Unwinding

Late yesterday afternoon we left for one of my favorite places; my parents farm in rural West Virginia. It seems like we spent most of the night driving. Due to my back my wife took all of the driving duties. We had a little rain that always makes night driving a little more stressful. The trip here is just shy of 400 miles and always follows the same pattern. The closer we get to the farm the sky gets darker and darker. Trees become the predominant feature of the landscape. Gone are the fast food places and strip malls. The weight of the human population becomes less and less. I can feel my head clearing just thinking about it. All day today I’ve not heard one siren, helicopter or jet engine.

My dad is a retired wildlife biologist and has spent the past 8 years of his retirement managing the farm for wildlife. He has planted hundreds of trees and spends much of this time of year mowing wildlife clearings. I’m not talking about a lawn. The mower is a 5 foot brush mower powered by a big 4 wheel drive Ford tractor. Much of what he is mowing is 2 to 3 year old Sumac about chest high and waist high grass fields. The idea is to create diversity in the habitat by having areas of different plant types; grass fields next to Sumac thickets next to young woods next to old woods. My dad and I went for a walk this morning and we looked at his most recent mowing. It is amazing how fast clearings from two years ago have grown up.

I spent some time today watching the butterfly bushes next to the house. I’m going to keep track of all the different butterflies I see while I’m here. The first picture is a Monarch that would have hatched within the past week or so. The beat up butterfly is called a Fritillary that hatched out this spring and is at the end of its life cycle. The Monarch will migrate south and return in the spring to lay eggs for the next generation. The Fritillary already laid its eggs and the caterpillars will winter over as pupae to hatch in the late spring next year.

I’m sitting on my parent’s front porch and I had to take a break to watch a large flight of Night Hawks feeding over one of the fields. They are a very distinctive bird that is fun to watch. Their flight is like a dance with constant quick changes in direction as they scoop up insects with their mouths. Their wings are long and pointy and they don’t have a distinguishable neck. They remind you of a very large barn swallow and are clearly built for maneuverability. I say mouths because their beaks are tiny but their mouth is almost as wide as their body and can open very wide. It works like a butterfly net scooping up insects. This is why their flight is erratic as they spot an insect and fly to catch it.

On The Mend

My back is considerably better today. My good friend Dr. Paul Bove put me on the fast track to healing. I saw him for the fourth time since this all started and as usual I felt great after my visit. He said in two weeks I should be back to 100%. I’ve been contacted by many of my friends and I’ve felt the prayers. I had foolish visions of doing my normal Sunday stuff at church yesterday. I got up and made it out of bed but was in no condition to drive. All I ended up doing was putting a last second task on some of the other volunteers. I thank them for their grace and for getting the work done. As traumatic events tend to do I’m motivated to spend some time keeping in shape. I got a good gentile workout in tonight and the best part was my wife (who’s in better shape) joined me. I will attempt to make this a habit. Thanks again for all the thoughts and prayers.

Stuck

It’s been four days since I managed to hurt my back. I damaged the fibrous connections that surround your disks between the vertebrae. The bottom line is the inflammation is keeping me in bed. I’ve been able to stand for a few minutes and shuffle a few feet. To type this I’m on my side with my laptop sitting on a waste basket next to the bed. My good friend and chiropractor Dr. Paul Bove has made two house calls to fix me up. He truly has healing hands and has made a big difference. My wife has been the one to do all the other nurse duties. Just to clarify, for the first two days I was truly confined to my bed. The image of this conjures up a few questions. Part of my bedside equipment includes a large empty Gatorade bottle. I didn’t have to… well, you know, until day three and I was able to take care of things solo. I did need help to get to and from the bathroom. Eating “sideways” has been at the very least, messy. Sandwiches are not meant to be eaten horizontally. The first two days were the worst. The pain was enough to keep me from concentrating on anything, reading, writing, watching a movie. I have been able to stick to my “no TV for a month” challenge.
Yesterday I managed to read Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. It is her story of walking the line between sanity and insanity. At 18 she went into a mental hospital and spent the next year and a half finding what most of us call reality. I was struck by two things; first it confirmed what I’ve always suspected. The distance between crazy and sane is short. Second, Kaysen gives the best description I’ve read of how our minds keep us from going nuts. My wife and I watched the movie ( movies don’t count for my TV challenge) and as usual it’s not as good as the book.
My big goal for today is to take a shower. It’s funny how much I miss my daily routine stuff. The past few days have had plenty of irony as well. Four days in bed and I’ve only been able to sleep a few hours. This has also has been the best weather we’ve had all summer. The up side has been some extra time with my family. I’m sure they see it a little differently but I’ll take what I can get.

New Frontiers

My youngest has entered the ranks of those who can, as he says “ride a two wheeler”. Trying to keep up with three older sisters and an older brother can be tough. Being able to ride a bike (sans training wheels) is a huge step in the never ending race to keep up. The best part for me was how he finally started riding. Fortunately I was home to see it happen. It was his older brother who facilitated this giant leap. In my observation kids are essentially born with the necessary skills to ride a bike. The hurdle is building up enough courage to overcome the fear of crashing. My oldest son took three essential steps to get his brother to overcome his fears. Step one: don’t push. Pressure in the learning to ride a bike game only increases the fear. In my own youth I witnessed an extreme circumstance where pressure from peers pushed a new rider past the fear barrier. But pressure causes damage and I know for a fact that years later that bike riding was a source of bad memories for this person. Step two: Faith. My oldest looked his little brother in the eye and said “I know you can do it”. Translation: I love you and I believe in you. The only thing more powerful than that is God. Step three: Right after the “I know you can do it” my oldest also said “I’ll be here if you fall”. And fall he did. Going in a straight line was pretty easy but the first turn didn’t go so well. But there was his older brother picking up the bike and his brother for another try. Knowing you’re not alone and there is someone to pick up the pieces is the type of comfort that penetrates your very being. Now a few days later there is this little bike and its rider zooming all over the place. Going faster, trying new things like laying down some rubber with a high speed skid, and finding new places to ride are the daily norm.
It occurred to me that my faith in God should follow the same basic pattern. I need to remind myself that God loves us the way a father loves a child and there is nothing I can do to make God love me less. I also need to remember that when I fall God is there to pick up the pieces and heal the hurt. With this knowledge, with this comfort I can take chances, explore new relationships, learn more and love deeper. Making it happen is hard, sometimes I get it right. Most of the time I let fear get in the way. As usual I learn more from my kids than they learn from me.

Outside Looking In

I’m in day 14 of Jon Stolpe’s “no TV for the month of August” challenge. After the first few days it hasn’t been so bad. My nightly routine has changed and I’m definitely spending more time with my family. The strangest part so far has been the odd reactions from my co-workers. To some, my not watching TV is somehow committing a social crime. A minor crime for sure but it puts me a little closer to the “kook” category and I’m already close enough as it is. Others can’t understand why I would choose to disconnect from the collective consciousness of what brings so many Americans together. The shows we watch give us insights into each other and have something to do with how we organize our social structure. The Olympics are all a buzz around the office. I must have been asked 3 times; “did you see the American girl fall off the balance beam?” This is a conversation starter for a normal office interaction and there is nothing that kills a good TV banter than not watching TV. I find myself apologizing for missing it. I’m not actually sorry for missing the program I’m just a little weary of the “what kind of freak are you?” look I seem to get daily. I think the real issue is that not watching TV is that it puts people who don’t know me very well, at a relational disadvantage. I am now a little harder to understand. Think about a die-hard “Lost” fan or someone who never misses an episode of “WWE Smack Down”. Without knowing anything else, gender, age etc… you can picture what type of person they are. If you knew two or three shows they watched and how committed they were to those shows you could work up a complete personality profile. TV is the perfect entry into a relationship. It is a safe and easy place to start and identifying the shows we watch jump starts our insights about each other. The one thing I am truly grateful for is the break from all the commercials and I like the way it has caused me to spend my time, but I’m not sure how long I can walk on this path to becoming a social outcast.

How Much Truth?

I’m wrestling with how truthful I should be. You’re having lunch with a few friends and you notice a piece of green stuff stuck between your companion’s front teeth. You can’t hear a word they say. Their mouth is moving and all you see or think about is the piece of green stuff. Questions start to wander into your brain. What is it? How long has it been there? Why won’t it let go? How come they can’t feel it? Eventually someone else can’t take it any more and says something. I think this is one of the best indicators of friendship. The stakes are high in the “green stuff in the teeth game”. If you decide to say something but don’t deliver the message with the correct amount of subtlety it causes the type of embarrassment that damages any kind of relationship. On the flip side, if the person views you as a friend and someone else says something before you do; you have to endure the post “green stuff incident” flogging with the guilt stick. Comedian and actor Andy Kaufman would stick a fake plastic booger on his upper lip and watch people squirm under the interpersonal relationship pressure. I think he just wanted to know who his real friends were. Bad breath is another good test. Your boss comes in to your work space then into your personal space and delivers a blast of “I’ve been eating dead animals for a week” breath that nearly brings tears to your eyes. Most employees have an extremely well honed understanding of the complicated bad breath rules. If the boss asks for a breath check before a meeting; you give the honest answer; if the boss comes by in a moment of “relationship building” not so much. We go through our day running everything we say through a complex relationship filter. Being careful with our words is a good thing but most of the time we never say anything remotely close to what we are thinking. We don’t cross into the possibility of a deeper relationship.
The ultimate test of course is the fart. Being comfortable enough to let one go within ear shot of a friend is solid evidence of a comfortable relationship. Now I’m not talking about the scatological frat house “how gross can we be” stuff. True friends will give a warning and try to spare you any unnecessary respiratory distress. Things can be a little different between married couples. The phrase “I didn’t think it would smell that bad” has been uttered since the beginning of time. But I’ll leave the married thing for another time.
If I really think about it I don’t want people to be brutally honest all of the time. I don’t think I could handle it. I just know that I should take a more chances on connecting with people by being truthful.

Lost

Several months ago a friend and co-worker up and quit his job. He had been struggling with a bunch of different things and was basically about as stressed out as you can get. I won’t go into any details out of respect for him and in the hope that he reads this someday. He left under some less than ideal circumstances and he and I have not been in contact since. I have to face the reality that our friendship may be over. About a week ago I sent him what I thought was a heart felt email and I have had no response. We shared many good times over the years and I miss his company. One of the things I truly enjoy in life is being in relationships with all sorts of people. My friend came from a very diverse background. I used to tease him that his extended family would make a great sit-com. Our personalities couldn’t be more different. We found common ground in our love for the outdoors and a deep sense of the importance of family. I think the thing we shared the most was laughter. He is funny person and much more out going than I am. He also has a knack for getting people to fall for outrageous pranks. One of my favorites was witnessing him call a co-worker and in his very convincing radio voice inform this person they had just won a trip to some exotic land. Of course they fell for it “hook, line and sinker” I laughed so hard I cried. He was always quick to let his victims in on the joke and he was never mean. I think I only ever got him once and he seemed to have me “on the line” all the time. I came back from vacation once to find my voice mail box with about 200 messages from Elvis, Bugs Bunny and every other character he could think of. I have many memories like this and I’m uncomfortable that it might be over. I’ve always thought of friendships as a partnership and I can’t help wondering what I could have done differently. Or what is it about me that has kept him from reaching out? I have always been open about my faith and I suspect judgment may be an obstacle. The irony is if I am true to my faith the only thing he should expect from me is grace. My friend is also extremely good at reading people and I feel he knows me pretty well. I can’t help but wonder about his viewpoint of how he thinks I see him. At the moment I am experiencing feelings of loss and failure. In the end I need to have faith that as long as we are breathing there is a chance to find what has been lost.

Reluctant lessons

I’ve been at the same company for twenty years. I am currently the training “guy” and I spend most of my day fielding questions. Questions about how does this work and where can I find that. I have come to the realization that basically people fall into two groups in the work place. One group plugs along getting things done but never seems to fully understand how what they do fits into the scheme of everything and they often times don’t have any idea of the content of what they do; they just do. The other group has the capacity for understanding of how all the pieces fit together. This group however isn’t so good at getting anything done; all experts and no execution. I fall into the later group and the people in my group answer the questions from the first group. Now I understand that the first group has the capability for understanding and occasionally they slow down long enough and soak it in but it usually gets in the way of getting things done and in their minds accomplishing the task is more important and ultimately more satisfying. The group I belong to finds the interactions more interesting than the final score. I’ve been to many a seminar on “personality inventories” and I am trained on one of the more business oriented assessments. They are all very similar and usually put you in some “quadrant” that identifies your communication tendencies. The irony of it all is that the best teams have equal parts from both groups and these two groups almost never get along. Sure they tolerate each other but when it comes right down to it the “doers” are frustrated and annoyed with the “dreamers” and vise versa. Each group finds it extremely difficult if not impossible to see the world from the others perspective. Just think of the last intense argument you were in or witnessed. Why we are different and why we struggle are questions that don’t really have answers. The “why’s” usually don’t make any sense anyway and it is the outcomes that provide value. The battles are what teach us who we are and who we’re not. The people that cause friction in our lives act as mirrors. They reveal in us what we can’t see by ourselves. The trick is to have the courage to look in the mirror and the strength to not break it. I havent figured this out yet but I intend to keep trying.

Accepting Gifts

We had a guest speaker at church this past weekend, Tom Whiteman whose message was about purpose. He founded and runs Life Counseling Services; a Christian organization that is in the business of dealing with the pain of everyday life. Divorce, death, and addiction seem to be the most common. He made the point that we are either in a place where we need to receive grace, i.e. help from God and his people or we need to extend grace. The funny part is the people who need help usually don’t want it (or think they need it) and most people who are in a place to extend help don’t want to. We don’t want to deal with pain; our own or somebody else’s. And the really funny part is, we as living breathing humans will only find true meaning and happiness by dealing with pain. Those who choose not to face pain end up stuck, stuck in the same emotion day after day. I know people like this. I feel like this sometimes. Most days though I have come to terms with God’s love. This has been a long process and I’m still wrestling with the notion of unconditional love. A few years ago my family received a gift that we didn’t deserve. Through a work circumstance I have the privilege of working with a person still dealing with pain. A few years prior to our meeting he and his wife lost their youngest daughter in a freak accident. Their daughter was in college and had what most people thought was her whole life in front of her. She was one of those people who loved life and people. She was that person you meet and always remember. I have come to know her through her parents and the wake of joy and pain she left behind. Sometimes I would catch her father in a moment of memory that would bring a smile followed by tears. One of the ways her parents decided to deal with the pain was to do something nice for somebody every year. This usually is timed with her birthday and her parents took my family to Disney for a week. They took care of our flight and our lodging. It is important to know that I have five kids. They also acted as our personal guides taking us through all the parks. This had been their family’s routine for the past twenty years. The week was amazing and my children will remember the week their whole lives. The hardest part was accepting this gift I didn’t disserve. Basically my family got to go to Disney for a week because of a senseless death. I went through some very mixed emotions accepting this gift. Before we left, my wife and I came to the conclusion that the best way to accept this gift was to go with grateful hearts and have the best time we could. Now that a little time has passed since the trip I am coming to realize that the trip was a lot like God’s gift to all humanity. Facing the idea that God loves us no matter what is difficult. I don’t deserve it but there is nothing I can do to make God love me less. This is the way parents love their children. This unconditional love is what enables people in their deepest pain to give the gift of joy.