A Man's Man

Where do I look for a man’s man,
To teach me to praise, dance and sing?
I turn back to my Old Testaments’ nub,
To Jesse’s root; David the King.

For God’s honor he fell a Philistine.

He took Bathsheba to Gods’ chagrin,
Still his heart longed for his Shepherd,
God loved the kings’ heart within.

Oh, the depth of my own carnality,

No hope of standing clean before the Son,
David had an innocent’s blood on his hands,
Bright white like snow in Psalm Fifty-one.

I’ve two left feet and it’s all about me,

How will I look in another’s sight?
David cared only for Yahweh’s eyes,
Kicking heels up with all his might.

Where do I look for a man’s man,

When inside there’s a scared little boy?
When David tired of facing life’s fight,
In God’s presence he finds fullness of joy!

Where do I look for a man’s man,
When time comes for leaving all men,
To walk in the Valley of Shadow,
Goodness and mercy will still follow me then.

Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash

Freedom Of Limits

 "Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If in your bold creative way you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe.” G. K. Chesterton

In part the hope was that the surgery, cutting my back open, would heal the right foot. It had been getting progressively more useless prior to the surgery. There was a slight healing, but a full healing, they said, could take a year…or more. Or never.  For the next day, or year or however long I live God has ordained this limitation of my strength and of my healing. Weak as I was before, there has been some increase of strength. Strong as I could be, it appears a significant weakness will remain in my foot. The human body as designed is bound by weakness. Theologians (h/t David O. Taylor) make the point that Christ Himself came to us in a limited body.

In Atul Gawande’s book; Being Mortal he says that the end is ‘just the accumulated crumbling of one’s body systems.” At one point he asks a well published gerontologist if we have discerned any particular, reproducible pathway to aging. “No,’ he said, ‘We just fall apart.”  

Wrestling with this framework I can see two sides, one depressing and one positive. The downer is that the body will wear out, break down, fall apart. The upside is that In this clay frame, in this finitude there is freedom. A freedom to lean into God, to love one another and to celebrate what we have.

Photo by meriç tuna on Unsplash

Crash Courses In Connecting

 “Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one. I do not see how "fear" of God could have ever meant to me anything but the lowest prudential efforts to be safe, if I had never seen certain ominous ravines and unapproachable crags. And if nature had never awakened certain longings in me, huge areas of what I can now mean by "love" of God would never, so far as I can see, have existed.― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Single dads have essentially two vacation choices: their own vacations solo or take their kids. Or no vacation; three options. Here’s what made it easier, we already had laughter as a connection. My child’s lifetime of inside jokes already existed.

She had this stuffed animal that looked like a cross between a bear and a pink pig, aka Pigbear. I’d play the part of Pigbear. 

Pigbear, in squeaky voice: “ One time, when I swam across the ocean…”  

Daughter: “You’re afraid of water!!”

Pigbear “ Right! Last week when I fell into the bathtub…” 

Pigbear was a delusional and grandiose story teller. He’s soft and cuddly which made him quite the travelling companion.

I looked on these trips as crash courses. Though road trips are a great vehicle for bonding this wasn’t my specific aim. I wished for the daughter to catch three things: An understanding of vacation and rest, to apprehend beauty and to glimpse God. If you get those you get me.

Beset by bugs in stagecoach and tent, sharing music, losing camera bags and patience, swimming in cold pools and natural hot-springs there have been plenty of adventures! The kid is grown up and adulting now; setting out on her own adventures. Now I get to glimpse her heart. A rich and delightful privilege for a father!  As Pigbear might say, “One time, I created the greatest meme of all!” Life!” 

 

Catgut Strings and the Music of Life

                                                          Photo by Jie Wang on Unsplash

The feel of the smooth, cold, black wood in the crook of my neck. The smell of pine; amber clear rosin encased in a block of wood. Fingers comfortably resting in the ‘frog’. White horse hair, the stick growing taut as screw increases tension. I lift the violin again, cheek in place, fingers on board, my back straight against the back of the wooden chair that every public school student is familiar with.

I played violin for seven years beginning in junior high. I was third string. This due largely to grace and that there weren’t enough violin players in orchestra. The principal violinist was a musician. He could arrange music in his head. Saying things like, “What if we played it half an octave down in the lower staff?” I was out of place. I played by rote. I learned where my fingers fit on the violin according to the stave. Half an hour every day after school I practiced. I learned to listen. I learned to play. Always by rote; mechanical.

Rimsky-Korsakovs’ Scheherazade, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition; Miss Craig had us play current and classical music. Each section playing its own part. For it to work everyone had to play well together. Erik the first violin, Nancy the second violin and I had to sound perfect together. So too the percussion section, the woodwinds, all of us together. I felt out of place. Til bow landed on string.

The instrument becomes part of you. Calloused fingers fit catgut strings. A position that once felt awkward now flows. The novice can make beautiful noise. The true maestro makes melody come alive. The instrument is part of you. You are part of the whole.

The violin case remains closed somewhere in storage. Tempted to pick it up again. Do I miss sculpted beauty held perfectly close? So much I don’t remember. Is it the oneness I miss? 

Daily life is all kind of hit and miss. I feel out of place. Most days I miss the mark. Anxiety climbs out of bed with me. Feeling like I cannot do it. Until that horsehair bow hits the string.

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.”

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!