Taking Off and Landing

Dear George O’Malley,

This letter is slightly belated, and a little odd, since in reality, you don’t exist. I’ll have you know this marks my first ever letter to a fictional character, unless you count the time that I wrote to Santa Claus. But frankly, I feel more of an emotional connection to you than some dude in a red suit. I feel like I know what you’re talking about, and what it means to have your guts strapped to barbwire.

I think it was the overall premise of the show that got me hooked after the first season. And in the course of watching your emotional ping-pong with Dr. Grey, I realized, Dr. O’Malley, that you and I bear a lot of similarities. I mean, if you discount the fact that you’re a doctor, and that my doctorate won’t qualify me to wrap a bandaid, and the fact that you’re not real, I get where you’re coming from.

Frankly, good job on jumping off and going after the new nurse. I’m not where sure exactly she came from, and I think it’s a little odd that she lives in the basement of the hospital, but in the long run, she’s more your speed. I mean, just last week she said, “He makes my world stop.” I can’t think of better words to hear from a woman. Don’t think I’m weird, but well done. You give us hope that sometimes things work out right and true and good, and that you don’t have to settle for less than you deserve. Because frankly, George O’ Malley, you deserve a lot.

We all deserve a hell of a lot more than we settle for.

I was talking with a friend yesterday who has found what she’s been looking for, and I told her how excited I was for her. This guy she knew from college has come back around, and the very thing she was looking for all this time, through heartbreak and terror, showed up in the most unexpected way and, as far as I can tell, is sending her to the moon. Her comment: “I think it’s almost scary how I nearly settled for something so much less.” George, this will not be the last chapter for you and Ms. Grey, I’m sure. And to be honest, she’s going through a whole world of crap, and while that doesn’t make it right what happened, she’s a person as well, as are we all, responsible for our actions and what we do with the circumstances thrown our way.

When, if, she comes around–Meredith, that is–I don’t know what you should do. I’m sure the screenwriters have already handled that one for you. You’re on your own with that one. But remember that life is a single-shot adventure, and you have before you an amazing woman who knows how to set a dislocated hip joint and plays Playstation after work.

Run hard and fast. Breathe deep, and embrace the train when it comes to knock the crap out of you. Live forward, and maybe, by God’s grace, we’ll all understand in reverse.

See you next week,

Myles Werntz

TAKE THE MUSIC OUT AND LISTEN TO THE CAR APPROACHING THE INTERSECTION!!!!

I NEARLY RAN YOU OVER!!!

AGAIN!!!

P.S. I really like your shoes. I just don’t want to see them embedded in my bumper.

All the best,

Myles Werntz

Dear Kanye West,

I think I saw you on campus today, and I just have to let you know, friend to friend: it’s no longer cool. Not the music. Gold Digga is about as smooth as it gets, and I’m still working on the first album. Frankly, if you can get an un-crunk dude like me to sway to Through the Wire, you’ve pulled off a modern masterpiece. Seriously: I’m a fan. You rap with class, style, and substance that doesn’t have to do with rims. What’s no longer cool, though: the popped collar. It has to stop.

With all due respect, Mr. West, you’re the Louis Vuitton Don. You’re style exemplified. But, you’re setting a terrible example for the kids. Come to think of it, it wasn’t you I saw today: this cat was white. It was the collar that threw me off.

Long before I knew what it meant to have style, I was a wreck. I tight-rolled my jeans a year after they were no longer cool. I wore hiking boots and tried to convince myself they were the same as Doc Martens. In short, I was a voiceless minion, unable to speak my mind on what was good, because I had no mind, no heart, no swagger in my step, no junk in my trunk. I was slightly ahead of the first wave of popped-collar and couldn’t stop you then.
**

But I can stop you now.

So, I ask you, Mr. West, to stop the madness. Thanks for the great tunes, for your mix mastery, but for the love of all that is holy, stop the collar. Turn down the collars; they’re way too loud and drowning out my Ipod. You’re convincing college kids that the way to coolness is through abandoning the purpose of shirts. Next, the gold chain on hairy chests will come back, and let me tell you from experience, that’s bad news all the way around.

Thanks for listening. Good luck on the next album. Seriously: you make me dance. Take it easy on the Kristal, and we’ll see you when we see you.

Myles Werntz

Dear Brian Wilson,

Thanks for writing the most depressing happy song ever, which somehow pulls off a sappy melody and a desire to kill onesself if someone leaves them. Who else could write a gem that combines four-part harmony, upbeat bubbly melodies and suicide? I sat in Subway today over a BMT sandwich and wanted to punch you in the face.

Affectionately,

Myles Werntz
***

I’m too tired to think. I’m marginally functional this morning.

Kyle died Sunday.
Last night, LeAnn, dear friend, told me she’s moving out of Waco. For real.
I have a presentation to research and write before Friday afternoon.

There comes a point at which I begin to think that there is truly a breaking point. I don’t think I’m there yet, but I’m closer to being there than I’ve been in a long, long time. I’m a bundle of contradictions and mutually exclusive feelings that are all housing themselves in my heart for the time being. Sleep doesn’t bring refreshment, regardless of what Psalms says.

There’s a beautiful version of the Supremes singing the Stones “Time is on my Side” playing overhead, and I think about how it’s a beautiful song, but not true at all. This is my venting: I’m more than a little pissed at God this week, though I know that the goodness of the world is from good hands–the coffee I’m drinking, the sun that blinded me this morning, the pillow I thrashed around on, the music overhead. It’s a rich place to be, in the presence of great joy and equally great dissatisfaction and anger.

Thanks for fielding a choker one more season. I really appreciated the sixth inning collapse. Could you hear the bonds on my heart straining and snapping? I’m sure that you’re a great city and all. That arch has a lot going on, and from what I can gather from my friends, your hockey team once had it together.

You picked a great state to be in. I mean, Gateway to the West? That’s pretty hot.

Tell your sister Kansas City hey for me, and save me an IPA.

Don’t take it so hard, St. Louis. You’ve still got some great universities, a pretty good little football history, and maybe you’ll get it together with baseball next year. But be a good sport and cheer for the NL. Just because the White Sox haven’t won since 1917 doesn’t mean that this is their year. Do your duty to the National League, St. Louis! Be not defeated by the spirits of doubt and despair! Gird your loins and applaud Houston!

In all sincerity, thanks for letting Reggie Sanders play (editorial change) left field on your ball club. I’ll remember that missed catch when Biggio scored until I’m 90. And kudos on surviving the loss of Scott Rolen. My fantasy team sucked dog without him, but you labored on in the meantime. Chin up, and enjoy the show.

Dear Brad Lidge,

Once upon a time, you backed Octavio Dotel, the closer for the Houston Astros. When the Astros got smart and shipped him out to Oakland, you came in and starting shutting the door on teams left and right. Everyone knew you could. Everyone knew you were the golden child, that as soon as you took the mound, the baseball would find no home except the catcher’s mitt.

And then last night, you blew a two run lead, with two outs, and two strikes, one strike away from delivering the Astros their first pennant in history. First, you let that squirmy David Eckstein squeeze out a single. Then you walked Larry Walker. And then, with a two-run lead and the state of Texas behind you, you let Albert Pujols hit the bejeezus out the ball, off the pplexiglass forty feet above the bleachers, and send the series back to St. Louis. Granted, the Astros are still up three games to two, but now, we’re back in Missouri, and who knows what mischief they will wreak upon Houston?

Brad, you’ve done great, but last night, you sucked my right elbow. Get it together, grouch. Octavio sends his best from the A’s, and says the weather’s fine. It’s a lonely offseason when you’re the moron that sends a whole city packing. Remember: fastball on the 1-2 is asking for trouble. Stay away from Albert, and do what you have to do.

So, it’s that time of year when my brain is full of things that most people don’t really care about reading, and I turn to the community for help:

I need a new series. And I want suggestions.

Do your worst.

One of my favorite authors today is Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, mostly because she combines incisive commentary with practical immersion in her topic. She doesn’t write about things like poverty or economic impact from her suburban house, but rather immerses herself in that world, knowing that she can get out at any time, but staying in in order to find out what it really means to be, in the case of Nickel, poor. Her new book, coming out this month, which I highly recommend, deals with the middle class and their plight. She has an earlier one on this topic, related to middle class values, and the lean towards conservatism in middle class thinking, and if you can get your hands on a used copy, it’s also excellent.

I am reminded more and more that to understand a people, or a person, one has to ultimately sacrifice one’s own place, and become what the other is. I’ve been plowing through a large chunk of Karl Barth’s Dogmatics’ teaching on the meaning of reconciliation, and what it means that the Son became human, one of the most radical implications being that, simply, because Jesus was human, the condemnation that comes because of sin fell not on one who would not feel it, but one who knows the weight of condemnation as a human being. I nearly lost my breath reading him this weekend.

There’s a discussion thread here that makes me nuts, not because the questions being raised are wrong, but because the whole argument presupposes that one can understand the plight of someone from outside their situation. In essence, it argues that one can effectively do what Jesus did: become fully other than what one is while not compromising onesself. The whole thing turns on an assumption that in order to be able to understand what it means to be poor in New Orleans, one does not have to be poor, logic which absolutely defies the logic of the Gospel, which says that Jesus came not to “see what human life was like”, but because the free choice of being human was part and parcel what was involved to have the right to judge, and save, us in the first place.
**

So, here’s what I propose, and spread the challenge if you want. I propose that for one year, before uttering another word on the nature of poverty, that the following be attempted: to live as they do. Take the median poverty standard, which is available here, and try to live faithfully on this. I think we’ll find that a lot of choices that we take for granted aren’t so granted when finances come to bear.

It’s a challenge. I’m trying. I waste money. I buy books and CDs and wasted money this afternoon on Chik-Fil-A. I’ll waste money tonight on coffee, and tomorrow on a beer. I throw money and resources down the toilet hand over fist, and then complain about tight finances. But if I believe that the way of reconciliation is that laid down by Jesus for us to model, then there is no other way than to try to live in the way that those around me do.

Who’s with me?

Dear P.R. Firms,

Frankly, you weird me out. You don’t really sell anything of your own, but rather you take what already exists, re-package it, and sell it for others, and then, you take your client’s money. But what have you really given them other than what they already had before, with the added bonus of a greater sense of well-being? I’m falling short on this one, to be honest, and I’d love some teaching. By the way, your job with McDonald’s? BRILLIANT. Who would have ever thought to put Justin Timberlake together with the quarter pounder? Just in time for him to have throat surgery! You gotta shoot me an email and tell me how you pulled that one off!

My favorite one thus far has to be your political analysis wing, though. Those guys are really on top of their game. Not only do they sidestep the obvious monikers of “jerkface” and “whitebread conservative”, but they really make politicians sound…well, humane. For example, I really believed Bush when he said that the war was about liberation and not the WMDs, and frankly, I have you to thank for that. Some people call it “spin”, but I call it one heck of a job! Kudos!

I suspect that your job has something to do with the fact that we humans are buckets of desire, waiting to be filled, and that your industry plays perfectly into that, teaching us not to desire good, but to desire desire. And so, if you teach us to want something intangible, like desire, rather than wanting something good, like a more efficient washing machine, you stay in business longer, because desire can’t ever be truly satiated the way clean laundry can, now can it? Genius, pure genius. In relation to the war, it was safety, needing to fully trust my government, and–by golly–it worked! On a more personal level,why just last week, I was feeling lonely, and thought, “You know what I need? A beer. I know I’ll feel better, but I can’t really tell why.” Thanks guys!

So, here’s what I propose: you stop running all the crappy ads that make Texas look like a truly multi-cultural place, and start running ads depicting the divided, racist life of the Lone Star State, and I’ll come running to your door. Because then, you’ll have hit upon true gold: getting people to acknowledge their faults, and desiring to change them. You sell desire, yes? When you start moving people to desire intangible goods, like virtues, I’ll drop this theology thing and sign up for marketing courses. I think that’s a fair deal, because you’ll have outstripped ethics at its own game.