Taking Off and Landing
Post-Thanks, Post-Giving Sickness
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He’s got to make his own mistakes
And learn to mend the mess he makes
He’s old enough to know what’s right
But young enough not to choose it
He’s noble enough to win the world
But weak enough to lose it
He’s a New World Man…
–Rush, New World Man
***
For the record, I still like Rush. Their music is intricate and artful in a way that puts to shame most contemporary stuff. In this particular song, Geddy Lee encapsulates the human condition: trapped somewhere between possibility and the shit that drags us down.
It’s Christmas season, and every Christmas, I am reminded of where I am not. I’ve been reading a lot on the incarnation this semester, and more and more I am reminded that there is a gulf which has been crossed once to bring us to where we could not go: God. As I sit unwashed at my desk to edit another paper and contemplate how to begin another one this afternoon, I feel heavy. I feel heavy with unwashed dreams and other people’s grief. I’m a junkie for brooding. A friend told me yesterday that I reminded her of Colin Firth, in that both of us apparently are “the brooding types”. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been attracted to non-brooders: it’s not that they don’t think or feel the deep parts of life; they just are able to cope in ways that don’t involve tranquilizers.
Not that I’m using anything heavier than Community Coffee and the occasional Warsteiner Dunkel. God bless you, Stephanie, for telling me about that beer.
**
In Jesus, we find the model for human existence, to be sure. We find a real human, one who doubted, hungered, wore out. And in that man, we saw that God has not forgotten us, nor has God left us to our own devices entirely. But that’s not all. From the start of their writing, the assumption of the Gospels is not investigating whether or not Jesus is more-than-human, but that he is.
In Word-made-flesh, there exists one who took on the tension of being less than we hope for, and more than we dreamed of. In Jesus, we find one who, in his life, taking up all the parts of life that we hate: doubt, anger, passion, sickness, indecision–and making them whole. The upcoming season is not simply about one who came to die for us, but one who came to live for us, and in that living, take up all the sometimes ridiculous parts of living and make them good.
What is left then? Fear that we are not to be found? Doubt that we are not to be known? Angst that our darkest stains are not be redeemed? Nope. What is left is this: affirmation that our salvation doesn’t lie with us. That’s the whole point. Our salvation begins not in what we have said about Jesus or in what we have made known: our lives have begun with one who knows us from the insides, not simply as Creator, but Inhabitant. So, wash your dishes in peace. Clean your rooms; calm your children.
We are not forgotten.
42 Years Gone
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In Honor of the man who mentored me into thinking as a Christian:
“If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong with you, and I hope you may always do so. I’m so thankful that you realized [the] “hidden story” in the Narnian books. It is odd, children nearly always do, grown-ups hardly ever.”
–C.S. Lewis
When I finally meet Lewis, I hope that, in the metaphor of The Great Divorce, he is the giant who helps lead me into the great hills that go on forever.
Thankful Or Not
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Kevin started this, and I really liked it, so here we go:
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I find myself surprisingly ready to celebrate a holiday. I normally hate holidays, not because I’m an ogre or a Grinch or a misanthrope: I just hate the commercialization. Having worked in retail for two years, I hate that Christmas starts in October, and that Christmas carols start November 2. I’m grateful this year that I may not hear a Christmas carol before the middle of December, and that’s fine by me.
But, I digress: with every endless list of things I am grateful for comes an equal list of things for which I am not, things that can dry up and blow away and I’d be just fine. In the back of my mind, something warns me that even the dog across the street who barks at the most worthless crap at 3 a.m. that I yelled at in my boxers last week…even his presence is grace, somehow.
The Un-Thankful List
1) Moving vans
2) The black lab across the street
3) Turkey stuffing
4) Athlete’s foot
5) Gingivitis
6) Myopeia
7) Neil Diamond 
Egotism
9) Garden State
10) nudity in clothing ads
11) celibacy
12) cedar pollen
13) the word “puissant”
14) Celine Dion
15) People magazine
16) the death of the music video
17) losing love to find romance
18) when someone offers me decaf coffee
19) Bud Light
20) Uggs
21) Green peppers
22) Spammers on blogs
23) Spammers on blogs
24) Spammers on blogs.
Find an equally long list you’re thankful for, and be well in your soul. Thanks be to God.
In nomine patri et fillis et spiriti sancti. Amen.
Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll
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Just in case I needed a reason to be at odds with the majority of Republican ideology.
In other political banter, just today on NPR, I heard a conservative commentator speaking of conservatism, and recognizing that “part of the Republican ideology that people can stand on their own has been recognized to be atomistic, that people need communities.” I nearly wrecked the car amen-ing on the steering wheel. Johnny needs June and the Carters to beat drugs; I need my friends to push forward; as the Spirit is mediated in word and deed, so goes the idea to the wayside that anyone stands or falls on their own.
What has the church been saying for so long? Have we been feeding the frenzy or setting the table that more might sit as well?
The Great Quiet
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I’m going to be quiet until after Thanksgiving, given that I’ve got two papers to rewrite, two to compose, and two more articles to translate from French, all before December 9. But after Thanksgiving, when I’ll be down to one of each, here’s some of the things I’m chewing over:
***How the church and polemics have always been together, or How It Matters What One Believes
***Baseball
***More Life in Coffee
***Space Ghost, Coast to Coast
***The Place for Local Music
***Vegetarianism
Peace out, and enjoy the quiet. In the meantime, a topic for discussion, and Sean, Michael, E, Suz, Stacey, and Kevin, and Zen, this means you:
*************************
NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS A COMPLETE FABRICATION. I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE MILK CAME FROM.
*************************
What’s the most bizarre word in the English language, and how did it come to be? My favorite is the word “milk”, which derives, I’m sure, from the Breton word for “the image of cow”. Of course, the story which follows is total b.s.
One day, Brezhoney Mzilkzig was walking his cow, who promptly began to leak, at which point, Brezhoney, a philosopher by trade, began to postulate that what was emmenating from his cow was not leakage, but the “spirit of cow” breaking forth into the world. The cow promptly died from not being “spirit of cow”d, and Brezhoney’s wife beat him about the head mercilessly.
Texas: Yes, It’s Always This Hot
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Apparently, New Jersey finally figured out that people really do make fun of it. I mean, just when you thought that Louisiana had a lock on the butt end of all regional jokes, two hurricanes come through and landslide the state with sympathy, leaving the nay-sayers looking for a new target. Thank God for New Jersey, who never saw it coming. So now, they’re looking for a new slogan.
My favorite thus far? “New Jersey: It Always Smells Like This”.
So, in honor of my friends in the Garden State, home to a great musician (Spingsteen) and a really-overhyped movie (Garden State), I give you….
The Slogans Of Places I’ve Lived If I’d Gotten to Make Them
“Shreveport: We’re Not Quite Texas!”
“Louisiana: Thank God for Mississippi!”
“Arkansas: But We Loved the Mullet!”
“Arkadelphia: No Wal-Mart…No Worries.”
“Missouri: God’s Gift to Nebraska.”
“Texas: Bigger than Your State, by God.”
“Waco: Think Austin, without the Traffic….or Culture….or Food….or Scenery….(crap).”
thankyouandgoodnight.
Damn the Man! Save the Empire!
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Another one bites the dust in favor of commercial considerations. It makes one long for the days when travelling troupes of actors starved in order to create art of conscience. Of course, starving means that the art is short-lived.
So….never mind about the starving bit. But c’mon, Fox! Get it together! Cancel some other crap and keep the one show on television that had half a brain!
Jason Bateman, you’re still a funny man.
The Sun Also Rises
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As I sit in my room this morning, I can hear every shake of the house. My place was built around the turn of the 20th century, and so, as the years march on, so do the floorboards, the doors, the windows…It’s comforting sometimes as I hear the rats running through the attic to know that so little happens in this house without everyone knowing about it.
Thanks for the words of concern and hope. Things are on the upswing, I think. I’ll present a much beleagured paper today, but only after going to the annual Waco Friends of the Library sale. Just what I needed: more books that I won’t read. But hey, it’s my birthday, and if I want to blow thirty bucks on books that are going to line the walls, that’s exactly what I’ll do. I wish the same rule of logic applied to delivering this paper, which is hanging onto me like a leech.
After today, three whole weeks and nothing to turn in. And don’t you think I won’t go out tonight and celebrate relative freedom. The worst is over; there is still much to do, but after today, I think I can see the sun coming out of the clouds. Maybe. Assuming that my paper isn’t completely torpedoed today. So, pray from 2-4:30 that the prof is gracious and that I can weather this presentation without too many disasters.
5 Things I…
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In honor of Elizabeth Sue Young, for no particular reason, I do this:
5 Things I…
Like, and Should
1) Celtic music
2) Pints on tap
3) Baseball
4) My beard
5) Literacy
5a) Community development initiatives
Don’t Like, and Should
1) Garden State
2) Pink Floyd
3) college football
4) grapefruit
5) haircuts
Don’t Like, and Shouldn’t
1) Celine Dion
2) athelete’s foot
3) tuxedos
4) lima beans
5) Battlestar Galactica
Like, but Shouldn’t
1) Peter Cetera
2) deep and banal theological discussions
3) excessive amounts of coffee
4) generic poptarts
5) Rocky IV, and looking forward to Rocky VI
***
thankyouandgoodnight.
Cleaning House
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After an extrordinarily long week, the weekend was the product of one overriding theme:
NO WORK.
Friday, Nickel Creek in Austin. If you ever get the chance to see this ridiculously talented trio, do it. Even if you hate bluegrass, go. The tickets are cheap, and they predicate their whole show on the fact that music is meant to be played live. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to hear their versions of Radiohead’s “Nice Dream” or Brittany’s “Toxic”. It’s true: they can even make Brittany sound like real music.
Saturday through Monday morning: Shreveport. It’s been since August since I’ve darkened the doors of my hometown. Purposefully, I took exactly zero books with me this weekend, in order that I might accomplish…zero. Eating, movie watching, visiting with the folks. Check. All things accomplished which were meant to be.
Now, it remains that I have two major papers to write between now and December 9, and that I’ll be gone to New York/Philadelphia for a week in that space. And yes, everything will be done by the end of time. No stone will be left unturned, no coffee cup unvarnished, no jar of peanut butter unscraped. It will be a fight to the bitter end, and I will emerge limping, but in one piece.
But all things in their place. Work when we work; play when we play. And holy crap…if you get a chance to sleep, please for the love of God, don’t pass it up. Chamomile, Lunesta, Jack Daniels–whatever does the trick. But don’t forget to sleep. There is time enough to work, but too often we forget that the labors of humanity in the extreme are part of its curse, and that to accomodate it, we made up the myth of productivity. There is work that has nothing to do with checklists, and some call that work “love”.
