Yesterday I woke up angry.
It didn't have anything to do with taxes or tea parties, although I certainly sense deep discouragement regarding the fiscal responsibility of central governments, along with a cautiously cynical sympathy with populist protesters.
It didn't have anything to do with vocational frustration, although events of recent weeks and months have tortured (at least harshly interrogated) my tenuous grasp on occupational risk and reward.
It didn't have anything to do with church or family, although the complex and intertwined dynamics of both offer abundant cause for befuddlement and bewilderment.
Apparently, I was angry at the calendar. It took me several hours to arrive at that conclusion, but once my gaze happened upon the current date, my previously unfocused orneriness crystalized upon its target: April 17. The sixth occurrence of the julian month and date that ended the days (at least the finite ones) of my best friend's life.
People talk about living each day as if it were your last day. I remember the day that was Chuck's last day. I did not like that day. I still do not like that day. I do not desire to live another day in any way like that day. I don't even like to remember that day. But I do remember it, and I always will.
I remembered that day yesterday, with anger. When Job was blessed with the shade of a gourd, he grew angry when that gourd was taken away. I too am angered when the persons and things that bring me great joy and comfort are then taken away. I am not speaking of sadness, or longing, or even the emptiness that persists where fellowship was once felt. I speak of anger, of indignation at the specific injustice, of railing and ranting rejection of the not-rightness, of defiant denouncement of the royal decree.
The calendar, like the gourd, is but a parabolic receiver which gathers and focuses the waves of anger onto a single point, where it can be more clearly perceived, and perhaps somewhat more clearly understood. I was not really angry at the calendar, but through the calendar I was able to project my anger at Chuck. For leaving. For taking away all the goodness that we enjoyed together. To project a bit further than my heart can perceive, I was probably not angry at Chuck either. Through Chuck, I have projected anger directed at God. The Creator of time and fellowship and every other good and blessed thing is the One to be blamed when they are taken away. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
That was yesterday morning.
Yesterday afternoon, I played golf with a friend, on a beautiful golf course, on a beautiful day. The friend had called the day before, unexpectedly, on the off chance that we might both have the same day off work. By some strange coincidence, we both did. My friend reminds me a bit of Chuck, partly because of his girth (Chuck was larger than life in more ways than one), but more because of his mirth, and mostly because he is, well, a good friend. Also unexpectedly, my friend brought along another friend, who had called him out of the blue with the same purpose in mind. By another strange coincidence, that friend's name was Chuck. None of us played particularly well, but that did not matter much. It was a very good afternoon.
Yesterday evening, by another odd and expected intersection of circumstances, I learned that Chuck's widow, Carol, and their daughter, Cami, were traveling south, and stopping for dinner in Elizabethtown, about a half hour away. I learned this just as my wife got home from a day of errand running, wondering what me might do for dinner. It wasn't hard to perceive the serendipity of the moment, and we sped (my wife was driving) to a brief but wonderful time of fellowship and solace shared. It was a very good evening.
By the time the sun went down, my anger had subsided.
Not destroyed, simply diminished.
Returned to its proper place in time.
It may seem a trivial point, but somewhere on the 17th fairway it dawned on me. Chuck was not a man of great means (though he was by all means great), and what he left behind was mostly of the intangible, eternal sort. The one tangible thing I own that once belonged to him is the set of golf clubs I played with yesterday.
I will never replace those clubs.
I will never replace Chuck.
I will never need to.
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
-- Brother Tom
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Directory Assistance
411
I'm a numbers guy, a math major. Numerical patterns catch my eye, whether buried deep in financial records or posted publicly on street signs. ( Here's my favortie highway sign, at the "big light" in Sevierville, where US 411 and US 441 conspire to confound the directionally challenged.) Today it's the calendar that carries a digital association: 4/11 is the date, and 411 is also the most frequently dialed number on my Blackberry (owing perhaps to my chronic need for verbal direction to compensate for my lack of prior planning). In a nutshell, 411 is the number you need when you need somebody's number.
In ancient cultures, knowing a person's name implied a certain amount of power over them. The modern equivalent is knowing their number. Having transitioned slowly from land line to cell phone, I have noticed that those who know me well call me on my cell, while the old "home phone" number is apparently reserved for strangers, solicitors, and those whose list-keeping deficiencies left them dependent on the obsolescent phone book. Thus conditioned and biased, I typically answer my cell, while I let "the machine" answer the home's phone.
I'm not aware of any 411 or "directory assistance" service that shares cell phone numbers, nor do I know of any "phone book" that publishes them. This may be a temporary, transitional condition. Or it may reveal something about the reconstruction of our culture. In many ways, the "phone book" has been superseded by Facebook, who announced this week their 200 millionth "face" (member). Along with it's sister social-networking sites, Facebook has engineered an interesting and revealing balance between publicity and privacy, facilitating the finding of long-lost friends and associates, while retaining an "invitation-only" restriction for more closely-held information.
Which raises an interesting question: how much do you want to be known? With specious simplicity, this inescapable question operates at three distinct levels:
First, how deep is your desire to be known? Do you long to be understood and appreciated, or are you more content with behind-the-scenes, under-the-radar anonymity?
Second, how widely do you want to be known? Do you find satisfaction in a large number of friends (and perhaps admirers), or do you prefer the sanctity of a smaller "inner circle"?
Third, how well do you want to be known? Do you seek opportunity to express the secrets of your soul in revealing and transparent authenticity, or do you lean toward concealing the private and personal aspects of your life?
I have heard it said that we can never know more about another person than we are willing to reveal about ourselves. It rings true, and delivers quite a dilemma to the closet introverts among us: either we lower our shields and allow others (at least a few) to know us as we truly are, or we effectively banish ourselves from intimacy and fellowship with those we would truly like to know. Reveal too much, and we risk rejection and ridicule for faults we have not overcome, or for uniqueness not commonly embraced. Conceal too much, and we concede isolation from society and disconnectedness from needed community. It is, if you will, a delicate dance of veils.
To paraphrase St. Francis,
May God grant you the courage to reveal what is authentic,
The grace to conceal what is intimate,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I'm a numbers guy, a math major. Numerical patterns catch my eye, whether buried deep in financial records or posted publicly on street signs. ( Here's my favortie highway sign, at the "big light" in Sevierville, where US 411 and US 441 conspire to confound the directionally challenged.) Today it's the calendar that carries a digital association: 4/11 is the date, and 411 is also the most frequently dialed number on my Blackberry (owing perhaps to my chronic need for verbal direction to compensate for my lack of prior planning). In a nutshell, 411 is the number you need when you need somebody's number.
In ancient cultures, knowing a person's name implied a certain amount of power over them. The modern equivalent is knowing their number. Having transitioned slowly from land line to cell phone, I have noticed that those who know me well call me on my cell, while the old "home phone" number is apparently reserved for strangers, solicitors, and those whose list-keeping deficiencies left them dependent on the obsolescent phone book. Thus conditioned and biased, I typically answer my cell, while I let "the machine" answer the home's phone.
I'm not aware of any 411 or "directory assistance" service that shares cell phone numbers, nor do I know of any "phone book" that publishes them. This may be a temporary, transitional condition. Or it may reveal something about the reconstruction of our culture. In many ways, the "phone book" has been superseded by Facebook, who announced this week their 200 millionth "face" (member). Along with it's sister social-networking sites, Facebook has engineered an interesting and revealing balance between publicity and privacy, facilitating the finding of long-lost friends and associates, while retaining an "invitation-only" restriction for more closely-held information.
Which raises an interesting question: how much do you want to be known? With specious simplicity, this inescapable question operates at three distinct levels:
First, how deep is your desire to be known? Do you long to be understood and appreciated, or are you more content with behind-the-scenes, under-the-radar anonymity?
Second, how widely do you want to be known? Do you find satisfaction in a large number of friends (and perhaps admirers), or do you prefer the sanctity of a smaller "inner circle"?
Third, how well do you want to be known? Do you seek opportunity to express the secrets of your soul in revealing and transparent authenticity, or do you lean toward concealing the private and personal aspects of your life?
I have heard it said that we can never know more about another person than we are willing to reveal about ourselves. It rings true, and delivers quite a dilemma to the closet introverts among us: either we lower our shields and allow others (at least a few) to know us as we truly are, or we effectively banish ourselves from intimacy and fellowship with those we would truly like to know. Reveal too much, and we risk rejection and ridicule for faults we have not overcome, or for uniqueness not commonly embraced. Conceal too much, and we concede isolation from society and disconnectedness from needed community. It is, if you will, a delicate dance of veils.
To paraphrase St. Francis,
May God grant you the courage to reveal what is authentic,
The grace to conceal what is intimate,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Now we see but a poor reflection
As in a mirror;
Then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part;
Then I shall know fully,
Even as I am fully known.
-- I Corinthians 13:12
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Longing and Pursuit
Our oldest son was about three or four years old when he first made the connection between a strange discomfort in his tummy and the fact that he hadn't eaten in a while. Recognizing and naming that discomfort as "hunger" was a surprisingly significant step toward autonomy, for it focused a primal linkage between cause and effect, behavior and consequence, desire and decision. From that point on, eating had a purpose beyond compliance with parental meal schedules; it was now understood that food was required by the self, not just by the rules. The first footer had been poured for the foundation of his personal "hierarchy of needs".
Granted, babies are born with an instinct to eat when they are hungry and sleep when they are tired, but both instincts are experienced in discomfort and expressed in anxious crying. By the time the awareness of unmet needs and unfulfilled desires enters the conscious mind, many patterns have already been established. The world has proven to be either trustworthy or not in its attentiveness to our cries, and we have learned various effective and ineffective techniques for getting what we want, and for dealing with disappointment when we don't.
Simplistic extrapolation suggests a continuous dynamic of discerning the nature of our desires, and experimenting with various means which may or may not satisfy them. A fundamental observation worth remembering is that we do not always know what we want. The humble admission that we fail to understand fully the needs of our own bodies -- let alone our hearts and minds -- is an oft-neglected prerequisite in the shared search for fulfillment.
But that is not to say that self-understanding must be sufficiently achieved before satisfaction can be found. Quite the contrary: those who insist on first figuring out exactly what they are looking for frequently doom themselves to a perpetual editing of specifications and requirements. They become too easily quagmired in contemplation and analysis, and are prone to underestimate potential and bypass opportunities, due to chronic hesitation and resistance to commitment.
It is rather the humility of limited self-understanding that opens a window to potential fulfillment, and to the wise pursuit thereof. For it is neither by deductive reasoning nor deterministic selection that we find the sources of satisfaction. Instead, it is through an inductive adventure of approximate solutions, an iterative model of rapid and imperfect prototyping, that we gradually narrow the gap between desired and achieved, between ideal and real, between sought and found, between asked and received.
Trouble is found when this noble pursuit is side-tracked by the seductive appeal of short-cuts. Advance to GO, and collect $200 -- that's the card we want to draw, and we hope to draw it now. Dispense with the journey and transport me to the destination. Satisfy and gratify me in six easy steps, or with one small pill. Every successful advertiser understands the power of unmet needs and unsatisfied desire. Intentional deception is standard practice when tapping in to this motivational core. Convince a man that you can satisfy his deepest desire, and he will offer you his very soul.
I am not immune from this deception. "There's got to be an easier way" is a phrase frequently repeated in my frustrated mind. Energized by effort, alert with adrenaline, quickened by caffeine, I find the urgent pursuit -- of answers for questions, solutions for problems, and resources for demands -- absolutely addictive. Worst of all, the addiction grows with each perceived success. When I start to believe that every question can be answered, that every problem can be solved, and that every demand can be met -- when I believe that success and satisfaction are simply the result of effort, energy, and resolve -- then I am most deeply deceived and most desperately off track.
From the depths of this recurring addiction, I have learned of only one therapy worth recommending. But first, I'll briefly mention two that are to be avoided. First, do not attempt to suppress desire. While restraint is a virtue, and the ability to redirect passion a priceless skill, the indiscriminate attempt to eradicate appetite is a deeply misguided mistake, and simply increases the likelihood of a violent and explosive backlash. Second, do not indulge desire. Eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired, but do not trust your every whim and longing to guide your every action. Passions must by purified, and impulses must be checked, else you will find yourself enslaved to a most fickle and unfaithful master.
One thing I have found helpful in this haunted pursuit; one focal point yields the necessary perspective. I recommend this one truth from my heart to yours, whenever the discomfort of dissatisfaction troubles your soul:
-- Brother Tom
Granted, babies are born with an instinct to eat when they are hungry and sleep when they are tired, but both instincts are experienced in discomfort and expressed in anxious crying. By the time the awareness of unmet needs and unfulfilled desires enters the conscious mind, many patterns have already been established. The world has proven to be either trustworthy or not in its attentiveness to our cries, and we have learned various effective and ineffective techniques for getting what we want, and for dealing with disappointment when we don't.
Simplistic extrapolation suggests a continuous dynamic of discerning the nature of our desires, and experimenting with various means which may or may not satisfy them. A fundamental observation worth remembering is that we do not always know what we want. The humble admission that we fail to understand fully the needs of our own bodies -- let alone our hearts and minds -- is an oft-neglected prerequisite in the shared search for fulfillment.
But that is not to say that self-understanding must be sufficiently achieved before satisfaction can be found. Quite the contrary: those who insist on first figuring out exactly what they are looking for frequently doom themselves to a perpetual editing of specifications and requirements. They become too easily quagmired in contemplation and analysis, and are prone to underestimate potential and bypass opportunities, due to chronic hesitation and resistance to commitment.
It is rather the humility of limited self-understanding that opens a window to potential fulfillment, and to the wise pursuit thereof. For it is neither by deductive reasoning nor deterministic selection that we find the sources of satisfaction. Instead, it is through an inductive adventure of approximate solutions, an iterative model of rapid and imperfect prototyping, that we gradually narrow the gap between desired and achieved, between ideal and real, between sought and found, between asked and received.
Trouble is found when this noble pursuit is side-tracked by the seductive appeal of short-cuts. Advance to GO, and collect $200 -- that's the card we want to draw, and we hope to draw it now. Dispense with the journey and transport me to the destination. Satisfy and gratify me in six easy steps, or with one small pill. Every successful advertiser understands the power of unmet needs and unsatisfied desire. Intentional deception is standard practice when tapping in to this motivational core. Convince a man that you can satisfy his deepest desire, and he will offer you his very soul.
I am not immune from this deception. "There's got to be an easier way" is a phrase frequently repeated in my frustrated mind. Energized by effort, alert with adrenaline, quickened by caffeine, I find the urgent pursuit -- of answers for questions, solutions for problems, and resources for demands -- absolutely addictive. Worst of all, the addiction grows with each perceived success. When I start to believe that every question can be answered, that every problem can be solved, and that every demand can be met -- when I believe that success and satisfaction are simply the result of effort, energy, and resolve -- then I am most deeply deceived and most desperately off track.
From the depths of this recurring addiction, I have learned of only one therapy worth recommending. But first, I'll briefly mention two that are to be avoided. First, do not attempt to suppress desire. While restraint is a virtue, and the ability to redirect passion a priceless skill, the indiscriminate attempt to eradicate appetite is a deeply misguided mistake, and simply increases the likelihood of a violent and explosive backlash. Second, do not indulge desire. Eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired, but do not trust your every whim and longing to guide your every action. Passions must by purified, and impulses must be checked, else you will find yourself enslaved to a most fickle and unfaithful master.
One thing I have found helpful in this haunted pursuit; one focal point yields the necessary perspective. I recommend this one truth from my heart to yours, whenever the discomfort of dissatisfaction troubles your soul:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
-- Brother Tom
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