There was a day when we were young.
There was a day when someone could run fast and someone could make us laugh and someone always smelled funny. There was a day when everyone had their place, even if it wasn’t the place they wanted.
There was a day when mothers brought cupcakes for all our classmates. On that day, when our friends sang “Happy Birthday to You,” we shared our cakes with the class as if to say, “no, happy birthday to us.”
And for the few minutes between Geography and Gym, it felt good to be a gift. To share.
When we were young.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Shadow Games
Gracie sat in my lap and wanted to play a game. This is a reoccurring theme that the distance between Nashville and New York keeps from reoccurring very often. I wish it could reoccur more.
This time, Gracie wanted to play outside. But after a weekend packed full with Easter eggs, bike rides, tickle fights, and birthday parties, I didn’t want to go outside. I wanted to rest. In a chair. Inside.
“Gracie,” I said, “maybe you should go outside and play by yourself for a few minutes while Uncle Bryan sits here and finishes his tea.”
Uncle Bryan sometimes speaks in the third person because it makes him sound like he’s doing a favor for someone other than himself.
“But Uncle Bryan, you have to come outside with me” Gracie whined, “I can’t play hide-and-seek with my shadow!”
She’s right, of course. There are a very limited number of outside games a person can effectively play with their shadow.
“Follow the Leader” – yes.
“Hide and Seek” – no.
Maybe that’s why childhood… and adolescence… and even adulthood have been so uncomfortable for so many of us. We’ve spent too much time playing hide-and-seek with our shadow, running from something that can’t leave, hiding from a part of ourselves that refuses to go away.
Instead of playing outside, Gracie and I sat at the kitchen table and drew pictures. Then we shared a piece of cake and built a spaceship with her brother’s Legos. It was a wonderful afternoon of playing games, telling stories, and spending special time together – all of which Gracie’s shadow was (and will always be) welcomed to join.
This time, Gracie wanted to play outside. But after a weekend packed full with Easter eggs, bike rides, tickle fights, and birthday parties, I didn’t want to go outside. I wanted to rest. In a chair. Inside.
“Gracie,” I said, “maybe you should go outside and play by yourself for a few minutes while Uncle Bryan sits here and finishes his tea.”
Uncle Bryan sometimes speaks in the third person because it makes him sound like he’s doing a favor for someone other than himself.
“But Uncle Bryan, you have to come outside with me” Gracie whined, “I can’t play hide-and-seek with my shadow!”
She’s right, of course. There are a very limited number of outside games a person can effectively play with their shadow.
“Follow the Leader” – yes.
“Hide and Seek” – no.
Maybe that’s why childhood… and adolescence… and even adulthood have been so uncomfortable for so many of us. We’ve spent too much time playing hide-and-seek with our shadow, running from something that can’t leave, hiding from a part of ourselves that refuses to go away.
Instead of playing outside, Gracie and I sat at the kitchen table and drew pictures. Then we shared a piece of cake and built a spaceship with her brother’s Legos. It was a wonderful afternoon of playing games, telling stories, and spending special time together – all of which Gracie’s shadow was (and will always be) welcomed to join.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Zombie Playground
Last weekend, in an attempt to escape from the concrete and chaos of NYC, Jeremy and I took a day trip to Rhinebeck, NY. There, hidden behind a quiet antebellum church, we discovered a zombie playground.
If New York City is a Big Apple, Rhinebeck is an underdeveloped peach. Its downtown consists of a single intersection, the spokes of which are studded with a cigar shop, ice cream parlor, antique market, and four surprisingly good restaurants. The buildings in Rhinebeck are all short enough to loose a Frisbee on top of.
It took only two hours for Jeremy and me to walk through each of the town's hot spots, eat lunch, and talk with two shop-owners. Our site-seeing complete, we made our way to the suburbs, a three block hike out of town.
In Finding Nemo, an ocean native named Gill observed that all drains lead to the ocean. On his Discovery Channel show (Man v/s Wild), Bear Grylls taught that all trails eventually lead to water. As a small town explorer, I would like to add that – depending on your feelings about organized religion – all sidewalks eventually lead either to or past a church.
Jeremy and I weren’t looking for a church, but that’s where the sidewalk led us.
The white, wooden church that sits three blocks from Rhinebeck’s only red light is probably older than most of the trees in Manhattan. The bell in its steeple has been Rhinebeck’s alarm clock since the days when men set their pocket watches to its hourly toll. Its long wooden pews are polished smooth from ten generations of weddings, Easter celebrations, and Sunday morning services. In its backyard grows a cemetery the congregation started planting in the late 1700’s.
Up from the seeds of the church's death and grief have sprouted several dozen antique tombstones. Each stone marker records dates of both joy and pain (Benjamin Cooper: born 1790 died 1843). Many have inscriptions to help mathematically challenged mourners (aged 53 years, 4 months, 8 days). Some even give a brief biography (drowned in the bloom of health) or a frightening last thought for loved ones who might attempt to move on (as I am now so you shall be, prepare for death and follow me).
Excited by our morbid discovery, Jeremy and I walked through the people-garden and took pictures of the head stones. I wanted a shot framed with the church in the background and the graves in the foreground, a (probably too obvious) comment on the hope that religion – and especially Christianity – gives its dead.
That’s when I saw the playground. Nestled against the back corner of the church, surrounded by a short chain-link fence, stood a cedar play house, four swings, a sandbox, and a green plastic Playskool slide. It isn’t unusual to see a playground behind a church. It is, however, unusual to see a tombstone poking out of the sandbox. Most churches put their playgrounds on an out of the way corner of unused land. Very few build them on top of their cemetery.
A closer look at the playground confirmed that sticking its head out of the sandbox was a short, moss covered tombstone (In Memory of Mary). Two taller stones (Eliza Ann Williams 1779 – 1810 and Leah Bergh 1769 – 1843) stood immediately beside Mary’s in the sandbox, casting long shadows across a yellow Tonka truck. Two additional stone markers, whose inscriptions have been worn smooth, stood watch over the playhouse and swing set.
At some point in the church’s fairly recent past, a middle-aged man apparently stood in the back corner of the cemetery, looked at Mary’s eternal resting place, and thought “This. This is the perfect place for a kid to dig a hole.”
And then he built a sandbox.
From Mary’s perspective, being buried under a playground probably has significant advantages. Although her neighbors get to rest peacefully on a quiet hillside, they’ve all finished decomposing and have nothing left to do. They’re probably bored to death. Trees don’t really grow quickly enough to provide much entertainment.
Planted under the sandbox, however, Mary (debatably) has the best plot in the yard. Every day she gets to watch castle construction from the ground up. She gets to listen to giggling children play their games and tell their secrets. She even gets to feel the soft patter of little feet running through the dirt.
Unfortunately, she’s also forced to look up at the not-so-pretty end of neighborhood cats who use her sandbox as a toilet. Every time they make a deposit, I’m sure Mary wishes rolling over in her grave was really as easy as the living seem to think it is.
While Mary quietly wonders why Jesus is taking so long to come back, neighborhood children spend their days sitting on her grave, digging in the space between life and death. I hope they appreciate the incredible opportunity they’ve been given. After all…
How many kids get to dig for treasure and actually feel their shovel hit a buried wooden box?
How many kids get to schedule regular play dates with their great, great, great, great grandparents?
And how many kids know that on Sunday morning, when their Sunday School teacher asks the class if they know where they’ll go when they die, that they always have the best answer?
“Yes,” they can say with confidence. “I’ll go to the playground.”
**
To see pics of the playground, click the epitaphs in the story ("In Memory of Mary", "Eliza Ann Williams 1779 – 1810 and Leah Bergh 1769 – 1843", "Two additional stone markers"). You can also click here to see pics of the playground.
If New York City is a Big Apple, Rhinebeck is an underdeveloped peach. Its downtown consists of a single intersection, the spokes of which are studded with a cigar shop, ice cream parlor, antique market, and four surprisingly good restaurants. The buildings in Rhinebeck are all short enough to loose a Frisbee on top of.
It took only two hours for Jeremy and me to walk through each of the town's hot spots, eat lunch, and talk with two shop-owners. Our site-seeing complete, we made our way to the suburbs, a three block hike out of town.
In Finding Nemo, an ocean native named Gill observed that all drains lead to the ocean. On his Discovery Channel show (Man v/s Wild), Bear Grylls taught that all trails eventually lead to water. As a small town explorer, I would like to add that – depending on your feelings about organized religion – all sidewalks eventually lead either to or past a church.
Jeremy and I weren’t looking for a church, but that’s where the sidewalk led us.
The white, wooden church that sits three blocks from Rhinebeck’s only red light is probably older than most of the trees in Manhattan. The bell in its steeple has been Rhinebeck’s alarm clock since the days when men set their pocket watches to its hourly toll. Its long wooden pews are polished smooth from ten generations of weddings, Easter celebrations, and Sunday morning services. In its backyard grows a cemetery the congregation started planting in the late 1700’s.
Up from the seeds of the church's death and grief have sprouted several dozen antique tombstones. Each stone marker records dates of both joy and pain (Benjamin Cooper: born 1790 died 1843). Many have inscriptions to help mathematically challenged mourners (aged 53 years, 4 months, 8 days). Some even give a brief biography (drowned in the bloom of health) or a frightening last thought for loved ones who might attempt to move on (as I am now so you shall be, prepare for death and follow me).
Excited by our morbid discovery, Jeremy and I walked through the people-garden and took pictures of the head stones. I wanted a shot framed with the church in the background and the graves in the foreground, a (probably too obvious) comment on the hope that religion – and especially Christianity – gives its dead.
That’s when I saw the playground. Nestled against the back corner of the church, surrounded by a short chain-link fence, stood a cedar play house, four swings, a sandbox, and a green plastic Playskool slide. It isn’t unusual to see a playground behind a church. It is, however, unusual to see a tombstone poking out of the sandbox. Most churches put their playgrounds on an out of the way corner of unused land. Very few build them on top of their cemetery.
A closer look at the playground confirmed that sticking its head out of the sandbox was a short, moss covered tombstone (In Memory of Mary). Two taller stones (Eliza Ann Williams 1779 – 1810 and Leah Bergh 1769 – 1843) stood immediately beside Mary’s in the sandbox, casting long shadows across a yellow Tonka truck. Two additional stone markers, whose inscriptions have been worn smooth, stood watch over the playhouse and swing set.
At some point in the church’s fairly recent past, a middle-aged man apparently stood in the back corner of the cemetery, looked at Mary’s eternal resting place, and thought “This. This is the perfect place for a kid to dig a hole.”
And then he built a sandbox.
From Mary’s perspective, being buried under a playground probably has significant advantages. Although her neighbors get to rest peacefully on a quiet hillside, they’ve all finished decomposing and have nothing left to do. They’re probably bored to death. Trees don’t really grow quickly enough to provide much entertainment.
Planted under the sandbox, however, Mary (debatably) has the best plot in the yard. Every day she gets to watch castle construction from the ground up. She gets to listen to giggling children play their games and tell their secrets. She even gets to feel the soft patter of little feet running through the dirt.
Unfortunately, she’s also forced to look up at the not-so-pretty end of neighborhood cats who use her sandbox as a toilet. Every time they make a deposit, I’m sure Mary wishes rolling over in her grave was really as easy as the living seem to think it is.
While Mary quietly wonders why Jesus is taking so long to come back, neighborhood children spend their days sitting on her grave, digging in the space between life and death. I hope they appreciate the incredible opportunity they’ve been given. After all…
How many kids get to dig for treasure and actually feel their shovel hit a buried wooden box?
How many kids get to schedule regular play dates with their great, great, great, great grandparents?
And how many kids know that on Sunday morning, when their Sunday School teacher asks the class if they know where they’ll go when they die, that they always have the best answer?
“Yes,” they can say with confidence. “I’ll go to the playground.”
**
To see pics of the playground, click the epitaphs in the story ("In Memory of Mary", "Eliza Ann Williams 1779 – 1810 and Leah Bergh 1769 – 1843", "Two additional stone markers"). You can also click here to see pics of the playground.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Epilogue.
This is what it says it is… an epilogue. If you would like to read what it’s an epilogue to, check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
In the years since John, Kyle, and I made our trek up the mountain and through the woods, much has happened. Kyle moved to California to study a scientific discipline I can’t even spell. John finally looked over his shoulder and saw an amazing woman standing there who will soon be his wife. I returned from Yosemite unaware that over the next few years I would navigate a car-sickening ride of life, career, and geographic changes.
It’s been a big five years.
Re-reading this story has made me realize that I need to go back to the mountain. I need perspective and grounding. I need to dangle my feet over a ledge and remember that sitting on the edge of something uncertain, while terrifying, can also be beautiful and exciting.
Of course, I also need somebody to pay for the plane ticket. Interested?
In the years since John, Kyle, and I made our trek up the mountain and through the woods, much has happened. Kyle moved to California to study a scientific discipline I can’t even spell. John finally looked over his shoulder and saw an amazing woman standing there who will soon be his wife. I returned from Yosemite unaware that over the next few years I would navigate a car-sickening ride of life, career, and geographic changes.
It’s been a big five years.
Re-reading this story has made me realize that I need to go back to the mountain. I need perspective and grounding. I need to dangle my feet over a ledge and remember that sitting on the edge of something uncertain, while terrifying, can also be beautiful and exciting.
Of course, I also need somebody to pay for the plane ticket. Interested?
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Toothpicks
While this post can stand somewhat steadily on it’s own, it’s much more stable when supported by Part 1 and Part 2. If you haven’t read them yet, maybe you should do that now...
After an hour on top of Half Dome, Kyle, John, and I headed back down the trail toward camp. Down may be a faster direction than up, but both force your muscles to fight the mountain. And when your muscles fight the mountain, the mountain always wins. And when the mountain wins, you muscles are always sore losers.
It was dark when we finally got back to camp. Each of us went our separate ways to shower and apologize to our aching legs. I started a fire so we could heat some canned beef stew, but was overly generous with the lighter fluid. The resulting campfireball almost blew us into the trees. Fortunately, when you’re primitive camping and there’s no TV, a few small explosions are welcomed entertainment. John, Kyle, and I sat around the blaze for hours, staring into the flames, eating our stew and contemplating how much our muscles would hate us in the morning.
On our way out of the park a few days later, after our legs had forgiven us, we stopped at one of Yosemite’s redwood groves to walk through the giant trees.
The redwoods in these ancient forests are so broad that in 1895, a group of industrious settlers carved a tunnel through one of them. Forrest fires burned a tunnel though another one. The tunnels are large enough for a Honda to drive through without scratching its bumper. The park’s forest rangers don’t like it when you drive Hondas through their trees, though. Apparently it distracts the elves from putting fudge stripes on their cookies.
These beautiful redwoods have been alive for (literally) thousands of years. Before Jesus had skin and cooed in the manger, back when the earth was still flat and MTV actually played music videos, these giants were standing. Growing.
In the 1860’s, however, nearsighted lumberjacks walked through the Yosemite Valley and couldn’t appreciate the majesty of a forest that was planted when Cleopatra swam the Nile. They stood in the woods and had no respect for trees that would one day rise twenty-nine stories into the sky. They measured trunks that circled ninety-two feet and were somehow unimpressed. They saw branches as thick as a man is tall and continued walking with their hands in their pockets and their minds in their wallets.
These lumberjacks missed the majesty and saw only a challenge, an arm wrestling match with nature. They didn’t see ancient beauty in the branches or hear the voice of God rustling through the leaves. With necks bent back and faces pointed toward the sky, they saw only profit. They heard only the whisper of their own ambition. And so, these short-sighted men started chopping.
They stood beneath monstrous trees that had outlived fifty generations of men and cut them with saws and axes and other tools that would rust and dull. And when the mighty trees fell, they shattered. Instead of landing whole and complete, the trees cracked under the force of the fall, broken into four foot sections.
Sacrificed to ego and ambition, the pieces of these once-giants were too short to cut into lumber for furniture or houses. Wasted, the fallen trees were chipped and whittled into toothpicks and pencils, splinters of their former selves. Ancient pillars that survived two millennia of fire, earthquakes, ice, bugs, and birds were reduced to fifteen seconds of picking corn out of somebody’s teeth.
What a shame.
In 1878 people picked their teeth with giants.
Unfortunately, they still do.
In a country where we’re obsessed with all things organic and eco-friendly, too many giants are still being sacrificed for a lesser good, cut down in their prime, whittled into toothpicks of their former selves. If you’ve been listening, you’ve probably heard some of them fall.
California couples like the artist and the architect celebrated their love through marriage until one day voters candidly informed them that
**Chop**
equality was meant for everyone else.
Millions of hardworking Americans watched as talking heads on the nightly news claimed that
**Chop**
they haven’t yet earned the American Dream… or the right to affordable healthcare.
An entire generation of young Africans disappeared in under-reported genocide while wealthier nations
**Chop**
fought each other for revenge, ideology, and oil.
Ponzi schemes were built, mortgages were sold, and bonuses were collected by wealthy men willing to
**Chop**
**Chop**
**Chop**
sacrifice the financial futures of men and women who now fear words like foreclosure, downsize, and retirement.
I wonder, though, if the lumberjacks among us would still swing their axes if they stopped obsessing over:
whether oaks should be allowed to marry maples,
whether the forest should offer free fertilizer and subsidized rain,
whether foreign seedlings are taking root in domestic soil,
and whether or not it’s fair to ask bigger trees to care for smaller ones,
and stop to watch God dancing through the leaves.
Which He is.
(I’m sure the poetry of idealism has blinded me to its impracticality. But still, I wonder.)
To Be Continued…
Click here to read this story's epilogue.
After an hour on top of Half Dome, Kyle, John, and I headed back down the trail toward camp. Down may be a faster direction than up, but both force your muscles to fight the mountain. And when your muscles fight the mountain, the mountain always wins. And when the mountain wins, you muscles are always sore losers.
It was dark when we finally got back to camp. Each of us went our separate ways to shower and apologize to our aching legs. I started a fire so we could heat some canned beef stew, but was overly generous with the lighter fluid. The resulting campfireball almost blew us into the trees. Fortunately, when you’re primitive camping and there’s no TV, a few small explosions are welcomed entertainment. John, Kyle, and I sat around the blaze for hours, staring into the flames, eating our stew and contemplating how much our muscles would hate us in the morning.
On our way out of the park a few days later, after our legs had forgiven us, we stopped at one of Yosemite’s redwood groves to walk through the giant trees.
The redwoods in these ancient forests are so broad that in 1895, a group of industrious settlers carved a tunnel through one of them. Forrest fires burned a tunnel though another one. The tunnels are large enough for a Honda to drive through without scratching its bumper. The park’s forest rangers don’t like it when you drive Hondas through their trees, though. Apparently it distracts the elves from putting fudge stripes on their cookies.
These beautiful redwoods have been alive for (literally) thousands of years. Before Jesus had skin and cooed in the manger, back when the earth was still flat and MTV actually played music videos, these giants were standing. Growing.
In the 1860’s, however, nearsighted lumberjacks walked through the Yosemite Valley and couldn’t appreciate the majesty of a forest that was planted when Cleopatra swam the Nile. They stood in the woods and had no respect for trees that would one day rise twenty-nine stories into the sky. They measured trunks that circled ninety-two feet and were somehow unimpressed. They saw branches as thick as a man is tall and continued walking with their hands in their pockets and their minds in their wallets.
These lumberjacks missed the majesty and saw only a challenge, an arm wrestling match with nature. They didn’t see ancient beauty in the branches or hear the voice of God rustling through the leaves. With necks bent back and faces pointed toward the sky, they saw only profit. They heard only the whisper of their own ambition. And so, these short-sighted men started chopping.
They stood beneath monstrous trees that had outlived fifty generations of men and cut them with saws and axes and other tools that would rust and dull. And when the mighty trees fell, they shattered. Instead of landing whole and complete, the trees cracked under the force of the fall, broken into four foot sections.
Sacrificed to ego and ambition, the pieces of these once-giants were too short to cut into lumber for furniture or houses. Wasted, the fallen trees were chipped and whittled into toothpicks and pencils, splinters of their former selves. Ancient pillars that survived two millennia of fire, earthquakes, ice, bugs, and birds were reduced to fifteen seconds of picking corn out of somebody’s teeth.
What a shame.
In 1878 people picked their teeth with giants.
Unfortunately, they still do.
In a country where we’re obsessed with all things organic and eco-friendly, too many giants are still being sacrificed for a lesser good, cut down in their prime, whittled into toothpicks of their former selves. If you’ve been listening, you’ve probably heard some of them fall.
California couples like the artist and the architect celebrated their love through marriage until one day voters candidly informed them that
**Chop**
equality was meant for everyone else.
Millions of hardworking Americans watched as talking heads on the nightly news claimed that
**Chop**
they haven’t yet earned the American Dream… or the right to affordable healthcare.
An entire generation of young Africans disappeared in under-reported genocide while wealthier nations
**Chop**
fought each other for revenge, ideology, and oil.
Ponzi schemes were built, mortgages were sold, and bonuses were collected by wealthy men willing to
**Chop**
**Chop**
**Chop**
sacrifice the financial futures of men and women who now fear words like foreclosure, downsize, and retirement.
I wonder, though, if the lumberjacks among us would still swing their axes if they stopped obsessing over:
whether oaks should be allowed to marry maples,
whether the forest should offer free fertilizer and subsidized rain,
whether foreign seedlings are taking root in domestic soil,
and whether or not it’s fair to ask bigger trees to care for smaller ones,
and stop to watch God dancing through the leaves.
Which He is.
(I’m sure the poetry of idealism has blinded me to its impracticality. But still, I wonder.)
To Be Continued…
Click here to read this story's epilogue.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
It's Not The Fall That Kills You
Every life-inspired story is essentially a peek into the past. Consider this a peek into mine. This is part 2 of story about a hiking expedition I embarked on with my friends John and Kyle. If you know me well (or even casually), don’t be thrown by phrases like “I live in Nashville.” This was originally written several years ago. Check out Part 1 of the story to catch up.
With muscles aching and joints screaming, my friends and I made the summit of Half Dome at 3:00pm, just as the sun lit the valley for postcard views. While John explored and Kyle took pictures, I sat on top of the mountain with my legs dangling over the edge, tempting gravity to steal my shoes. Sitting on top of Half Dome made me wonder how the Earth must have felt during its ten million year labor, giving birth to this mountain of stone. Pushing it through miles of earth and air. Enduring contractions that shook the planet.
Looking down into the valley made me question how this mountain must have felt when it was a moody geological teenager and a glacier bullied its way through the rocks, tearing away at Half Dome’s face and digging a valley between he and his friends. It was a glacier that clipped the mountain’s rounded top and gave him the nickname Half Dome.
What a cold, hard thing for a glacier to do.
But building up and tearing down are the verse and chorus of nature’s song, the synopsis of God’s story. These mountains are human history in slow motion. They remind us that we are creation, cracked and scarred, yet beautiful beyond belief. They tell us that this is life, both majesty and pain, each serving a purpose. They encourage us that our struggles, while important, are seldom eternal.
I had only been on top of the mountain for a few minutes when two guys crept up behind me and peeked over the side.
“I can’t believe you’re sitting that close to the edge,” one of them said. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall?”
I smiled. “Well, it’s not the fall that kills you. It’s the two guys that sneak up and startle you while your legs are dangling over a 4,000 foot ledge that kill you.”
The two men laughed and produced a peace offering of dried fruit. I accepted and returned a handshake, inviting them to join me on the ledge.
As they sat, a hawk made a soaring pass in the space just under my feet. We looked down on the bird as it flew 4800 feet above its unsuspecting dinner. When the hawk turned and its wings caught the wind, I felt like the chorus of an old Bette Midler song.
Together we sat on the edge of a mountain, looking down on the world from a rock that has enjoyed its view for ten million years. We chatted. I asked the obligatory questions of “where are you from?” and “what do you do?” They were from San Francisco. One was an artist, the other an architect.
Although it was a brief biography, the word “we” was used frequently enough to safely establish that these two men were in a relationship. The rainbow pin on the architect’s backpack hinted that it might be a romantic relationship. So did the fact that they were holding hands.
The architect offered me a piece of mango jerky.
“Where are you from,” he asked.
“Nashville, Tennessee” I answered.
The architect sighed a lungful of mountain air. San Francisco sits on the west coast and is known for its famous bridge, hill topping trolleys, and homosexual community. Nashville is in the south, where the Bible buckles its belt. If there is stereotype surrounding what it means to be a homosexual from San Francisco, there is equal preconception of what it means to be a Christian from the south. While people in San Francisco cross the Golden Gate bridge and eat good seafood, Nashvillians go to church on Sunday and enjoy a diet rich in southern fried Christianity.
The architect sighed, and with a smirk that obviously masked something like frustration or hurt or betrayal, he said, “don’t worry. We’re not really as bad as Jerry Falwell would have you believe.”
Jerry Falwell is a televangelist who, until his death in 2007, led a conservative movement known as the “moral majority.” In 2001 Falwell blamed gays, lesbians, abortionists, and other “pagans” for the terrorist attacks in New York City. “You helped this happen,” Falwell said, implying that homosexuals in the World Trade Center served as lightening rods for God’s judgment. In a moment, on national television, this influential preacher presented Christianity to the world as a faith of finger pointing and hatred.
And the world was watching.
I paused so the architect would know I had heard what he said and had taken it seriously. Then I smiled. “I’m of the opinion that nobody is as bad as Jerry Falwell would have us believe.”
He smiled back.
But then, to continue the conversation, the architect asked another question, harmless and ripe with possibility. My answer would either intrigue my new friend or infuriate him.
He asked what I do for a living.
I had two correct answers for his question. I am an author, but I am also a preacher.
To tell the architect that I am an author would likely have given us ten minutes more to talk about. Telling him that I am a preacher, however, was likely to produce an awkward silence and hasty retreat. Being an author would safely establish me as an open minded artist. Being a preacher would associate me with Jerry Falwell.
I’m not embarrassed by my faith. I’m not ashamed of my Christianity. But I am sometimes ashamed of other Christians. That’s why I told the architect I am an author and quickly changed the subject.
In retrospect, I made a poor choice.
What I should have told him was, “I’m a preacher, a Christian. And we’re not as bad as Jerry Falwell would have you believe either.”
I wonder if he would have smiled.
To be continued...
click here to read Part 3.
With muscles aching and joints screaming, my friends and I made the summit of Half Dome at 3:00pm, just as the sun lit the valley for postcard views. While John explored and Kyle took pictures, I sat on top of the mountain with my legs dangling over the edge, tempting gravity to steal my shoes. Sitting on top of Half Dome made me wonder how the Earth must have felt during its ten million year labor, giving birth to this mountain of stone. Pushing it through miles of earth and air. Enduring contractions that shook the planet.
Looking down into the valley made me question how this mountain must have felt when it was a moody geological teenager and a glacier bullied its way through the rocks, tearing away at Half Dome’s face and digging a valley between he and his friends. It was a glacier that clipped the mountain’s rounded top and gave him the nickname Half Dome.
What a cold, hard thing for a glacier to do.
But building up and tearing down are the verse and chorus of nature’s song, the synopsis of God’s story. These mountains are human history in slow motion. They remind us that we are creation, cracked and scarred, yet beautiful beyond belief. They tell us that this is life, both majesty and pain, each serving a purpose. They encourage us that our struggles, while important, are seldom eternal.
I had only been on top of the mountain for a few minutes when two guys crept up behind me and peeked over the side.
“I can’t believe you’re sitting that close to the edge,” one of them said. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall?”
I smiled. “Well, it’s not the fall that kills you. It’s the two guys that sneak up and startle you while your legs are dangling over a 4,000 foot ledge that kill you.”
The two men laughed and produced a peace offering of dried fruit. I accepted and returned a handshake, inviting them to join me on the ledge.
As they sat, a hawk made a soaring pass in the space just under my feet. We looked down on the bird as it flew 4800 feet above its unsuspecting dinner. When the hawk turned and its wings caught the wind, I felt like the chorus of an old Bette Midler song.
Together we sat on the edge of a mountain, looking down on the world from a rock that has enjoyed its view for ten million years. We chatted. I asked the obligatory questions of “where are you from?” and “what do you do?” They were from San Francisco. One was an artist, the other an architect.
Although it was a brief biography, the word “we” was used frequently enough to safely establish that these two men were in a relationship. The rainbow pin on the architect’s backpack hinted that it might be a romantic relationship. So did the fact that they were holding hands.
The architect offered me a piece of mango jerky.
“Where are you from,” he asked.
“Nashville, Tennessee” I answered.
The architect sighed a lungful of mountain air. San Francisco sits on the west coast and is known for its famous bridge, hill topping trolleys, and homosexual community. Nashville is in the south, where the Bible buckles its belt. If there is stereotype surrounding what it means to be a homosexual from San Francisco, there is equal preconception of what it means to be a Christian from the south. While people in San Francisco cross the Golden Gate bridge and eat good seafood, Nashvillians go to church on Sunday and enjoy a diet rich in southern fried Christianity.
The architect sighed, and with a smirk that obviously masked something like frustration or hurt or betrayal, he said, “don’t worry. We’re not really as bad as Jerry Falwell would have you believe.”
Jerry Falwell is a televangelist who, until his death in 2007, led a conservative movement known as the “moral majority.” In 2001 Falwell blamed gays, lesbians, abortionists, and other “pagans” for the terrorist attacks in New York City. “You helped this happen,” Falwell said, implying that homosexuals in the World Trade Center served as lightening rods for God’s judgment. In a moment, on national television, this influential preacher presented Christianity to the world as a faith of finger pointing and hatred.
And the world was watching.
I paused so the architect would know I had heard what he said and had taken it seriously. Then I smiled. “I’m of the opinion that nobody is as bad as Jerry Falwell would have us believe.”
He smiled back.
But then, to continue the conversation, the architect asked another question, harmless and ripe with possibility. My answer would either intrigue my new friend or infuriate him.
He asked what I do for a living.
I had two correct answers for his question. I am an author, but I am also a preacher.
To tell the architect that I am an author would likely have given us ten minutes more to talk about. Telling him that I am a preacher, however, was likely to produce an awkward silence and hasty retreat. Being an author would safely establish me as an open minded artist. Being a preacher would associate me with Jerry Falwell.
I’m not embarrassed by my faith. I’m not ashamed of my Christianity. But I am sometimes ashamed of other Christians. That’s why I told the architect I am an author and quickly changed the subject.
In retrospect, I made a poor choice.
What I should have told him was, “I’m a preacher, a Christian. And we’re not as bad as Jerry Falwell would have you believe either.”
I wonder if he would have smiled.
To be continued...
click here to read Part 3.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Nature Needs an Elevator
Several years ago, when I was still traveling as a speaker for youth events and still had hopes of publishing a second book, I went on a hiking expedition with my friends John and Kyle. I recently brushed the digital dust off of what I wrote after the trip and edited it into a four part blog post. This is part one…
I know heaven doesn’t float in the sky and hell doesn’t bubble and burn beneath our feet, but when you sit on the top of a mountain, you can’t help but feel closer to God. The mountain gives you perspective. It lets you rise above the earth while still standing connected to it. The mountain is grandeur and grounding. It is both powerful and broken.
I wonder if that’s why God often brought his favorites to the top of a mountain when he had something important to say.
Abraham. Moses. Joshua. Peter, James, and John. They were all changed by what God showed them on a mountain. On the mountain he gave them new perspective. He said, “Let me show you how to rise above this life while still staying connected to it.”
I recently hiked to the top of Yosemite’s Half Dome with two friends from college. Together we climbed 4,800 feet, higher than almost four Empire State Buildings, over the course of a nine mile hike to the summit. The two men I hiked with were an unusual and eclectic mix. John, Kyle, and I are old friends who share a love for movies, the outdoors, and everything sarcastic.
Kyle and I lived together in a retirement community for a year just after we graduated from college. At the time, Kyle worked for the government and investigated sources of radioactive activity. Obviously, working with radioactive elements is sensitive work. Our elderly neighbors sometimes thought it odd that their lights got brighter and their hearing aids whistled every time Kyle walked into the room. I got nervous every time Kyle found an odd rock in his pocket or came home from work with a bigger bald spot. We owned a microwave oven, but never used it. For dinner I set my macaroni and cheese in Kyle’s lap for 45 seconds and enjoyed a hot meal.
John and I were roommates and best friends in college who did all the ridiculous things college friends do. We set flame to our farts and stole shoes from the bowling alley. I have pictures of the two of us so covered in mud we look like we’ve both been iced with earth chocolate. In a time shortly before cell phones and just after smoke signals, John and I installed CB radios in our cars so we could talk and tell dirty jokes across town. John is a professional actor now. While Kyle glows in the dark and cures cancer, John connects with his inner child and uses his Hollywood good looks to date beautiful women.
Our hiking trip up Half Dome wasn’t simply a reunion, it was the set up for a really bad joke. A scientist, an actor, and a preacher were camping in the woods . . .
To Be Continued...
Click here to read Part 2...
I know heaven doesn’t float in the sky and hell doesn’t bubble and burn beneath our feet, but when you sit on the top of a mountain, you can’t help but feel closer to God. The mountain gives you perspective. It lets you rise above the earth while still standing connected to it. The mountain is grandeur and grounding. It is both powerful and broken.
I wonder if that’s why God often brought his favorites to the top of a mountain when he had something important to say.
Abraham. Moses. Joshua. Peter, James, and John. They were all changed by what God showed them on a mountain. On the mountain he gave them new perspective. He said, “Let me show you how to rise above this life while still staying connected to it.”
I recently hiked to the top of Yosemite’s Half Dome with two friends from college. Together we climbed 4,800 feet, higher than almost four Empire State Buildings, over the course of a nine mile hike to the summit. The two men I hiked with were an unusual and eclectic mix. John, Kyle, and I are old friends who share a love for movies, the outdoors, and everything sarcastic.
Kyle and I lived together in a retirement community for a year just after we graduated from college. At the time, Kyle worked for the government and investigated sources of radioactive activity. Obviously, working with radioactive elements is sensitive work. Our elderly neighbors sometimes thought it odd that their lights got brighter and their hearing aids whistled every time Kyle walked into the room. I got nervous every time Kyle found an odd rock in his pocket or came home from work with a bigger bald spot. We owned a microwave oven, but never used it. For dinner I set my macaroni and cheese in Kyle’s lap for 45 seconds and enjoyed a hot meal.
John and I were roommates and best friends in college who did all the ridiculous things college friends do. We set flame to our farts and stole shoes from the bowling alley. I have pictures of the two of us so covered in mud we look like we’ve both been iced with earth chocolate. In a time shortly before cell phones and just after smoke signals, John and I installed CB radios in our cars so we could talk and tell dirty jokes across town. John is a professional actor now. While Kyle glows in the dark and cures cancer, John connects with his inner child and uses his Hollywood good looks to date beautiful women.
Our hiking trip up Half Dome wasn’t simply a reunion, it was the set up for a really bad joke. A scientist, an actor, and a preacher were camping in the woods . . .
To Be Continued...
Click here to read Part 2...
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