A Contemplative Life

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015

Of Baptisms, and Leaves, and a Little Boy Leading the Way

Sam and I walk the glistening sidewalks in this city, minutes after a warm autumn rain passed through. He runs ahead, scaling the undersides of fire escapes, pulling himself up into any climbable tree. There is still a mist, and he dashes through it. He is a little boy, yes, but he is also some kind of spirit, some kind of playful force of nature.

But this force of nature reaches for my hand when we cross the street and calls me “Dad,” grins over his shoulder when I tell him to wait up.

We turn to the left where James Street runs diagonally along the cemetery, and I wonder about the people sleeping there under the ground. All those lives, dust to dust. I wonder how any of us make it from one day to the next, our lungs still filling, our hearts still beating the seconds. I wonder how we can cling to life so fiercely, even through these latter days, when the world spins chaotic and violent, when powerful men seem intent on destroying everything around them. I stare at the cemetery and I think of the weak and the poor among us.

The rain begins to fall again, first in lonely drops, then in earnest. With at least eight blocks to go, it’s clear that we are about to get very, very wet. Golden leaves pave our way.

“Through the rain!” I shout a battle cry, my walk turning into a jog, and in that moment I wonder why I don’t take my kids for walks in the rain more often.

“Dodge the puddles!” Sam shouts back, dancing on his toes all the way, as if the world is his hopscotch grid. As if skipping along on his toes will stop the rain.

* * * * *

On Sunday we stand beside the baptismal font, surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses, living and otherwise. Abra goes first, climbing up on the stone ledge and leaning over the water, her blond hair falling in wisps. I wonder what she sees in that moment through her big blue eyes, what her six-year-old mind thinks about the water and the crowd and the words.

The three small scoops of water run down over her hair (in the Name of the Father), drip down on her cheeks (and of the Son), run like tears (and of the Holy Spirit). She looks up and comes back to us, hops like Tigger, always moving. She grins the gap-toothed grin of a young girl exhilarated by life, and water, and the idea of something unseen but crucial happening there under the somber gaze of the stained glass.

Sammy is next. He pulls his shoulders up around his ears, as if this baptism is one that makes him cringe a bit. He would rather be running through the streets, baptized by the rain, than stand in a church while wearing a tie, everyone looking at him.

I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

He raises his dripping head and smiles the sheepish grin of You were right, Dad, it wasn’t that bad as well as Can you believe I’m growing up this fast? I think of rain falling on golden leaves. I think of walking with him through the city.

Finally, Leo. Little Leo. He shakes his head vigorously when Reverend Lauren offers to take him, so he and I move in over the font together. I lean forward, and for a moment it is both of us getting baptized, both of us being made new.

I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The water runs off his head, but he doesn’t shrink back. He doesn’t even flinch. He simply stares down into the shimmering, as if down there in the clearness lies every answer to every question, if we would only give him enough time to soak them all up. And then Reverend Lauren says the words again, the words she said over all the children, words that sound like a promise oh too good, a solemn hope.

You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.

* * * * *

Sam and I keep walking, the drops hitting our faces. The leaves drift, too, stripped by the rain. Walking with him, through a day like that, a city like this, I feel marked by life, marked by a warm goodness that falls down through autumn leaves.

Maybe baptism starts in a church, guided by a pastor, observed by a gentle congregation. But I don’t think it ever stops there – I think baptism follows us down the street on a rainy autumn day, chases us through the leaves, catches us just across the street from the mechanic shop in that moment when your little boy looks up and asks you if he can jump in that puddle of glistening water, the one reflecting the golden leaves and the gray sky.

“Please, Dad? Just once?”

October 28, 2015October 28, 2015

Can I Love My Children Enough to Let Them Fail?

boy — Photo by Taylor Nicole via Unsplash.

My 12-year-old son walks the delicate line between two worlds. He is all limbs and big smiles, growing into a frame that will easily exceed mine someday very soon. We recently bought the same style of shoes, the main difference being that his are a half-size bigger than mine. He is a golden retriever in personality and at his happiest when he is making other people smile.

The line he walks is the one between childhood and adulthood. His growing body is beginning to shout “young man!” while he plays in his room with Matchbox cars and reads Minecraft books.

I sometimes play monster with the kids, wrestle them all to the ground, but when I inadvertently grab his foot in the middle of that mass of arms and legs, I am shocked. Whose foot could this possibly be? How could I have a child who belongs to this appendage?

As a child, he plans on doing and becoming things that are nearly impossible. As a child, he sees no reason these things might not come to pass, as if the only thing he has to do is wish them in order to make them so. He announces these things in casual conversation, things like, “When I play in the NBA,” or, “You know, when I’m an astronaut…”

Biting my lip in these moments is perhaps one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a parent because I want to remind him of the astronomical odds, the one-in-a-million. I want to warn him about the fragile nature of hope, the heaviness of failure.

But, no. Truth be told, I don’t want to just warn him. I want to forbid him. I want to tell him to stop being so childish, those things will never work out. I want to ask him, What else do you want to do? Surely there is something more reasonable, more practical, more attainable.

But why? a voice asks me. Why do you feel so compelled?

I’m protecting him, I reason. I don’t want him to be disappointed.

But why? the voice insists again, and this time I have to pause and think.

Because those poignant moments of failure are too hard.

When they happened to me, those palpable failures, they shook the very foundation of who I thought I was. They threw me off kilter, and for some time afterwards I felt like I was floating through space, no way to tell the difference between up and down.

Don’t set your sights too high, I want to tell him. That way, you won’t be disappointed.

* * * * *

But is that really the kind of existence I’d want any of my children to experience, a life without trying? Without wanting? Without desiring?

I think of where I am now, as a writer. I may never write a best-seller. I may never be famous for my creative ability (as I discussed in the Letter to My Friends Who Are Not Famous). What if my dad, when I was 12, honed in on my love of stories and pulled me aside.

“Listen,” he might have said, “This whole writing thing? You need to just walk away from it. Find a nice hobby you can’t fail at. Find a dependable job you’ll never lose. Writing? The odds are too small, son. You’ll be terribly disappointed someday.”

* * * * *

Can I love my children enough to let them fail? Or, perhaps another way of asking the same question, Can I love my children enough to give them the space they need to succeed?

It’s hard to think of each of my children reaching a stage where the world tells them they’re not good enough. Maybe the best thing I can do isn’t to short-circuit that failure, but to help them realize where their true value lies: in who they are, and not in what they do.

October 27, 2015October 27, 2015

Your Addiction is Speaking to You

My dad was a pastor when I was a kid, so I occasionally found myself waiting in an empty church while he finished up whatever he was working on back in his office. Sometimes I’d go to the gym and throw a ball against the wall over and over and over again. Sometimes I’d walk through the tiny, empty bookstore and stare longingly at the Chronicles of Narnia box set I would eventually by for $11.96. Sometimes I’d just sit on the curb outside.

But the times that have left me with the most poignant memories are when I would walk into the empty church sanctuary. Sanctuary. A place that provides safety or protection. I would walk on the thick carpet, up the aisle between the two sides, all the way to the front. There was a communion table there, and the pulpit, and the piano up on the stage.

I wish I could tell you I did something particularly holy in those moments, but I didn’t. I stretched out on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, and the dim light that fell through the tall windows illuminated all the little specks of dust floating through the air. I wondered about the universe and my place in it. I watched each speck, each little planet, as it came and went in and out of those beams of light, and I made up stories about them and their inhabitants.

Then, far off, from a distant galaxy, I heard my dad’s voice calling my name.

* * * * *

Seth Haines releases a new book today, Coming Clean, and in it he shares a similar experience as a young boy in Texas climbing into the mesquite trees. He writes that it was the first place he remembers hearing God speak to him, but that as he got older the reality of that voice dimmed.

This, I think, is perhaps the greatest challenge we will face as adults, and perhaps the most important: How will we rediscover that beautiful childhood imagination and belief that allowed us to hear the voice of God while sitting in the thin arms of a mesquite tree, or lying on the plush carpet of an empty church sanctuary? Where has this voice gone?

Maybe the voice hasn’t gone anywhere. Maybe the problem lies in our ability to listen, to hear.

* * * * *

Seth’s book is unique because it gives you the feeling that you are traveling right into someone’s very soul. The title might be Coming Clean, but it could just as easily be Rediscovering the Still, Small Voice. I prefer the title he chose, but I hope you won’t avoid the book because you don’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol, or because your particular brand of addiction is less vilified than its chemical cousins.

As Seth has said many times, we are, all of us, trying to come clean from something. This book will help you see what it is you’re trying to shed, and it will also show you the beauty that waits even in the shadows of recovery.

* * * * *

I think again on what I wrote earlier, that “I wish I could tell you I did something particularly holy in those moments” when I simply got down on the carpet and stared at the dust. But now I wonder if maybe that isn’t one of the holiest things we can do.

Stop. Breathe. See. Listen. Wait.

I highly recommend Coming Clean. I think it will help you do all of those things, and then some.

October 26, 2015October 26, 2015

Trick-or-Treat? Your Chocolate Was Probably Made By Slaves

chains — Photo by Mike Alonzo via Unsplash.

We are The Capitol.

In case you haven’t read Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, let me explain. In the trilogy, The Capitol lies at the center of everything, and the outlying Districts exist to give those in The Capitol a good life. The people outside The Capitol work non-stop, survive without luxuries, and many are near to starving. Those inside The Capitol, on the other hand, have plenty; they mostly spend their money on entertainment, making themselves look nice (or weird), and eating. And when they’re full, they drink a liquid that helps them throw up so they can eat more.

Do you see the analogy now? We who live in the United States are The Capitol. We are mostly concerned with the NFL, the shopping mall, and technology. We purchase items that can only remain at their current, inexpensive prices because they are made by slaves in other countries.

But we do our best not to think about this.

The developing world represents the Districts, where the people are working hard, and yet have almost nothing. They do not even get to enjoy the things that they are creating. They watch their children waste away to nothing, with no hope for ever getting out.

We are The Capitol.

* * * * *

One of the ways we continue this symbiotic relationship between ravenous consumer (us) and exploited worker (them) is in the way that we inhale chocolate, chocolate whose very existence and price depends on the use of slave labor, often child slave labor. This year we will spend almost $8 billion on Halloween, $2.3 billion of that on candy. Where is the majority if the chocolate coming from?

The ILO calls the cocoa industry the worst form of child labor today. And these farms, mostly in Ghana and Ivory Coast, exist because of brands like Hershey, Nestle, Mars, and Cadbury—they all purchase cocoa from these farms, are all aware of their practices, and as of today, have chosen to do little about it.

The Art of Simple

Please. Before you go out and buy pounds and pounds of chocolate from companies who use slave labor to provide us with our 99 cent chocolate bars, read these two articles by my friends Tsh and Kristen:

Chocolate: The Industry’s Hidden Truth (and the easy stuff we can do to still enjoy it)

The Inconvenient Truth About Your Halloween Chocolate and Forced Child Labor

Please. Do a little research on your own. If we continue to lament the existence of slavery in our world but refuse to give up our obsession with Reese’s Cups or Snickers bars, we become part of the chain, complicit, and just as guilty as the person standing over a child, telling them they have to work harder.

Which really sucks because I love Snickers. And Reese’s Cups. And all that stuff. But this year I’m going to do my best to avoid eating or purchasing candy from companies who so far have made big promises about changes they’re going to make to their supply chain, but unfortunately have yet to deliver.

Reconsider your Halloween Candy.

Question: Have you already looked into this problem? What chocolate alternatives are you finding? (Tsh has some great recommendations over at her blog.)

October 23, 2015

What I Learned From Catching a Fish in 1983

From 1st grade to 4th grade I lived in a farmhouse, and nearly every day after school I hopped out of the bus, ran up the long lane, dashed inside for a quick sandwich, then ran back outside as quickly as I could. I crossed the church parking lot that ran alongside the cemetery, slid down the muddy hill through the trees, walked through the pasture with its massive cows mooing their displeasure at me, and set up shop with my fishing pole and tackle box on the banks of the Pequea Creek.

I sat there and sometimes I took a Sugar Creek Gang book with me and sometimes I just stared at my bobber and waited for it to dance. I sat there in the shadows, and when the Amish school next door let out my best friend Daniel joined me. He always came racing down the same path, tumbling through the undergrowth, breathless, hoping he hadn’t missed anything.

“Fish biting?” he asked, grinning. We waited and we fished and when we got bored we skipped stones or waded into the water. We didn’t have watches or cell phones but in those fall days we could tell by the sun when it was dinner time, and we reluctantly pulled ourselves away from the slow-moving water, dragged ourselves up the bank, walked home.

My dad came down with me from time to time, usually after dinner, after work. It was even cooler then, and the fall air smelled of cut hay and sleepy evenings.

On one of those nights my bobber vanished down into the water and my pole bent almost to snapping. I yanked up on the reel and tried to pull that monster in. Eventually I did – it was a massive carp, not much good for eating, but boy that thing was huge. I’d never seen anything like it in that creek before. My dad and I stared at the fish and then we whooped and hollered and danced around.

I guess we had carried our stuff down there in one of those large, white, five-gallon buckets. Well, dad emptied out that bucket, filled it with muddy creek water, and dropped that huge fish into it.

“C’mon,” he said. “We’re showing this one to Grandma.”

So we packed up our stuff and he carried the heavy five-gallon bucket and we walked the quarter of a mile to Grandma’s house, along the road with the narrow shoulder. We got up to her house and showed her the fish. Dad poked it and it writhed around in the bucket like the Loch Ness monster. From there we stopped by the neighbor’s house, because they were outside, too, and we showed them the fish. Finally we walked back by our farmhouse and showed the fish to mom.

Dad was so excited about it, and I was, too. Eventually, when it was almost dark, we walked the long lane and crossed the parking lot and slid down the tree-covered bank, let the fish slip back into the water for some other boy to wrestle with.

* * * * *

I was thinking back on this story tonight and I realized what was special about that whole thing wasn’t the fact that I caught a huge fish. I mean, that was fun, but what made that whole experience different was how excited my dad was for me. He didn’t act upset that I had caught the biggest fish. He didn’t downplay it, tell me he’d seen bigger.

No, he celebrated with me, and then he went to great effort to show off my accomplishment.

And that’s what I was thinking about. I want to do that more. I want to point out my friends’ wonderful achievements and brag on them. I want to celebrate and laugh and dance around when people I know do something special. I want to put my own schedule on hold and carry the weight of their glory.

That’s what I’ve learned from that autumn night, sometime around 1983.

Let’s celebrate with each other more often.

October 22, 2015October 22, 2015

Our Podcast About Death and the Winner of Last Week’s Book Giveaway

A couple of months ago I emailed my friends Bryan Allain (blogger, funny guy) and Caleb Wilde (blogger, funeral director) with kind of a crazy idea.

“Let’s start a podcast where we interview people about a death that’s happened to someone they love,” I suggested. “Trust me, it’ll be great.”

After I sent the email, I had idea remorse. Do I really have the time to add “podcaster” to my resume? Would Caleb and Bryan think it was a stupid idea? And, perhaps most importantly, wouldn’t a podcast based around the simple premise of people retelling death stories be, well, depressing?

Who wants to listen to that.

Bryan, Caleb, and I met at our favorite midpoint meeting place, The Corner Coffee Shop. By the time we met, I had already talked myself out of the idea. We caught up about life, and then I began back-stepping out of my podcast idea.

“So, guys, listen, if you’re not into doing this podcast thing…” I began.

“No, I actually think it’s a great idea,” Caleb said. “I think our funeral home will sponsor the first three episodes.”

“Yeah, let’s go for it,” Bryan said.

“Um, yeah,” I said. “That’s what I was going to say.”

* * * * *

So we’re doing it. We’ve interviewed our first two stories with one left to go for this initial run of three podcasts. The first story is about a couple who took in a set of triplets through foster care. The second is the story of a couple, newly married, who realized just a few days after their first child was born that something was seriously wrong. In the third story we explore the idea of “The Good Death,” where two siblings tell the story of their mother’s passing.

We named the podcast The Story of My Death. (Caleb calls it our Deathcast.) But the question remains: Why have a podcast where we interview people about death?

I don’t know that there’s a pragmatic answer to that question, or at least not one easily settled on. But I’ve learned a few things during our first two interviews. Talking about death, even tragic death, doesn’t have to be depressing. Even though the event itself, the loss, can be unbelievably sad, hearing people retell their stories hasn’t been a depressing experience. I actually found the stories, and the people telling them, to be extremely brave, resilient, and somehow hopeful.

Talking about death with people who had come face to face with it filled me, inexplicably, with a sense of peace.

If you’d like to stay in the loop regarding the release of the first episode, you can like our Facebook page, The Story of My Death or you can sign up for my twice-monthly newsletter HERE. We’re looking to release the first episode sometime in the next three or four weeks.

* * * * *

The winner of last week’s book giveaway is Dustin Fife! Message me with your address, Dustin, and I’ll send you the two books you won. Thanks to everyone who left a comment over at my 1000th blog post. It was hugely encouraging to hear from all of you.

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