tingle of pleasure as it watched this. The birds seemed to actually enjoy what they were experiencing. Not what he had expected or hoped for, but a little pleasure is not so bad when one is melting away in sorrow. Suddenly the birds began feeding in earnest, quickly pecking small bites and then hopping away to swallow in safety. The scoop wasn't really sure what they were wary of until it realized they were evading each other. Sure enough, after several more bites, the first bird moved in front of the second, who chose to take a bite of its tail instead of the scoop. From there it was a full on battle scene as the birds danced around each other and the scoop of strawberry ice cream, jabbing at each other, their feet and soon wings and heads pink with melted milk.
Through the flurry of feathery movement around it, the scoop began to notice the sun had been blotted out and a wall had begun to form around it. A wall of people! The very people who had up till now been avoiding the scoop of strawberry goodness as if it were a scoop of something else entirely were now focusing all of their attention on the scene around it. Fingers were pointed and smiles stretched across faces and a crowd began to form to watch the molten battle scene the scoop had become. This was not what the scoop had imagined at all when it considered its Destiny back in the freezer, but it reveled in the attention and joy focused on it and the birds.
That was when it decided to just go for it. Ice cream scoops rarely get second chances. If you fall off the cone, there's no getting back up. But fate had dealt this scoop a royal flush and he was betting all his chips. If the people wanted to see messy birds, then messy birds where just what they were going to get.
And so the scoop of ice cream, who until now and been doing everything it could to hold itself together in a dignified scoop-like shape threw caution to the wind and began to melt like no ice cream had ever melted before. In no time the two angry birds--who were having a very different kind of day--where covered in sticky gooey cream and could barely get up into the air when they realized their dinner was now gone and they were surrounded by Danger. Little drops of cream and chunks of strawberry flew everywhere as their wings beat their escape. Men laughed and women screamed as the dairy shower struck everyone with sticky deliciousness.
As the crowd broke up, the last of the scoop listened to them laughing about the various places they now needed to wash and the funny looks on their faces in the pictures they had taken at just the right moments. The scoop was very small now, but what it lacked in size and general "scoopiness", it had ten-fold in joy. Surely no ice cream scoop had brought such happiness to so many people.
And with a final sigh and the ice cream equivalent of tears in its eyes, the scoop of all natural strawberry ice cream welcomed the heat of the sidewalk and sank once and for all into the crack.
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