Dancing Priest

I just finished reading the first novel by Glynn Young, entitled Dancing Priest. This book came highly recommended by my online friend Bill who blogs at Cycleguy's Spin. The story begins by introducing us to two lifelong mates, Michael Kent and Thomas McFarland, who are finishing their studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Michael is a fifth year theology student who is a star on the university cycling team. Tommy is a fifth year architecture student who is on the university swim team. The two students are witnessing the aftermath of a dormitory fire and Michael reaches out to a displaced student named David Hughes, who now suddenly needs a place to bunk. David is a British history major who has come over to Scotland from UCLA, part of an academic plan that has been in place for some time. Due to some family trouble, his sister Sarah decides to come with him and enroll in Edinburgh as well. Sarah, a very talented artist, immediately catches the eye of Michael. Michael asks Sarah out for coffee and she rudely turns him down as just another pickup attempt. However, shortly thereafter, their paths cross again, and Sarah feels an attraction as well. Soon they become inseparable. However, lingering in the background is the issue of faith. Michael will very soon be ordained in the Anglican church, where he is planning on developing his ministry in Africa. Sarah is not religious and the thought of marrying Michael and living in the third world is a deal breaker. Ultimately, she breaks off the relationship and heads back to the states.

During this time, Michael wins a spot on the British cycling team that is headed to the Olympics. Michael becomes not only a star at the Athens games, but also a hero as he saves the life of several riders during a rockslide triggered by an earthquake. Michael excels despite the pain that he is living with from his broken heart. Shortly after the Olympics, Michael is ordained and instead of being assigned to Africa, he is sent to work at a parish in San Francisco, not all that far from where Sarah lives. Eventually, Sarah accepts God and, well, you can guess the rest.

I very much enjoyed this plot and the characters that Young has developed. I would say that his style leans toward simple, stripped down story telling. His writing does not contain multiple layers and story arcs. He does not spend time developing rich or complex scenaries. Yet his development is emotional, sweet, heartfelt, and uplifting. I now will dive into the sequel to this story, entitled A Light Shining.

Terminus

I knew in all likelihood that I would end up here. I prayed as hard as I could, pleading with God for deliverance, for even the merest sliver of hope. I wasn't looking for a flash of necromancy, a perfectly wrapped gift to drop into my lap. I would have welcomed an opportunity to labor until my last breath just to prove myself. Yet, nothing ever came into my view. Nothing to somehow return fusion from fission. No chance to show my heart in ways that somehow I couldn't before. In that past I dotted and dashed on a telegraph whose lines surely were crossed. No message got through. All sound and fury that ultimately signified nothing. An investment whose principal was stolen away.

It is incomprehensible to me that as I sit here now, eight years have elapsed. Sometimes even now, scenes and emotions from those days still blanket me like a thick fog. How can they feel so fresh after all this time? Why do they still have such power over me? Often it seems like I could just close my eyes for a moment and open them to find out that it was all just some wickedly, cruel reverie. Yet the reality that I avoid now is all too solid, not a soft-edged cel. Where have the eight years gone? They have gone into defeat, into hopelessness, into a bottomless void. So I guess that I do know whence I have been.

Today, I just wanted to write to say the goodbye that I likely should have said long ago. A goodbye that I just didn't have in me. Perhaps this is just a post to mark the sign as I pass. It doesn't matter if you don't know the specifics of the road that I have traveled. We all have something that we struggle with. Peace.

Remote Control

As a single father whose child came without an instruction manual, I constantly struggle to figure out what I am supposed to do when it comes to raising my daughter. To be sure, I do not hang out with couples with children who can help to educate me on what steps to take and when to take them. I usually seem to act with a response that is several steps behind her developmental stage and to be far too trepidacious in my actions. However, just when I start to think that I am a complete wreck as a parent, my daughter's actions and behavior tell me in clear terms that she is turning out quite well.

One area of being a parent that I have not yet mastered, in fact far from it, is how to give up trying to control everything. I don't like surprises and I am most at peace when things play out according to my narrowly defined script. Somehow I only seem to be able to keep my emotions in check when things happen or develop within an expected set of boundary conditions. However, as you can imagine, children have a way of doing things their own way, with their own logic, and their own sensibilities. A combination of one free-spirited child and one control freak of a father is like so much oil and water. A cohesive amalgamation it is not. I cannot grasp the notion of "go with the flow." With this said though, I am still making some degree of forward progress, though glacial flow may lead to the next ice age before I make a recognizable breakthrough.

One thing that I have consciously done to let loose of the reins a bit is to give my daughter complete charge of the T.V. remote control. I let her decide what we will watch and leave it up to her to make the choice to change the channel in the middle of the show that we are watching. She even gets to keep the remote on her side of the couch tucked under her pillow, well out of my reach. You think it is crazy for a guy to make this step? Yeah, I guess. But it is, for me, at least one small step forward.

Brushing Teeth

Brushing our teeth. Can there be a more banal personal chore? Each morning as I resign myself to squeezing the paste from the tube, the plot of Groundhog Day flashes in my mind. The same thing over and over and over again. Yet I think we can gain some important insight into living our lives from this hygenic exercise.

How well we develop, manage, and nuture the important things in our lives, whether it is keeping a marriage fresh and alive, household upkeep and repairs, or approaching our vocations, can look a lot like how we approach brushing our teeth. Let me explain my point. For years I had slowly fallen into the trap of bad technique and general laziness when it came to brushing. Given the hassle of this rote activity, ultimately most mornings I would ram the brush around the inside my mouth for 15 to 20 seconds to get this task over with so that I could start my day. However, the American Dental Association recommends that we brush our teeth carefully and with proper instruments for sessions lasting two minutes. Not only did I barely get the inside of my mouth wet, I would rarely change out my worn and matted down brush. My poor oral hygiene and my poor attitude eventually led to a number of problems that I have been battling with for the past year. Loose teeth, painful swelling and bleeding of my gums, plaque and tartar buildup, and bacteria and decay problems spreading below the gumline.

I had convinced myself that things were just fine because, as I noted to my dentist, I brush my teeth everyday. True enough, I was indeed regularly brushing my teeth, but I put in the absolute minimum effort. If I had kept up what I was doing, within a few years my teeth would have begun falling out of my mouth. My attitude had really clouded my thinking. I was brushing, so I was doing what was needed. But doesn't this sort of attitude paint a swath over so many areas of our lives? How many marriages limp along because the spouses put in the absolute minimum effort, all the while thinking they are doing their part? How many of us are setting ourselves up for a rude awakening by putting off necessary home upkeep and repairs, thinking that because we do some little things that we have the bases covered? How many of us have stopped giving our all at work because our attitudes have been completely fogged over by allowing mediocrity and poor effort to define our equilibrium?

Sometimes, all it takes to turn things around is to recognize how far we have fallen from what we used to expect from ourselves. Sometimes this is enough of a shock to our pride that we can then formulate a plan to make improvements. Sometimes we might even be compelled to try and use the floss, ..., sometimes.

Memorial Day 2013

Scenes like this fresh grave, photographed nearly 70 years ago, should affect us. They should jar us out of our family-cook-out-fogged reverie for just a moment. A few words of thanks. A recognition of the dear price that has been paid by so many. Blessings to all.

Rumors of Another World

I just completed reading the book Rumors of Another World by Christian author Philip Yancey. In this book he asks the central questions, i). "Is faith in an unseen world wishful thinking? and ii). "How should my faith in the invisible world affect day-to-day life in the visible world?". Yancey states up front that he has written this book for people on the "borderlands of belief", that place between doubt and faith, to give them help to see the hand of God in all aspects of their lives.

After reading this book, even though I enjoyed my sessions with it, nothing stuck in my mind as memorable, novel, or lasting. I realize that this statement seems pretty acidic. But I have come to find out that the message of some books stays with you over many years, and that of other books is only confined to our hearts and minds while we are reading through the pages. I think that both types of books can serve an important purpose. As for me, I know that I am a deeply flawed individual. My walk with God has been very erratic, with sometimes more negative than forward progress. I find that I need constant reminders and re-orientation to stay close to the path that I know that I should be on. So, even if Yancey's book did not have permanence in my life, at least it provided help locally on my journey. That too has important value.

Believe It or Not

One source of prime fodder for my blog is crazy stories about other people that I often stumble across. Specifically those stories where you are just left scratching your head, muttering to yourself incoherently, and perhaps even beginning to drool. What else are we capable of? Today I have two such stories to share that I heard on the news the other morning. Prepare to commence drooling.

Story #1 A booming niche business that has sprung up around Walt Disney World in Florida are outfits where you can rent a random handicapped person for the day. With a handicapped person in your group, you are allowed to cut to the front of the lines for the various attractions and rides. Imagine for a small fee you can ride all the rides as often as you like without all of that pesky waiting that the rest of the insipid masses must endure. If only they were as clever as you! I wonder if lugging handicapped people around after a time becomes as much a burden for these mollusks as that oversized stuffed giraffe that was won at skee-ball?

Story #2 A Chicago man on his honeymoon in Florida was arrested for soliciting a prostitute. It turns out that the ad that he answered was actually a part of an undercover police sting. When his panicked bride called police to file a missing persons report, she was given the news that her ever-lovin' man's man was riding the pine in the hoosegow.

Perhaps you noted that both of these stories occurred in Florida. Perhaps it is something in the water. Believe it or not.