Is it
possible to perform an act of rebellion while participating a quintessentially
status quo activity?
Is it
possible to purchase truth, honesty, and righteousness?
From the
comfort of our 21st century arm-chair theological quarterbacking, we
have pronounced indictment on indulgences as practiced by the pre-reformation
church. Smugly!
From the
duress of climbing out of these self-same comfortable arm-chairs (look I didn’t
say they were Lazyboys), we have raised a fist against our morally degraded
society by eating a chicken sandwich. Napkin please!
I lost
weight and am trying to re-lose a bunch more – apparently to become a better
person. I will not eat a chicken sandwich. I will not be a glutton to
self-righteousness again. I am a thinner person than that.
Remembering rain drips indeterminate melancholy which is
mostly wasted chasing the winter’s dirt off the windows. I turn to Knoffler and
his chums. For me, he still knows how to suck the soothing pity that this
moment deserves. McLachlan knows a thing or two about this state of mind but Eros
is far too near in her voice.
I would line up the tapes one by one – all cued to the spot.
The first song always was “We built this city” and the last one usually was
left un-played. When mix tapes were actually cassettes compiled far more
meticulously from other tapes.
I turn to well-worn pages in The Book of Melancholy. The
wrinkled photo of a too-soon gone friend; the mischief still leaping off of his
face. The longing for a childhood spent a world away. The trust of a friend
broken. The breaking of friend’s trust. And again and again and again. Some
pages turn slowly others flop past glommed together. Stop on the page where the
man is clutching his throat for the revolution he is about to die for. Stay on
that page and see that revolution is elusive. Skip to the picture of yourself
on the day when those eyes are just coming to know the foolish dogma that your vigorous
ignorance spewed. Shudder just a little.
“Why worry,” he moans, “there should be laughter after pain.” The Book of Melancholy isn’t light reading for those
interested in revving up the depression machine. It’s not about depression. It
is about the humbling reflection that comes with the time and space on a damp quiet
spring night. It is about recognizing that I am here right now and that is a
very fortunate place to be. Melancholy can help you see the light of your
circumstance if only because of the shadows that it evokes. Melancholy can
remind you that valiant effort, though often unrewarded and even misplaced is
still more honorable that feebleness. “There should be sunshine after rain – these things have
always been the same. So why worry now.”
Don’t lose the chance to fastidiously line up these reflections
– all cued up ready to line up back to back. They speak a sorrowful narrative
that is not easily told. They will haunt. They will make you wince. But the morning
comes to all – but perhaps a little brighter to those who have stared into the
night…
It is time
again to hang him up on the cross – and once more we can put an end to how
embarrassing it has been to see him walking around with us.
We’ll sing
a song about the ‘wonderful cross,’ with nearly child-like glee while the roast
simmers away in our kitchens at home. Why wouldn’t we be happy? We’re free!
Well sort of…
“Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe,” the song nags and while our
crimson stains are being washed white as snow, we are gently reminded of the
debt we owe. So we throw a little extra in the plate or we sign up to volunteer
at the next Monday’s cheesecake cabaret put on by the Ladies Aid group. Guilt assuaged
we can slide gently back into our groove. Our Lenten observance is over so the
chocolate, or video games, or whatever other gaudy triviality we have chosen to
give up can wiggle its way back out of the closet. We’re done with him – he has
fulfilled his purpose once again this year and we are grateful.
Grateful to stop thinking about what God living among us might mean. Let’s
be honest. Since those darkest days of winter when we celebrated his birth by
tossing trinkets at friends and relatives to appease our own notions of
reciprocity, we have been trying to forget what him living with us might mean – how it might beg us to change.
And now we have him up on that tree again. We are relieved. Like
recently elected politicians, we erroneously believe that our previous record is
forgotten or better yet approved. And like said politician we forget the nature
of the game we are playing. It is politics remember?
How easily and willingly we gather up the spectacle that is Easter. Like
women assembling before a chic flick with tissues at the ready on every coffee
table, we waddle (not that women waddle) into the pew again to have someone
describe for us the agony and suffering that our Savior negotiated to
accomplish our absolution. We want to feel darkness but only for an hour. Like
thousands of Empire State Buildings going dark for an hour on Earth Day, we too
go dark for an hour (regardless of how many birds are killed flying into us by
mistake). It is cathartic. All of our misdeeds completely gone – removed –
again. We splash the grace and mercy all over us like children in one of those
shallow pools who do not realize that the water they are standing in only
reaches their under-developed ankles – oh and it is full of pee. Is this really
grace we celebrate? This cheaply fabricated lust for freedom from the dull
consciences that barely prick our sensibilities about what is right and wrong –
is this really grace?
Or is there a deeper magic than the split stone table upon which the
lion once lay – bound and shorn? Can we like Lucy catch glimpses of the good
and dangerous beast – now? Today?
The incarnate Christ embarrasses us. He lives simply – within and
underneath his means. He lives kindly – healing, feeding the undeserving and
even unintentionally. He lives courageously – against corruption, against
deception couched in piety, against preconceived notions of what God might do.
He lives faithfully – steady inside of darkness, disciplined in communion. These
things show us up for the frauds we are. We don’t want him around to expose
this any longer. We have suffered his condescension long enough. We are not
brave enough to stand against injustice – God that would be wearisome. There is
too much injustice in the world and we are not convinced that those suffering
under its weight may not have deserved it in some way. We are not strong enough
to live within our means – we can barely move the knuckles of our hand on the
remote to switch off the television at night let alone resist the beckoning of
the latest – Schticky? We are not devoted enough to carve out of our
preoccupations the space to center ourselves at the feet of the teacher. He
shows us up for the inconsistent errant scoundrels that we truly are. So is it
any wonder that we relish (if ever so quietly) the reminders of the suffering
he faced…
Yet he walks among us with grace afforded a life lived emulating his
own. This is not an equation where every one of his actions matches one of ours
or vice versa. It is not an accounting system of good deeds balanced off
against carelessness or mistake. This is like when my dad taught me how to ride
a bike. Demonstrating and then holding the seat and then washing off every
scraped knee subsequently.
Instead we’ll haul him off that Roman standard and place him in a tomb. Then
when it is over we’ll chuckle silently at Thomas’ doubt – while missing our very
own. So glad that we are free…
The
balaclava has fused to my face. It’s like my moustache and beard have conspired
together with the driving snow, facial sweat and nose drippings to create a new
frozen outer shell. I gingerly touch it with the finger of one gloved hand – I
don’t want to break it.
I am lying
on my back levitating a foot and a half off of the ground thanks in no small
part to the layer of snow that blankets this mountain. I am staring up inside
the cloud that is unloading white onto the slope. Crowding the corners of my vision
are the ever-present mountains. They seem to know that this prairie boy is accustomed
to the open horizon where the sky never quits. So these jealous mountains peek
in on the edges of my sight. I turn to look. I am a sucker for their tricks. Peaks
like the knuckles of a thousand fists poke out across the ridge – a giant from
below punching out his frustration. I feel that remote sense that must drive
thrill seeking adventurer types to climb these ridges. They call to something
inside that I immediately recognize as sheer foolishness. Later, while driving
beside a particularly alluring ridge, I off-handedly suggest that reaching the
summit might be a fairly easy task. My son snickers, agrees reluctantly and,
being the pragmatist that he is, reminds me of the effort and time it would
take to scale that mountain. But in this moment on my back between the snow on
the slope and the falling snow – I am smitten.
Our skis,
speared through the crust of the snow beneath the powdery stuff I have been
sliding on, stick up like the fence posts of a lunatic rancher. The three of us
have done the same. The boys, anxious to re-establish the burning thigh effect
that is a constant companion down this mountain, break the spell I am under.
“Let’s go dad!” I am torn. I crave a few more minutes to soak in this slow-motion
experience. But adrenaline is calling for another fix. Caught between control
and disaster. Skis swing back and forth across the mountain, sitting back on my
heels a little (especially in the powdery stuff) but always on the edge of
plummeting headlong down an unsuspected icy patch. Its danger and beauty mixed.
Who am I kidding? It’s not beautiful when I ski – unless in your mind beauty
looks a lot like a short stumpy 40 year old atop an unbroken colt – without any
stirrups. It’s ugly and dangerous – but fun.
We are the
last off the hill. We convince the lifty to send us up the back side of the
mountain just before she shuts it down so that we don’t have to hike the
kilometer and a half back to the rental shop.
Later, as
the body’s pain mechanism begins to register in the brain I am briefly
conscious of curious feeling. As the lactic acid builds in every fiber of my
legs, I wonder how we have come to consider this activity recreation. This
rigorous exertion of energy to the point of…cursing agony – I am only trying to
get out of the hot tub! How did this activity evolve into something we would
deem to be invigorating and worthy of spending our leisure (dollars and time)?
It is perplexing enough that we would willingly subject our bodies to torturous
labor in the name of having fun. It is even more peculiar that we would choose
to spend our time doing something that could endanger our ‘productivity’ in the
rest of our ‘responsible’ lives. Stranger still is that we would take the
financial advantages we have accrued to measure out ecstatic suffering upon our
own bodies.
What we
spend our leisure on is a signal to us and those around us. It is possibly a
message about who we are. It is a descriptor of our vigor perhaps. Maybe it is
a disclaimer of our relative wealth. It might not be much more than the sort of
thing a dog does in marking its territory – a smelly reminder to us and others
of what is our personal ‘territory’. As uncomfortable as these signals make me
there is a more redemptive notion that seems important as well.
For me this
sliver of time on the side of a mountain has given pause to appreciate the
uncrowded spaces that we are afforded in our lives from time to time. These
unencumbered moments in the splendor of this exquisite place and the pleasure
of spending time with my sons remind me of just how alive I am. My body on the
other hand…well…it just might prefer not to be so alive – right now!
When charitable relief aid organizations are directed by and accountable to the donors, the recipients of the aid lose their ability to influence the efficacy of the aid delivered. Their only recourse is to directly influence the donors. but those who need help do not have the wherewithall to engage that influence. Into that gap step agencies that filter and manipulate the message of need that is intended to motivate donors to whom they are ultimately accountable. Does this not sound like a conflict of interest? The agency that is directing the message of need, solicits towards the need they have identified, and then deliver a report of the need that they have met. Hmmm...
Where did you grow up? When did you grow up? Will you ever grow up? The 80s. ’69 was my birth year so the 80s is the decade of the presumably emancipatory adolescence of my now 40 plus years of existence. Ah the 80s. Not close to as bad ass as the 60s. Or as high! Not nearly as funky as the 70s. Nor as disco-ball cool. Not as grunge as the 90s. Whatever the #$%^& ‘grunge’ is/was? The 80s. Fabulous fashion. Rugby pants, legwarmers, primary color knit sweaters tied around your neck. ¾ length white sleeved black shirts with Black Sabbath emblazoned on the chest. Perms for men (I confess), Big glasses. The 80s. Great music. Boy George, Corey Hart, George Michael, the theme to TV’s FAME, Gloria Estefan, the Bangles, David Lee Roth (post Van Halen), Men Without Hats and Men at Work…Mmmmmmm! The 80s. Some blip on the radar of good taste and better judgment or the best decade since the Renaissance; I’ll let you decide. There is no halcyonic nostalgia about those days in my mind at least. Riding my bike to the corner store in a town of barely 100 residents should not be considered evidence of some idyllic teenage coming of age. (Some readers will be quick to point out that I also rode my Dad’s Nissan INTO the corner store – causing a minor re-shelving problem for the owner and much larger problem for between me and my father.) To be sure there are many things about those formative years of my life that could only be described as pristine conditions within which a boy may become a man. I married the girl next door and began my life long infatuation with her in the one acre corn field between our houses. I drove my first vehicle (my buddy’s) on the gravel roads that snaked through the hippie soaked Pembina Hills. But not before I mapped every nook and cranny of that place on snowmobile. I emulated Jim Craig to my very best ability on giant rubber snow boots on the freshly flooded ‘rink’ next to the school. I was good. Those days were golden. “You can be anything you want to be” – they told us at my graduation. Liars. I can’t. I still want to be a Grey Cup winning quarterback – but I won’t. I never built a rocket – and I won’t. Being anything I want to be is a myth and a peculiarly harmful one at that. Perhaps that sort of rhetoric emerged from the desperation of the time. Because as Commodore 64 and the internet were mere glints in the eyes of their conceivers; we were still fighting a Cold War that promised to bring us to an end. We were just starting to battle our brains out over abortion, and immigration, and French language. We could see our Canadian distinctives sliding away from us perhaps with more urgency than they ever had. We got excited about all the same silly stuff that the US did – who can forget the enormous cola war of the 80s. We decided that free trade with the US was going to be a good thing. So what if it meant foreign ownership of many of our national institutions. We unashamedly gobbled up the latest greatest media offering being pushed out of the burgeoning colonialist Hollywood machine. (Shoot, how else was it that Daisy Duke became the model for one of the ‘best’ fashion trends in the 80s J) Behind the neurotic push toward the future in almost every aspect of life, those of us ‘growing up’ then might have known something untoward was lurking in the reeds of our surface optimism. But we paid little heed to that lie about our potential when we saw the Berlin wall come down. We forgot our background dread when we saw hostages rescued from Iran. And we began to believe that our ability to forge a brave new world could itself be the savior of our once dysfunctional world. I suspect that belief has an almost religious hold upon us. In my classroom – we talk about current event and we try to engage with the big themes of our world as events unfold. If there is one reaction that surprises me most in my students it has to be the relative indifference that most pay to the way our world works. Occupy this or that, kill off a dictator once in a while, start a revolution on facebook if you want to, or bailout the country where democracy was born. Meh – whatevs… On one level it irks me – this passive nonchalance toward our life and times. On another level it saddens me to see a generation face down in their phones – enslaved to the immediacy of their ever-shrinking world (where life and love begin and end at the end of text). Sometimes exposing lies leads to life change. At other times exposing lies leads to a retrenchment of the lie itself – perhaps because the truth is just too uncomfortable to face. You can frame your life as targeting potential. Aspire to this or that. Achieve this or that. Or you can frame your life as targeting significance. Accept the ugliness of the world and do your part. Acknowledge your own culpability in the problems to begin with. You can be anything you want to be seems out of place in the latter mindset but conveniently distracting in the former. There are some of us who still remember that in the 80s a young man decided to do his part, accept his own ugliness, and died fighting off the monster that eventually took his life. Terry Fox lived and died in the 80s and school children to this day honor his memory. Long live the 80s…
This is a coming of age story.
I bit back tears as I hugged and said good-bye to my oldest son. He’s headed off to college in Manitoba to carve out something new. It’s time for him to shape himself and get shaped in ways that are distinctly different than the ones he has become accustomed to under our parenting. It is a good thing. He is ready. But I know it won’t be easy.
Like it has been for so many of us the challenges and euphoria of the independence of early adulthood is significant. I remember deep loneliness in some dark times when I thought the responsibility that I was taking on was too great. I remember ecstatic freedom at how spontaneous my life could be. It really was a pretty wide spectrum of emotions. I am far too clever to allow my protective emotions to get the better of me – but underneath I want to keep my children from the dark. The reality is that life is dark. Freedom, peace, joy with permanence, and fulfillment come only after one has truly stared into the darkness and seen it for what it is. Walking in the dark is another matter altogether but a good hard look in is essential to know the value of the good things that life affords.
At a time like this, I wonder if I’ve done an adequate job of allowing my children to stare at the darkness honestly and without fear. I wonder if I have prepared them well enough to recognize the value of freedom, peace and perhaps even love. I wonder about the gaps in my parenting that my children will need to compensate for. I am under no illusion that there are many. I think honest parents know that they’ve made mistakes with their kids. Honest parents are conscious of fact that they leave an indelible mark on their offspring. I think there is a lot of guilt attached to that sentiment for many people. Guilt, denial and compensating for both leads to plenty of regret. It’s hopeless; my kids are stamped with a healthy dose of me and thankfully an even healthier dose of Char.
One thing I know to be real is the persistent grace that my children have afforded me. So today I am grateful to have the opportunity to say the kind of goodbye that only a dad can say to his son – the kind of goodbye that will always be followed by hello. Usually when we say goodbye we say it to anticipate a loss of closeness but a father can say goodbye with a sense of anticipation. A dad says goodbye and is picking up the phone to say hello to – I need some cash – or – I think I found a girl that likes me – or – I wonder if you think this car is a good one to buy.
Today this song connected with me. Maybe you’ll like it too.
Bless you Jared…
A pair of hard working hands
Everything that I needed
I got it from the old man
With a nine second dream
He drove the Redlight Bandit
And the grease on his hands
Was the way he commanded
And the life he demanded
It kept us all in a struggle
When he ruled with his fist
It kept us all out of trouble
Even though he would leave
He wore his heart on his sleeve
And by the way that he walked
He taught me how to believe Old man look at my life
Take a look, take a look
Old man look at my life
cause I'm a lot like you
Old man, old man take a look at my life
Take a look, take a look
Old man, old man take a look at my life
cause I'm a lot like you
Growin' up at the track
He had a reason for being fast
His heart felt like breaking
He'd look right up at the ceiling and
Start again, never breathe a word of his loss
Cause it's not about winning
It's the rivers you cross
And the pain that you feel
Could be the fuel that you use
And if you're in need of direction
Be it the path that you choose
My old man is a legend
He cast a shadow so great
I think of how he is watchin'
With every move that I make
Chorus:
Now there's no slowin' down
There's only settin' the pace
No more dreams to be stolen
Just the right ones to chase
You've been through the worst
Now you know who to trust
Leave them something behind
Before the ashes and dust
Yes and for those of you wondering - yes that was some hard core riffing on old man Young which you can find here
