Belonging And The American Dream

"We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility, and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.” C.S. Lewis

Like locusts that eat golden years, termites chomp on wooden dreams. In times past I had a house. As great a house as it was, it was more a symbol of a dream. A dream of stability. A dream of connecting with neighbors and creating memories of my daughter growing up. Wife, daughter, dog, lawn, backyard, gas grill—the American dream. It took five years for it all to blow up. It was never about the house anyway. It was about belonging.

Since Hillary Tower was stolen away I’ve known it. She was an older woman—maybe twelve years old to my six. She lived in the house behind ours. I’d go there and play games, in the house and yard, Ring-Around-The-Rosie, Hide-and-Seek, Tag. I had a thing for Hillary. One day she disappeared. Like Puff the Dragon; gone. My parents mentioned her moving briefly, “Oh yeah, her parents had to move.” I thought as a grown up I could have stability. No more Hillary Tower episodes. It was about connecting.

I’ve moved ten times since Hillary. I’ve been fortunate as each move brought me into contact with rich, abiding friendships. At every structure I’ve lived in God has brought a friend into the picture. The friends remain. I keep moving. 

I am partially known. Partially settled. Still searching. This is the ever-present tension: to be fully known, fully accepted and home. The angst is brought to light in the life of Abraham, “he lived as an alien in the land of promise, in a foreign land, dwelling in tents, a stranger and exile on earth, for it is clear he seeks a county of his own.” 

I expect to move into a house, with my beloved and settle in for the next little stretch of life. A little house, in a nice tract, with ideal walkability, close to wilderness, near restaurants and night life. It’ll be good but just good. I’ll never quite belong, never have the perfect connections, never feel quite settled. I’m made for that eternal country where I will be fully known, fully accepted. God will redeem the years the locust has eaten.

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Lessons I Learned From The Immigrants

And if I sing let me sing for the joy 

That has born in me these songs

And if I weep let it be as a man

Who is longing for his home.

I spent my childhood in the company of immigrants and refugees. Dichondra and Bermuda, chlorine in pools; the neighborhood. Settled in. Life in the San Fernando valley. Yet our parents still smelled the salt water. Our parents; family names like Mitrevics, Oeffinger, Cardella and Fusillo. Fleering other lives to live this one; leaving pogroms, property and riches for the new world.

We observed like kids do. I told my close friend I could barely understand his mom because her accent was so thick. “What about your mom’s accent,” he asked with emphasis. I assured him that my mother had no accent. He swore his didn’t either. 

The accents are an echo of a land no longer lived in. A home that day to day life keeps at bay. Comfortable at get-togethers. Almost home again. Laughing in native tongue, breaking traditional breads; pirogi and Rupjmaize (dark rye). At times; quiet, lonely times, the pain is palpable. James A. Smith gives this example of what it feels like to be an immigrant, “You lose something of your upright bearing if you no longer have the soil of your own land beneath your feet; you feel less confident, more distrustful of yourself.” What’s my takeaway as the child of an immigrant?

Freedom is a painful process. Hardship is part of the process. Moving forward (a myriad of meanings) entails going from the comfortable known to the questionable unknown. Always trading something; cigarettes and soap buy the next border crossing. The journey isn’t about escaping pain. It’s about grasping freedom—inching forward in small increments toward greater fullness. 

There will always be a transient tension; the homeland behind you, hunger for all that ‘home’ implies ahead of you. Home is comfort not permanence. Being home is having a sense of ‘place.’ In a broader sense just as Jesus had no place to lay his head, he was able to find sleep wherever he laid his head.

Be hospitable to strangers. As God reminds us in the first testament, “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” By culture, compassion or both the mothers in the neighborhood were mom to their own children and their friends. They, my own mom included, often took in the outcast as well. As the sojourner is blessed he blesses others.

By faith Abraham lived as an alien in the land of promise, a seed of blessing to many. Freedom, tension, movement and pain are part and parcel of the process. This is the transient tension, setting out then settling down. Losing self, finding self, giving. Such are the lessons learned from the immigrants.

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Pistachios and Pretzels

A hint of cerulean clarity, scant sight of cobalt blue,

Through sliding glass, marred ocean view.

Stars hiding behind halide beams,

Pacific high caresses dreams,

Of pistachios and pretzels.

Duke Kahanamoku greets sunseekers all, tanning with flesh laid bare,

Coppertone zone, plastic chaise chair.

Coconut hides the salt-sea breeze,

Ocean billows roll smooth and tease,

Like pistachios and pretzels.

Mai Tais crave saliferous companions, not to drink but to chew,

Crisp finger-food, it’s what bars do.

Crunch hides in salty carapace,

Carb and protein a sweet embrace,

In pistachios and pretzels.

Sea of dark blue with gold authority, perused with fine tooth comb,

Full body check, not going home.

Rucksack hides detritus and goo,

TSA moves me from the queue,

For pistachios and pretzels.

Moving Forward When Stuck

Stuck in the mud, stuck in the middle, stuck up—being stuck is never good. Stuck fermentation is a thing that happens in brewing beer or in winemaking. The yeast becomes dormant. The yeast just stops doing what yeast is supposed to do. Not rising to the occasion.  It’s yeast burn-out, a yeast mid-life crisis. Perhaps overwhelmed by world events; constantly consumed with comparing itself to others on its’ Instagram feed.

Does yeast feel like a failure when it’s stuck? Because we all know it is frustrating to not be doing what you think you should be doing, to not arrive at those goals you’ve set---or to not even have goals! “I’m just going through the motions anyway; what’s the point?” The tiny yeast feels no motivation. Losing sight of purpose; no longer motivated by creating Cabernet or other varietals? Forgetting what he knows—that he would create robust reds, creamy Rieslings and peppery, violaceous Malbecs. It’s just about alcohol today,”---stuck again. Soaking and sulking he wonders, “How do I get unstuck?”

Move the temperature! You are static or erratic. Create a temperature suitable to growth. Set a goal, set a deadline, get the heck out of the house! Comfortable can kill! Motivating self is tough. What to do?

Shake it up! Aerate, add nutrients! The enjoyment quotient for yeast is small. I, however, am invigorated by many things. Focus outside helps unstuck me inside. Eating right is obvious. Not so much is surrounding self with other healthy yeast. How encouraging to surround oneself with other yeast that sing day long, “Oh Sugar; honey, honey…”

Make lemonade. Easy to berate oneself for a lack of discipline, movement, tiredness; whatever. Could be that good stuff will flow from a stuck season. Here’s a little yeast-inspired trivia: When rosé wine is the primary product, it is produced with the skin contact method. Black-skinned grapes are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period. The longer the skins are left in contact with the juice, the more intense the color of the final wine. In 1972 Bob Trinchero of Sutter Home salvaged a stuck fermentation of his red Zinfandel wine by releasing a paler, sweeter rosé colored wine that he labeled as "White Zinfandel.” Though he wasn't the first Californian winemaker to make a white wine out of Zinfandel, he was the first to aggressively market it as a new wine style and Sutter Home saw sales of

"White Zin" soar from 25,000 cases in 1980 to more than 1.5 million in 1986.  From stock-still to best-selling, it wouldn't have happened without a stuck fermentation.

So you’re crushed today, feeling like just a single-celled organism stuck in a rut that’s not going anywhere? Enough sour grapes! Set those juices flowing again; do that thing only you can do. It’s a time for new wine, a new harvest! Release the inner-you, see what sweetness ensues! 

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Intimacy and Touch

"Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend."

"I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey;

I have drunk my wine and my milk.
Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers."

It’s easier to hike a mountain than make love. If you’re seeking release—sex is easy. True intimacy requires work. Fearful, mask lowering, work. Hiking a mountain is easy that way—on a base level easy to be selfish. Intimacy requires giving yourself away.

I am not hungry for surface relationship. I desire connections that consume. Soul to soul with my wife; iron to iron with friends and face to face with God. This is frightening and holy ground. I try for transparency. Peel back layers and talk to my wife—even about the crap inside me. God fully aware, but still, I speak, I cry, I convey feeling.

My mom; my parents, did not hug. There was no touch in our house---except hand to head and nail to arm with my sister. Hugging and touch a foreign language. My childhood was devoid of intimacy in talk and touch. No safety there. 

Intimacy is ill defined by touch. I was in my forties and mom in her seventies. A three-hour drive for work; crashing at her house. She’d spoil me with dinner, breakfast or both. Ever the night-owl---we’d sit down at that long wood dining-room table and talk. Past midnight. Over rich home-made dishes and Trader Joes cheesecake.  Here is a strange thing; in this breaking of bread that table became a safe place. A satisfying, sweet place where we shared heart and thought; as mother to son and friend to friend.

To be intimate does not require touch. Touch affirms but isn’t required. Intimacy is established and nurtured in ritual and security. The desired depth with God, wife or friend occurs in this context. The over and over again meeting with another through celebration and storm. Open table, safe place, face to face. Over time, transparency and intimacy will grow. Imbibe deeply, O lovers!

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Book Ends

Death book-ended the week. Her friend and my friend. Different environments; her friend lived in the high desert. Mine, the Santa Monica mountains. Cancer and conversation a common connection. The spouse and I encircled in their Venn diagrams; chapters and lines.

There are simple straight metal bookends. Grandma owned a set of small, white, marble Roman pillars. There are flat ones designed by pragmatists and stone carvings that adorn the works they silently guard. Some slide and some are immovable. Marking off beginnings, middles and ends.

“In sin my mother conceived me,” begins one story. Starts and stops aren’t always in our control. But between the bookends; volumes are. Life coaches will tell you that book-ending the day helps you focus on achieving a goal. Funny thing though; goals aren’t the end. They are steppingstones.

Bookends hold books in place; words, ideas, terse aphorisms, stirring Annie Dillard descriptions (‘of hope laid bare’). Bookends are little tchotchkes with a hard and tight embrace around the mystery of expression.

Death does that—it should. Gets you to think about living and dying and story sandwiched between the two. The struggle; hammering out life, goal to goal, story to story—between the bookends.

“The words of the wise prod us to live well. They’re like nails hammered home, holding life together.”

Road Tripping Baja

The Mexican Federal Highway 1, was completed in 1973. Google maps claims that’s twenty-one hours of driving to La Paz (click on the ‘family road trip’ icon and that time doubles). Their marriage tenuous, my parents seized on the idea of going south through Baja. I was thirteen, my sister eleven. Was this road trip borne out of an article in Westways magazine? An aching hope that peninsular beaches would wash away present pain? For the kids? Adventure called; Baja beckoned.

A seed of the wild was at work in my folks. Evident in each parent when separately seen. Mom took us to the mountains. Dad played with photography. Somewhere in them, between them, this connection. A seed stifled.

An album in a box contains black and white photos from that trip. Taken with my Brownie camera; mom, dad, sis, a statue celebrating the 28^th Parallel. I have few memories of that trip. Fighting to stay awake---the rocking of the car lulling me to sleep. Watching the scenery in-between fights with my sister. Many bathroom stops—mom was taking a diuretic. Pemex gasoline—that’s funny when you’re thirteen. Roadside shrines, and ribs at Senor Frogs. I can’t say what the trip stirred in my parents. Still a portal opened, a seed planted. 

Is this hankering for road trips my nature? The same DNA driving my parents to drive? That same DNA motivating my grandfather to flee Russia—the most grandiose of road trips. Or was I nurtured by highway? Solid and safe the car takes care of all my needs.  Transporting me to a place where hope is just in the distance. A seed takes hold.

I've seen countless backroads since then. Cresting hills and plummets into washes. Hours in the cab with close friends. Honeymoon with the wife. Weeks in the summer with the daughter checking out ‘America’s best ideas.’ Every October and Summer seeking adventure. Other people’s stories. Vistas and visions of beauty around every turn. Hope just beyond the horizon. A seed blooms. 

But I Own A Mr. Coffee

Been thinking about status and stuff lately….

“Nope,” I said, shaking head;

Don’t have a Moen, or an Axor for my sink,

Counters not Formica, It’s granite, I think.

Willamette, Santa Rosa, Napa, Malbec?

Second shelf; on sale, I just read the label on the back.

Say what? I don’t know what ‘expendable’ means,

But I own a Mr. Coffee to grind up my beans.

"Yup, I agree,"

I’m working blue collar with a bachelor’s degree---

My nights aren’t always off nor weekends always free.

Vacations booked with triple A; Hotels dot com for beds;

Flying economy, ‘Oh the people next to me!’

Using our shoulders for their heads.

Don’t stay in a five-star, don’t eat Michelin,

There’s a patio view from the room we are in.

Glory! We've been able to go places (you know the beans they grow),

Kona, Antigua, Andhra Pradesh,

Mr. Coffee brews them delightfully fresh.

“I’ve made more…,”

Director, boss, manager of store;

Ego likes the title, soul its’ freedom more.

Oh contentment; staying in my lane is hard,

Competing with the Joneses jacks the credit card.

I step back, sigh, laugh—pursuit of status is a gyp,

End of the day we all end up in a crypt.

By some standards I don’t have much,

A kid, wife and God who loves me,

And I own a Mr. Coffee!

Waiting In The Parenthesis

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

“You are silence and song, you are plain as the day, but you have hidden your face--For how long? How long?” ---Andrew Peterson, The Reckoning

It’s been a year of waiting. Waiting for mom’s healthy return from the hospital. The return home in hospice.  Hospice by its definition is a waiting. The final ‘home-free’. Then a parenthesis.

Open-parenthesis; the memorial service. Margaret’s’ waiting is over. Now the children wait. Our son married in March. The wedding is both an end to waiting and the beginning of a process of marriage. Returning home, the waiting continues.

The house is up for sale. We must move. Searching for a rental. We Zillow countless houses, make calls to realtors, open-houses after work. Hoping to find the right one; making an offer, waiting for acceptance. In all the waiting there is tension.

The wife is looking for work. They want her for interviews. Anxiously she pursues the process. Again the waiting. The tension. We want the waiting to end. But what if she doesn’t get the job?  What if we don’t find a house? Pressure is walking through the process. Hope is that the outcome will satisfy.

Easter is a time of waiting. We taste the disciples last week with Jesus. This “walking with’ as we celebrate passion. Holding on while hosannas rattle windows and high-priests. The confusion of that first communion; Roman soldiers, kangaroo court, crucifixion. Taut and heart wrenching the same question asked; the same cry ascends, “How long?” 

The resurrection doesn’t end our longing. It affirms the answer. In the parenthesis we live as aliens aching for a place to settle. We all seek security. Afflicted and needy we want the pain to stop. The resurrection assures us we will be satisfied. There will be a final celebration, final homecoming, final reunion. The waiting will be over.  Close parenthesis.

Wisdom For Taking The Next Step

Many a questioning, many a fear,

Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.

Moment by moment, let down from Heaven,

Time, opportunity, and guidance are given.

Fear not tomorrows, child of the King,

Trust them with Jesus, do the next thing.

My brother-in-law is in crisis. Flying in to sit with his mom in hospice. Seeking space from his impending divorce and dying dreams. Sharing with him thrusts memory back to my own divorce and the dying of my parents. The question he asks: What to do next? The short answer—do the next thing. The next right thing, though, doesn’t happen in vacuum.

Knowing the next thing to do requires a framework. In pain, with raging emotion ranging down-up-and down again, clear thinking is hard work. In the anger I felt at my wife for forcing me out of the house, for breaking trust, I could have made terrible decisions. Framework saved me. I’d cultivated a handful of deep male relationships. I had vowed to live in biblical context; to seek peace, hope and joy. Framework is crucial.

Process and planning aid in the process. Some days “doing the next thing” meant getting out of bed and going to work. I wanted to roll into a ball or spend the day brain dead with eyes on a screen. Mercifully windows of peace and sobriety would open up for hours or even for days. Those are good times to translate framework into planning. However you best do it; excel spreadsheet, pen and paper, text messages whatever works; do it!  What are the next steps necessary to get a job?  What can I do to communicate commitment to my loved ones. Do I need to (figuratively) take an axe to anything (this question is best asked in a sober, peace filled frame of mind). Taking this step may shorten the periods of despair. 

Let people speak into your life. This requires humility. Telling them to take a hike negates this step. Go back to step 1. Not everyone gets to give counsel.  Only those you trust.  Those friends and professionals you’ve given access to your soul and guts. Listen. Process. 

Gaining traction in crisis requires work, fortitude, perseverance. Doing the next right thing is not easy. We all know that soul that took short-term shots without looking at the big picture; no framework, no process, no community. The ship-wrecks, train-wrecks, the Breaking Bad. Coming through victorious requires more but starts simply: do the next thing. 

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The Numbers Of Our Days

The numbers are constant. Twenty-some thousand white blood count. Eight o’clock phone call from the nurse’s station. Another delay. When it looked like coming home was an option. Pills at four-hour and twelve-hour intervals, Room 432, Stage 3 to stage 4. Phone call on top of phone call. Souls turn bitter that marinate in this. Being steeped in friendships leads to thanksgiving.

Three of us huddle together after church.  These two friends voice prayer for my wife and her mom to a God that is triune. One by one friends text. They drop by. Those inside the inner circle give permission to call them anytime; to scream, to ramble, to question, to complain, to be…Trying to count them, the sum of caring people surprises me.

“As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away.” The Psalmists’ cry is that we learn to be wise with our days. A lifetime of 24-hour days. Hospital stays and every trial seem an interruption. They are not. They’re part of the whole. It’s not a giving up or a giving in. It’s a working out, sorting out, hanging in; “And confirm for us the work of our hands; Yes, confirm the work of our hands.”

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