I Am A Romantic

 Fifteen year old boys hardly believe in monsters. That year, in the northwest, Sasquatch stories were on everyone’s lips. The three of us were on a short walk, a familiar trip to the spring. A large wooden cask, brown and covered on the outside with lime-green mildew. You could feel the moisture, smell the wet earth, see the beads of water leaking out, the glint of big yellow slugs feeding even as they produced their own slime. Shadows increased. Panic intensified as the sun slowly disappeared. The obvious trail back to our trailer was hidden to us. Yards from us, something cracked. A breaking. Dry sticks stepped on. A bone broken?

I am a romantic. I cry during Romcoms (though denying it vehemently). My copy of A Severe Mercy is yellowed and dog-eared. I believe in true love. My wife and I have “As you wish” stamped on the inside of our wedding rings. Deep down I believe Hobbits are real. Elves too. In a world where men are beheaded and burned at the stake for professing a risen Christ, dragons are possible and less horrific. Monsters exist.

This is why I tear up at even a basic Hallmark movie. I want that girls’ berry farm to survive! Her prince must save her! I hate murky, grey endings. Evil must be quashed. That is how the world is supposed to work! And it did, once, before the slithering monster came. And it will again. Every love story should end “happily ever after.” Dragons slayed, evil sorcerers getting their just reward. True kings crowned, friends safely celebrating.

The panic rose and rose. Though a stones’ throw from home, in a secluded forest. Where monsters don’t exist. Did the way home open up (magically), were our friends’ voices suddenly heard in the distance? Did evil just retreat? A short walk and we were home.

“We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre’s castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening.” (Chesterton)

Photo by Ravit Sages on Unsplash

Twisted

Written as a submission to Dallas Art House in response to this year's Origin theme 'On Darkness.'

I’ll make it mine”, age-old thought in a little boys’ brain,

Child’s plaything, magnifier.

I can feel its smooth leather pouch,

In my pocket,

It channels the sun, what twig and beetle burned,

Now burns in me.

“That girl is fine,” A king whose lust won’t be tamed,

Smokin sweet, trophy wife.

Baby you’re going to get lucky,

On my mattress.

From Adams’ rib both lips and breasts satisfy,

And makes hungry

“I’ll be divine,” A creature who wants just to reign,

Proud cherub, anointed.

Your god only wants you happy,

Comes the whisper.

The Liar promises life in taste and tree,

Whose fruit is death.

“I am the vine,” cure the sick and heal the lame,

Whore lover, law breaker.

Cannibal? You said eat your flesh,

To come alive.

Nail in bone for boasts of God their fury spent,

The cost for me.

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

Sing Like A Hobbit

 

 

     

“These Hobbits Will Sit on the Edge of Ruin and Discuss the Pleasures of the Table.”

 A sob sticks in my throat. Images raging on Instagram fill my mind. Winds roar and fires blaze in Los Angeles. Flames flare up on the Getty museum, burning down Moonshadows in Malibu. I took a girl there once. Scorched memories. Seeing the smoke and the ruins reminds me of Mordor and darkness, of Hobbits and hope, of Merry and Pippin enjoying Long-Bottom leaf and the smoke of a pipe at the ruin of Isengard.

When my first marriage burned to the ground I cried with friends. I turned Spotify up loud while singing along with Third Day; ”There’s a light at the end of the tunnel”. Psalmodies of passion, lament and praise kept me going. The Creator has set it up so that these crack open your heart and infuse hope. The act of singing is an act of defiance. Eating and drinking too.

If you’ve never sung from a place of heart-ache and desperate loss take a lesson from Hobbit Sam Gamgee.  Believing the quest to be at an end, he sings, “above all shadows rides the Sun, and Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell.” When dark pervades, I cry to God in hope. Somehow singing grounds me. As do friends, bread and good ale. Hence the attitude of the Hobbit. May we have the same!

Photo by Sergio García on Unsplash

Pursuing Passion

Central to Blue Bloods main character, Frank Reagan, is a poster of Teddy Roosevelt on his office wall. Frank’s key strength, affirmed by Blue Bloods 12 seasons, is conviction that, “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…” Its 6.11 million viewers give nod to the quote. To find your life you must lose it.

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen,” as Brene Brown shares. Scary stuff being seen; being known. I have caverns that conceal all kinds of dark. Fantasies I don’t share. Arrogance always. Ah, Pharisee. Funny thing: when I am vulnerable it deepens relationship. 99% of the time when sharing a struggle others admit their own.

The one percent? My previous marriage. Being seen was used for blackmail. All of us have wounds. Hence the call to courage. We desire depth. With God, with friend. All of us yearn for passion. We won’t get there without pain. “From silken self, O Captain; free thy soldier who would follow thee.”

“Who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming…” I get in the way. There are days that my love and passion for my wife are blurred by selfish acts and stupid detours. My daughter tells me I didn’t hug her enough growing up. Don’t give up-press in! Do what it takes; get counselling, cry out to community, cry to Jesus, cry period.

The story is told of a man who hired a guide to get to the top of a beautiful mountain. The guide told him he could take little to the top; only himself and his courage. But the man said, “I am bringing with me blankets, I am bringing chocolate. I’m bringing fear and shame.” Along the way to the top were scattered all these things. The man never made it to the top. He stopped in the plain half-way up and pitched his tent. Many pitch their tent on the plain. And the plain is so very full of tents.

“if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Burning Bushes, Revival And Rest

Vacation week couldn’t come fast enough. I arrive at this week tired of working.  Tired of people.  Tired of me being tired of people. Tired of all the little things that bug me when they shouldn’t.  But they do. Road-tripping to Utah. Leaving humid beach-cold for dry summer hot. Hoping God would speak. Looking for revival.

No burning bushes. In red rocks, in rushing water, slot-canyons and slick sandstone God’s work is evident. My soul finds rest in nature as always. Replenished joy in desert driving; long talks with the wife. Coming alive through stair-stepping hikes and slow-river walks on slippery rocks upstream. Heat feeling good. Invigorated but not energized for work; for people, for little-foxes that spoil the vines.

Home through arid one-grey-colored desert to attend the sons’ Indian-themed engagement party. To see on my newsfeed that Anthony Bourdain is dead. A post on Facebook tells me cancer took a high-school friend. The miracle of dating; the dire end of depression.

My father had his dark days. He once told me that sunrises motivated him to live. I am fortunate to delight in sunsets (sunrises come too early) and the glories of nature. Laughing with family and friends is a well of the purest water for me. This confluence wets my tongue for more of life.  No burning bush?  Perhaps the fire was there all along.