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The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

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In 2001, I went to work for the FAA in Oklahoma City.  It was my first permanent job as a programmer.  How I got the job is a little morbid.

I was working for an insurance company on a one year contract.  When I finished the project, one of my contract competitors pointed me to a job at the FAA.  She may have been trying to get rid of me, but I was ready to go so it didn’t matter.

It was for the position of junior developer.  With two years of experience, that was an appropriate position for me.  I remember nothing of the interview, but it must have gone well because they called me.  I fancied myself a good negotiator.  I’d negotiated some good deals for myself since I started my career.  So I was confident that I would be able to do well this time.  My future boss took my first offer, but it seemed like there was a tinge of reticence in his voice.  I thought I was awesome.

When I arrived on my first day, it was to a very somber group of men and a desk that had not been cleared off from the last guy.  I soon learned that the guy I had replaced had died right after my interview in an all terrain vehicle accident.  I was in the senior position now.    Much, much later, I learned that they had been through every resume that they had, and mine was the only one left, hence the easy negotiation.  I didn’t take it hard.  I laughed to myself.  I had gotten the job and I did well in it and that was all that mattered.

But I didn’t start off so hot.  In the first month, the database administrator, the change management system administrator, and the server administrator all resigned leaving just two programmers with no experience with any system administration.

They stepped us through their documentation a few times and then wished us luck.  After a few weeks we were feeling pretty good about it.  We hadn’t had a single real problem.  One of my jobs was to backup the server on tape, replace the tape, and take the old one to a safe.  One day, though, the server, which is the size and shape of a refrigerator, wouldn’t open.  It had a door which opened just like a refrigerator.  Fortunately, I thought, there was a key above the door so I turned it.  Here’s what it sounded like.

It turns out the server wasn’t locked, I had been trying to pull open the door from the side my refrigerator opens. The guys who were taking care of that server before had to come in on the weekend and rebuild it to make it run again.  They said it could have been worse.  Shutting a server down cold can be catastrophic, apparently.   They hid the key from me after that.  I never had to do the backup again.

This team was an all male team, as are most of the teams I’ve worked with, and there’s something that I know about joining a team, especially an all male team.  They need to know that you can handle a good ribbing.  The sooner the better.  So I took this as an opportunity.  I told the story with the server sound being the climactic ending.  I figured out how to make it by vocalizing while I whistle.  Here it is.

They tease me to this day.  I became a member of the team when I shared my story.  I paid my dues, and I laughed at myself.  It’s so important to be able to laugh at yourself when you deserve it.  It’s so much more attractive than being sullen and defensive,  and to this day, if I see any of those guys, the first thing they want is the tractor beam.  It always gets a laugh.

In Negative One Dollar, I described the events which precipitated my move from teaching to software engineering.  I’d like to tell the story of the beginnings of my career.  It’s a success story, and it is not my intention to brag. I could easily write 10k on this time of my life.  With a little time I could write 20k words.  It was an important year.    Consider this the abridged version.  As I’ve written, my wife’s uncle, an IT manager at Citgo in Tulsa, described to me a company that would train me and hire me if I passed a test.  He told me about a huge software problem called Y2K in which an astounding amount of disruption would occur at midnight of 1999 if the code wasn’t fixed, and that there was something like a 400k short fall of workers available to do the work in the U.S.  That number seems high to me, but that’s the way I remember it.  He said that the consulting company, SPR, would train me to learn how to fix this problem.

(if you’re interested)

The problem was simple, by the way.  When mainframe computers were young, there was very little memory for all of the software and huge databases needed to run banks, oil companies, airline booking systems, and the like.  So they shortened dates by leaving off the “19” from the years.  So 05-06-1999 would be 05-06-99.  The problem was that when the year became 2000 the date would be 05-06-00 which all of the date calculations would read as being in the the year 1900.  Imagine the chaos.  Yes, folks.  This was a real problem solved with billions (trillions?) of dollars in consulting fees.

(continue)

I knew nothing about any of this stuff.  In fact, I had lost the notion that I was smart in anyway other than music.  But the salary was so much better than what I was getting and I was eager to provide for my growing family.  We had our first baby that year.  I called the company and set up an interview.  I didn’t know what to say, not knowing anything about computers, but I figured I didn’t have anything to lose.

It was a phone interview, which I’d never done.  I made a plan.  When it came close to the time, I was sure to go to the bathroom first.  No pee breaks in the interview.  Also, I pulled out a notebook and pencil.  I poured a glass of water.  I told Jennifer not to disturb me.  Then I locked myself in the bedroom to take the call.  The interview was with a recruiter and I found that my lack of computer knowledge was actually expected.  She liked me enough to invite me to come to Tulsa to take the test.

I had no idea what to expect so I decided to make a good impression with my clothes.  I already had a suit, but I felt I needed something new to really add some polish so I went to Dillards in Sooner Mall to buy a new pair of shoes.  We didn’t have much money, but I figured I should go all out so I bought a pair of Johnston & Murphy’s at $129.  In truth, I couldn’t afford them, but in my mind I was going to pay for them by nailing the test and getting the job.

I decided to drive up to a Motel 6 outside of Tulsa the night before just as a precaution to make sure I arrived at the testing facility on time.  The motel had no soap or shampoo, but I just wanted to get a good night sleep so I didn’t complain.

The testing would be held in the Mid-Continent Tower in downtown Tulsa.  It is a stately sky scraper with an ornate green copper top.  When I walked in, I was struck by the beauty and polish of the lobby.  I remember thinking that I could be coming here every day in my Johnston and Murphy’s instead of pushing my music teaching cart back at Moore Public Schools and how posh that would be; how fancy I would be.

I didn’t grow up in a fancy family.  We lived a modest life.  But there were pockets of our extended family who were wealthier and lived a fancier lifestyle.  I wanted it.  I wanted to look sharp, drive a nice car, live in a fancy house.  That was important to me when I was in my 20s, but I was too embarrassed to admit it to anyone.

The test was entitled something like “Software Engineering Aptitude Test”.  It makes my hands sweat a little bit to remember what it felt like sitting in my suit and fancy shoes in front of an exam that could change the course of my life and not have a single idea if I could answer even one question.  In spite of having no idea what was going to happen, I just knew that I would be working at this company.  I was certain.   And I could answer questions.  It was all about logic and workflows.  No computer programming concepts.  I would need a 50% to pass.  I did the best that I could.  When I finished, they told me that I would get the results on Friday.  I drove home to wait for the results.

I had most of the week to continue to teach.  When Friday came, I put movies on instead of teaching.  I did not have the focus to put together lesson plans.  I had given SPR the school office phone and I was waiting anxiously while the kids watched.

“Mr. Wilson-Burns?” came the secretary’s voice on my class intercom.  “You have a call.”

My heart raced.  I took the call in an empty break room.

“David?  This is Jessica from SPR.  I’m calling to tell you the results of your exam.”

“Ok.” I said, expectantly.

“Are you ready?  You scored a 51%.  Welcome to SPR!  Your boot camp starts next Monday.  Can you make it?”

It was Friday.  I would have to resign that day with no notice.  I wrote my resignation letter on the a Mac in the lounge and printed it out and signed it.  At the end of the day, I found my principal in her office.  I’d never actually been to her office.  It softened her a bit.  I handed the letter to her.

I don’t remember what she said, but she didn’t blink an eye.  She said they would miss me, and the she congratulated me.  I wonder now if she had already suspected that I would leave soon.

And that was that.  My teaching career was over.  I don’t remember feeling anything but relief and excitement.

We were renting a house and so we gave the land lord a month’s notice.  I went ahead to Tulsa and stayed at Jennifer’s aunt and uncle’s house.  I would come home on the weekends.  We would find an apartment in a month.

My experience to come was so intense that it is a blur in my memory.  We were all put into a training room at the SPR offices in the Mid-Continent Tower. There were rows of tables, chairs, and computers facing front.  On the first morning, nearly everyone was early, except for the instructor.  There were somewhere around 30 trainees.  Interestingly, it didn’t feel like I was returning to college.  For some reason, it felt more like high school.  Maybe because there were obvious former cool kids who began to connect with each other, establishing their place,  while the rest of us sat quietly and skimmed through our materials.  The material was like a foreign language to me; in fact, there were parts which were literally a foreign language to me.

I soon learned that the course would be taught by four retired computer science professors.  We were to be in this room for ten hours ever day Monday through Friday and sometimes Saturday for ten weeks.  Approximately 500 hours of instruction.  We were told that 50% of us would drop out before the ten weeks were up.  Boot Camp.

Our supervisor explained that we would receive a substantial raise and be hired permanently if we made it through the program.

Throughout the first day, I learned that many of the trainees had computer and programming experience.  I admit, that this intimidated me at first, but eventually I learned that I was as capable or more than anyone in the room.

I do have a few vivid memories.  Behind, me sat a former high school football star.  He must have been a few years younger than me.  Six foot four and still powerfully muscular.  He was the class clown.  At first I fell back into my old high role as the uncool geek, but as I got to know him I began to realize that that stuff was really a high school thing.  We became friends and he seemed to be having the same realization.  Here were two men who never would have spoken in high school, but were now free of the social structure that we had all quietly agreed to support.  This was a turning point in my life.  I realized that I can be who I wanted to be.  There was no one in the world telling me who I should or shouldn’t be.  This brought me a great sense of freedom and happiness.

After I wrote my first program, I decided to treat myself to Applebee’s.  I decided that I should get a drink.  I’m not sure exactly what it was, but it had milk in it.  Why not just a beer, David?  After I ate and I was nursing my drink, I pulled out a pen and scratched out some pseudo-code.  Secretly, I wanted someone to see me and think I was solving some difficult problem for a big company.

I generally ate lunch alone.  There were many choices downtown.  Coneys were a popular item in that area and I often went to the Coney Islander Hot Weiner Shop for four chili coneys dressed with minced onions and Louisiana Hot Sauce.  There was also a German restaurant that I liked.  I loved to sit up in the balcony and watch the customers and wait staff.  One day, after eating there, I started to write about a character named Daniel.  Daniel was a very honest version of me.  I was a private person at that time….um, not so much anymore.  I was afraid of what people would think of me if they saw my true self.  It was liberating to write.  I wrote a series of  Daniel vignettes.  This is where my love of writing began.  I would later write fifty thousand words on the Daniel character.  The work is unfinished.

One by one, the trainees left.  One guy left because he made the Tulsa paper in a very unfortunate way.  He had been busted by the FBI for downloading pictures of underage teen boys.  He claimed that it was unintentional.  He never returned.  The company didn’t want the bad press.  Sometimes the most likable people do things that you would never expect.

I excelled.  I was starting to believe that I could really do more than music.  In fact, I was starting to believe that I could do anything I wanted.  I had never felt so empowered.

One of the instructors was a crusty old man from Chicago.  He was my favorite instructor.  I found him to be kind and enjoyable to work with.  One day, I was returning to the classroom with a cup of coffee and I heard singing in the library.  The door was ajar so I peaked in.  It was the instructor.  He had what I now know was a prayer shawl and  he was raising his hands.  He was singing to God.  Living in Oklahoma, you don’t meet a lot of people practicing the Jewish faith.  This was my first encounter.  I only watched for a few seconds.  I didn’t want to intrude.  It was beautiful.

I and around 50% of the trainees completed the program.  We had a graduation of sorts and we were all given certificates.  I wish I still had it.  So what next?  Every class preceding us went straight to work in offices all over Tulsa, one of them underground.  But this class didn’t go anywhere.  The work had dried up, so they put us on the bench.  It’s expensive to put someone on the bench in the consulting industry.  Another company might have let us go after a few weeks.

Everyone was trying to get placed.  I befriended a man who eventually took me to Sunoco Oil with him.  There my job was to add lines of comments to the header of a bunch of Cobol programs.  Sitting in that office was the first time I watched a movie trailer on my computer.  It was Star Wars Episode 1.  My office mate and I geeked out of it.

I didn’t understand the code, but I did enjoy looking at the change logs written at the tops of the programs.  I found one program that was written in 1965.  I still marvel at that.  The project ended after a month when the whole force was sent away.  No more Y2k work needed.  That is how so many consulting companies collapsed.

Then one day I was sitting at my computer back in the office and the general manager of the company walked out of his office and shouted “Everybody learn Powerbuilder!”  Who needs email when you can scream from your office?  And so I began to teach myself this new language.  I found that I could learn it pretty quickly.  I liked it a lot.

Soon, the company brought in a couple of Powerbuilder trainers and our training resumed.  This time around I was cockier.  I had conquered Cobol and was ready to conquer Powerbuilder.

One instructor was tall and arrogant.  The other was short and stocky with a light, red beard.  He was not arrogant at all.  He was quite humble and I liked him a lot.

When the course was over, they announced that there were two placements available and that they would interview us to determine who would get them.  I decided that my best move would be super confidence.  I was going to out-arrogance the arrogant one and impress the humble one.

“Tell us why we should place you?” asked the arrogant one.

I worked up a computer analogy and looked him straight in the eye.

I said, “Jake, you see, those other guys are like hard drives.  They may have a lot of information, but I’m like a processor.  I can pick things up and make things happen.

Arrogant broke in and started to say, “I don’t get it. That’s not really how computers-”

But then humble held up his hand and said “No.  Do you see what he’s saying?  He is saying that he’s a fast learner and a fast worker.  He is saying that he’s the best.”

After everyone was done the two of them came out.  Humble pointed at me and asked me to come back into the office.

Arrogant said “I admit it, David, your confidence impressed me.  I think you can do this.”

That job is the first one on my resume.  I worked at Williams Communications for one year before I took a job back in Oklahoma City…coding Powerbuilder.  I went on to learn other languages and I’ve held many more jobs, but I’ve never felt as utterly energized as I did in that first year.  It was the year that I learned how to learn again and believe in myself, and I’ve never quit.

One conversation at a family reunion changed my life forever. Wow.  I am in awe over that.  It might have never happened.  If it weren’t for 4 digit years it would have never happened.  I never would have dreamed of doing what I do.  I never would have believed that I could even do it.  I do miss teaching sometimes, but when I look back over the last nineteen years I see a clear path to the happy place I am right now and I wouldn’t change that.  The Johnston and Murphy shoes?  They became my lucky interview shoes.  I just resoled them.

I attended college for vocal music education in the early 90s.  In a voice degree, one of the most important figures, if not the most, is your voice teacher.  This is one of the few professors you will see every week for your entire college life.

Learning to sing often requires a rather close relationship between the teacher and the student.  It’s a mentor relationship.   The study of singing more than just singing.  It is the learning of a lifestyle.  It encompasses physical fitness, diet, sleeping habits, how much water to drink, and of course discipline.  Because you want to be the best singer you can be, you look to your voice teacher for everything they give you that might help your chances at success.

When I was a senior in high school my mentor at the time, the director of music at my church, told me that there was a certain voice studio at the college I was planning on attending that was for the more advanced students and she would help me get it.  I’d feel more comfortable not using his name, so I will call him Professor Nelson.  Being advanced was something I valued a lot.  In retrospect, I needed the exact opposite.  I needed a teacher who would teach me as if I knew absolutely nothing.  She managed to get me an informal audition with him in his office.  He expressed his interest in me and when I made my official audition to the school, he chose me.  I was elated.

Nelson was a man of great mystique.  He created a larger than life character.  He was the wise one.  He often intimated that he was connected to celebrity.  He was an accomplished cyclist.  He was an accomplished painter; painting in the wilds of Wyoming.  He fancied himself a bit of a cowboy type, but to my knowledge he never had anything to do with cattle.  And what impressed me the most is that he was a specialist in French music.  This was an interest of mine.  Anything French to me had it’s own mystique.  He studied abroad with a quite famous French singer and recorded an album that I wore out on cassette tape twice.  I idolized this man.  I felt proud to be in his studio, which was almost exclusively graduate students.

He trained me as a tenor, although I was never sure if he actually thought I was one.  He often called me a “baritenor”.  That was a blend between a tenor and a baritone.  It’s not a true voice type, but it’s how he dealt with the limitations of my voice.   I don’t think he really put a lot of importance on what I was because I was just an education major.  My success as a tenor was mixed.  I didn’t want mixed success.  I wanted to be the best.  So after a couple of years, I got it in my head that I might be a baritone (which I am).  I told him I wanted to give it a try.

The first thing he brought out was Valentin’s aria from Faust which has two high G’s, which only experienced baritones could reach.  It was as if he was trying to prove me wrong.  As if to say that singing this would be the only way to prove if I was a baritone.  I failed miserably.

I’d been singing a lot in my falsetto in college in early music performances.  I was well received.  A man who sings in falsetto exclusively is called a countertenor.  Countertenors were on the cusp of being big in the professional world, but otherwise they were was still obscure.  I started talking about it with Professor Nelson.

“Look, David.  I could sing like that all day.”  Nelson was practically a countertenor himself with his very light lyric baritone.  He demonstrated his falsetto. “See?  But there’s nothing to it.  It has no steel.  It has no value.”

A few weeks later, I came into my lesson and said, “Ok.  I think I want to be a tenor again.”

His face reddened and he exploded.  “You come in here, you want to be a tenor, you want to be a baritone, you want to sing like a girl.  What are you?  I don’t know.”

My ears were burning.  I felt like my chest and head were a gong and he had just taken a wack at me.

Then he looked away and began shaking his head and said, “I can’t keep going back and forth.  I don’t know how to teach you.  I’m done with you.”

I knew I was going to cry, so I left his office.  As soon as I was in the hall, the tears came hard.  I made my way down to the other end of the hall to see the head of the voice department.  She was a very maternal figure and I knew that she would be both a comfort and a problem solver.

I knocked on her door.  She was teaching a lesson to a friend of mine whom I didn’t mind seeing me upset.   After I explained what had happened, she first gave me a big hug and patted my back.  When I had pulled myself together she went into chairperson mode.

She explained that her goal was to get me through my senior year and she would get me a teacher.

She did get me a teacher.  None of the other teachers in the department would take me.  She never tried to explain why and I didn’t ask.  I had gained a reputation for being a difficult student by then, and I’m fairly certain that that was a factor.  She convinced a retired professor to take me.  It was a great fit.

Now, though, I no longer idolized Nelson.  I resented him.  I ridiculed his idiosyncrasies to my friends.  I toughened up by tearing him down.

So why do I keep returning to this story?  I loved Professor Nelson.  I wanted to please him.  The few times he expressed displeasure with me were upsetting.  I’m sure my family would say that I was all  “Professor Nelson this” and “Professor Nelson that” every day of my college career.  When he kicked me out of his studio, it hurt me very deeply.  I suppose I’ve told this at times to become the object of pity.  Pity’s not the best gift a person can receive, but it has some value.

When I was a kid, there was this other kid who broke his leg and had to use crutches.  He was the object of everyone’s pity and I wanted it so bad that I found some crutches and walked around with them at home for a little while.   I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort, but I wanted it.  I wanted the attention.  I wanted the girls to ask if it hurt really bad.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve outgrown this desire.  I find pity uncomfortable if anything.  Sometimes when I tell the story, it’s in the context of several stories which illustrate what a pain in the butt I was back then.  I was stubborn, a know-it-all, arrogant, sycophantic, and snobbish.

The last time I saw Professor Nelson before he died a few years ago, his words were, “So, are you still singing like a girl?”

And the last time I saw him, just weeks before he died of cancer, I pretended not to see him.

There have been very few tragedies in my life, but being kicked out of Professor Nelson’s studio is significant to me.  A couple of years ago, I got tired of holding onto my resentment and hurt over this man.  I found a cassette tape of his old album of French song and I had it digitally remastered.  I posted it on YouTube.  Then I found an online library of his paintings and convinced the owner to let me create a Facebook page for his music and paintings.  I was finally able to let go of the hurt and give myself permission to think fondly of him again.  It occurs to me now that he was no more at fault than I was.  He really did not know how to teach me, just as he had said.  It’s hard to find out an idol is just a regular human who can’t give you everything you need.  It’s hard to be rejected by them.  But it’s harder still to hold on to the pain and resentment.

You gotta let

that

shit

go

In the past, I have struggled with clapping for musicians in church.  First off, why should I even care? I imagine it’s the last thing on anyone’s mind today.  It comes down to my deeply held belief that music in church is not a show.  It is simply a form of worship.  When we go to a show, we clap.  When we got to church, we pray, and if we are truly, moved we say amen.  When I  see this in writing I can see my Presbyterian roots coming out; a particular Presbyterian church where intentionality is a core principal of worship.  What that means is that not a thing is done in worship without it being carefully considered and decided upon.  Clapping in church? Does it have a place in worship?  Let’s bring it to the worship committee.

My current church is a clapping church.  The main thing they clap for is wedding anniversaries, more theatrical than normal announcements, but mostly for music.  No clapping for any other piece of worship.  Why is this?  Well isn’t it courteous to clap at a concert?  So then shouldn’t we do this in church?  But there’s really more to it.

In My Thank You Problem, I expressed a discomfort with praise directed to me during worship.  Then my brother, John wrote:

If God enjoys praise so can we!

And I do believe that God loves our praises, not because he has an ego, but because it’s a celebration of a relationship with his children.  And maybe that’s what happens on Sunday morning.  We celebrate each other.

After he wrote this to me, I began shuffling through my old writing on the subject.  I was quite bitter about this at one point.  And I found a quote from a friend.

This is how we lift the music and the musicians up in gratitude.

How can I argue with that? That is such a beautiful way of expressing it.  It’s not perfect though.  Some churches still seem to have a problem with clapping.  I attended a church for many years where the congregation clapped, but only when they were truly moved to do it as a group under no obligation.  When the choir raised the roof, for example.  But when they sang a deeply moving, spiritual song, the congregation would respond with quiet reverence.  This never bothered me.

The problem arises with obligation.  What do you do if one Sunday the choir makes you want to get up and clap and say amen, but the next Sunday it doesn’t happen?  If there is an unspoken obligation to clap, then you clap in a quiet, courteous way…in a let down way?  I don’t really know.  That changes things to me, though.  Then, instead of coming out to worship, which is only measured by God’s pleasure (I believe it’s always his pleasure), we’re getting judged by the congregation’s pleasure.  I usually know when we didn’t accomplish our mission to compel people to worship in their hearts and now I have a clap-o-meter to confirm it.  I’m used to it.  There’s no way we can inspire everybody with every anthem.  Sometimes we fall short of that, but God makes it holy for us.  Our worshipful hearts make it holy.  But the ego in me does notice how loud and long they clap.

It’s really a small thing, this clapping thing.  It’s not something I walk away from on Sunday morning feeling bad about.  I confess there’s a Presbyterian in me who just wants to say “That’s it!  No more clapping! No response, is the only equal response.”  What an awful thing for a church leader to do.  It’s been done.

But maybe that’s not a Presbyterian thing so much.  My brother Paul is a Presbyterian minister, and here’s what he said (paraphrased)

David,  it’s my job to do one of two things.  Get them to tone it up or get them to tone it down.  And you know what, I’ve never had to get them to tone it down.  And so when they clap, I’m excited because they’re toning it up and getting involved.  If you have a church that needs toning down, then I call that a blessing.

I attend two services, a toned down early service, and a very enthusiastic late service.  It’s all we can do to get them to sit down and be quiet.  They love to be with each other.  They love to clap for each other.  They love to be in dialog with our new pastor as she preaches her sermon.  This is GOOD no matter how loud or soft people clap.  Clapping is something that only the living do.  It’s a sign of life.  We have a living congregation in a wonderful and spiritual sense.

Yes, that quiet Presbyterian boy with all the rules sometimes just wants a little peace and quiet.  I’ve never been a good fit for the party crowd, but I certainly don’t want to be the one who spoils it.

When Sunday morning comes, and my choir sings “Triune Blessing” with their beautiful harmonies, the congregation will clap.  And I will say this to myself:

Lord, thank you for friends that care enough about us and our offering to show it.

#mywifesaysimcomplicated

This is one of those posts where I want to have understood a problem I’m having by the time I’m done writing it.

Part One:  What I THINK the Problem Is

When I was a kid, I was taught to say thank you if someone said something nice to me.  To my recollection, I did so as often as you could expect a child to do.  But somewhere along the way, thank you’s became tricky for me.

I got to thinking about this because a friend gave me a compliment ment recently and I added all of this baggage to the backside of the thank you.

So much of this problem stems from the fact that I have a very public-facing job on Sunday morning.  I’m a musician.  I do things in front of people that normally warrant an encouraging response…clapping, compliments.  I’d just as soon avoid all that.  Worship is my goal, not accolades.  (EDIT:  I’m reminded of a friends words, “It is good to lift up the music and the musicians in gratitude.) But there’s something about music that is different than other expressions of worship.  It moves people to want to respond in that way.  I’ll accept that one day.  That’s a whole other post.  Also, let me say that although because of my job I might receive more complements than the average, I’m not showered with compliments everywhere I go so much that I just can’t deal with everyone loving me SO MUCH.  I’ve received two compliments this week, and I screwed one of them up.

I first became aware that I had a thank you problem when I was in college.  I was a soloist in my college choir concert.  I sang  the solo clearly and beautifully and in a manner that only a young voice can .  I was a very inconsistent singer in those days (still am) and it didn’t always come out right, but this time it felt like no one in the world could have sung it better.   After the concert, I was weaving through the crowd to find my parents and I ran into one of the doctoral choral conducting students.  His usually somber face lit up when he saw me.

He said, “David.  Wow!  Your solo!  That was a real golden moment for me.”

To which I responded, “Yeah, it was a real golden moment for me, too.”

That solo was one of the great moments of my life. I felt that I was awesome for once and had no sense of humility in expressing it.  His response was to make an expression like “Geez. THIS kid.”  And then without saying anything turned around and left.  I say I was sincere because I was, but I wasn’t really raised to be humble, or if I was, I never learned to do it.  I had instead developed some serious praise-seeking habits, and when I finally got some praise, I feasted.

I didn’t think anything of it at the time.  But at some point, maybe a year or two later after I gained a little maturity, I remembered that moment and realized that although I was sincere and that’s a good thing, I might have come off like an arrogant prat.  And this is when it occurred to me.  All I needed to have said was “Thank you so much.”

So simple, and it’s really all anyone wants to hear.  If they want more information they will ask.  Some mistakes I’ve made when given a compliment:

them: “Great singing!”
me: “Thanks, but I didn’t feel good about it.”
This insults their opinion.

them: “Hey, I really liked your song.”
me: “Thank you so much.  That was the best I have ever sung it.”
This lacks humility.

them: “Wow.  That was such a wonder recital.”
me: “Thank you so much. I started practicing in June.”
This detracts from the accomplishment.  It’s showing the man behind the curtain, so to speak.  If they want to know, they will ask.

them: “The project was a success.  Everyone says so.”
“Thank you.  You see, I had this vision…”
It’s egotistical to think they want your grand vision in response to a complement.

them: “Good job on the feature update”
me: “Thanks.  At first, I coded it this way, then tried this factory pattern but then I figured out that this was the solution.”
My boss could care less.

them: “You work so well with kids”
me: “Thank you so much.  I used to be a music teacher, but then I started getting physical threats and then I got a negative one dollar raise.  So I quit.”
This story is just sad.  It in no way belongs in a thank you.

This is what I mean by adding baggage to the back side of a thank you.  It’s kind of like saying “I’m sorry, but…” as an apology.  It negates the apology altogether.

What someone really wants to do is shake my hand, tell me how much they loved whatever it was that I did, and go on their merry way.  They don’t want the baggage.

I’ve improved light years on this.  Nine times out of ten, I smile, shake a hand, take a hug, and say “Thank you so much.”  I rarely have a problem.  But it still happens.  I still add baggage on to my thank you’s.

So what’s my problem?  Why do I still struggle with this sometimes?  I have a nearly constant running stream of dialog in my head.  The thank you baggage is just a part of that stream.  So I guess I’m saying that it’s a filter issue.  That’s it!  I have a filter issue, so I just need to learn how to solve it.

When my wife and I are hanging out with friends, and my filter breaks, she kicks me in the leg under the table.  Then I shut up.  If I could only have her with me all of the time!

Part Two:  What the Bigger Picture Problem Is

At the core of this whole thank you thing is me and my rigid social rules. Social anxiety.  I can’t remember who, but I had a mentor somewhere along the way who taught me the thank you rule, and it stuck.  And remember that friend that got me thinking about this in the beginning?  I tried to apologize later in the day for not accepting their compliment properly.  Did they care?  Not one little bit.  It never occurred to them that I had broken any rules or showed any ingratitude.  I’ve developed this anxiety where I want to try to fix history.  I wanted to go back in a time machine using a text and try to set it right.  The truth is that things are well enough left alone nine times out of ten.  But I ignore that instinct.  I fret and I fiddle.

Maybe that choral student didn’t really think poorly about anything I said after all.  Maybe he just needed to go to the bathroom.  But even if I did make a poor impression, it’s likely that he didn’t think about it much if at all.  And so I have the thank you paranoia now.  There is an art to accepting a compliment that everyone should learn, but really, people are awfully forgiving when it comes to this if they even notice at all.    The truth is, if I gave you a compliment and you expressed that you didn’t deserve it, I would probably touch you on the shoulder and say, “Nope.  I know what I’m talking about.  You. Were. Superb.”

I have a group of friends from Bangladesh, and they love to party pretty hard.  I don’t see them much anymore.  I used to attend all of their crazy parties.  And I always wanted to leave earlier than they wanted me to.  At Bengali parties, the food isn’t served until after 10 and with this particular group, they drink and dance most of the night.  That’s just not my style.  I would eat then leave ,which is not cool.  You eat.  Then you stay.  And so I don’t go anymore. They know that they’re not going to get all of me that they want.  I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

And so when I was invited to a wedding reception party, I came late, but this time I really was late.  I was the last person to arrive.  It was in a friend’s apartment.  If you’ve never seen a southeast Asian wedding reception, you’re missing out.  It’s beautiful.  The bride and groom are dressed like royalty up on a platform covered with flowers, sweets, and rice dishes.

I walked in and my friend jumped up to say hi and introduce me.  There were many people there I did not know.

“Hey everybody, this-a David!  He speak Bangla!  Go ahead,” and he pounded me on the back.

My face burned.  I’d learned a few Bangla phrases to show that I cared about my friends’ culture. Most of them appreciated my feeble attempts, but at one party, a very drunk fellow heard me say to one of the women how delicious the food was in Bangla.  He mimicked me by saying it back with exaggerated slowness.   After that, I didn’t much care to do it again.  But my friend had put me on the spot so I shouted “Assalamu alaikum!”  and everyone gave their usual cheer.

My friend said, “Ok, here’s what you do.  You go up to the them, offer them a blessing, and they’ll give you some food.”

I was glad to hear this because I was really hungry and was looking forward to some good Bengali cooking.  I came up to the platform and tried to think of something to say.  I thought of all of the corny blessings in American films featuring foreign characters. Something like, “Many blessings be upon your head and upon the heads of your children.”  But that just didn’t seem right, and I’m not sure I could have said it without a phony accent.  I don’t remember what I said, though, but whatever it was, I was going for as normal as possible.

I started looking around for which food I might eat, but I couldn’t see any plates.  Then the next thing I knew there was a plastic spoon in my mouth.  The groom, with a wide grin, had shoved a spoonful of cold rice into my mouth.  He began to nod and grin at me.  I nodded and grinned back, but something was happening.  My body was rejecting this rice.  Something about him putting it into my mouth and it being cold made me start to gag.

Rather than swallow the rice, I ran to the bathroom and spit it out.  I don’t think anybody saw, but I was worried about it nonetheless.  Who knows how old this tradition even was?  Who knows what superstition might come with it?  Maybe by spitting out the rice, I was making the bride barren.  Maybe I was bringing down some sort of curse on their heads and the heads of their children.

I realize now that if I hadn’t have been so late, the rice might not have been cold and I might not have spit it out.

I miss my Bengali friends.  It would probably only take a phone call to be invited to another party or reception.  But I also know what that would mean.   I’d have to be out late on a Saturday night.  And while those guys would be sleeping in the next day, I would be getting up at 7:30 to direct music at church.  And I’d rather have a plastic spoon of rice shoved into my mouth than miss that.

I’ve written about my struggles with Bipolar Affective Disorder on this blog before, but I know some of you are new readers.  It showed up in the two years before 2011 in rather dramatic ways that I don’t care to relive with you.  Needless to say, it disrupted my life.  It disrupted my family’s life.  I began treatment in 2011.  Treatment consisted of psychotherapy, nutrition, and medicine.  I was taught that my brain chemistry was in constant need of balance through meds, supplements, nutrition, exercise, and what chemicals I put in my body.  Until I achieved balance I was restricted from drinking alcohol, using tobacco products, and drinking caffeine.  I followed to a T.

It took me over a year before I could feel balanced.  It’s funny, it’s hard to tell when you’re balanced until you are.  You look back and see the daily struggle with mania and depression and realize that you were imbalanced all along.  I can tell by reading my blog sometimes if I was imbalanced.  There’s an acceleration, a frequency, a chaos.

Part of the balancing act is in adjusting medications.  My meds might work great for a year, but then stop working, or a side effect becomes unbearable.  I hope to never have a full manic episode again like I did in 2011, but I still have little ones and that’s probably never going to change.

It’s an illness like any other in many ways, but a mental illness is different in other ways.  If I get sick, I don’t have pain or a fever or nausea.  It’s not exactly physical.  Bipolar is listed as a neurological disease as well as a mental illness.  So when I get sick, my brain doesn’t work properly.  And when that happens my behavior changes.  My feelings change.  My personality changes.  My perception of the world changes.  There are social lines that I would never cross while I’m well that I might cross when I’m sick.  This leads to disruption and embarrassment and sometimes hurt, none of which I see until I level out.  But these days I’m so well treated that only the people who are the closest to me would likely notice when I’m off.  I’m glad for this.

This week, I got up to go to work and my wife noticed that my speech was slurred and I had a very flat affect; more so than normal for just having gotten up. This was to the point where I might have gotten a DUI.  She’s noticed that I’m forgetting entire recent conversations.  We went to see a movie, and the next day I couldn’t tell you what we saw.  I didn’t remember that my mom just had knee surgery.  I pretended that I did so that I wouldn’t upset anyone. (Mom! If you are reading, I love you and I hope you’re knee is better!)  I’ve been working on the same problem at work for days in a row.  When my coworkers talk to me about the technical aspects of their work, I don’t always understand what they are saying.  And so it’s time to see the doctor.

My wife came with me this time, as she does once in awhile, because I wasn’t seeing everything that was happening and she was.  And so now I have to stop a  medicine that has saved me from suffering for months because it’s affecting my cognition.  That is frustrating.  I started taking that medicine because a medicine I’d been taking for years just wasn’t cutting it enough.  And the cycle continues.  Fortunately, there are new drugs coming out every year for me to try.

I’ll be starting a new drug tonight, and it’s a gamble.  Will it keep me balanced?  Will it have side effects?  I’m very anxious about it.  I want to be well.  I want to be balanced.

P.S. – Many of you have expressed concern for me after reading this post.  Med changes and side effects can put me in an anxious state, but I’ve been through this many times.  I’m not in a crisis at the moment.  Thanks, though, for your prayers and encouragement.  Perhaps I’ll follow up with the results of the change.

In Journey to Norman, I described my family’s big move to Norman, Oklahoma.  As I was writing it, it occurred to me that that transition from Lonoke to Norman, from small town to big town, was especially formative for me.  Before I tell you about this transition I’d like to say why I even write this blog.  My Wife Says I’m Complicated is a sharing of the inevitable complications of life, but it’s a little more.  My wife has said for years that I’m a complicated person with complicated problems.  My wife is rarely wrong about things and especially about matters of my character and nature.  She’s come to accept this about me, and I’ve come to accept this about myself.  I say that I’m complicated with no pride or shame.  I am what I am.  Perhaps it’s genetics.  I share because it helps me understand why I am the way I am.  I couldn’t say why you read it, but I’m glad you do.

You first must understand the difference between where I lived and where I moved.  Lonoke had a population of around 3500.  It was a farm town with very few amenities. If you wanted to go out and see a movie or eat you went to  Little Rock just 20 minutes up the road.  For a kid, though, you really didn’t have to go anywhere.  Lonoke was a perfect place for a kid to grow up.  We could ride our bikes anywhere.  We could shoot bee bee guns in the park.  There were lots of trees to climb.  There were high school football games to hang around at.

There was poverty in Lonoke, but most of my friends fit squarely in the middle class.  There was almost nothing above middle class and that seemed to keep society pretty flat, at least in elementary school.  There were only four schools:  a primary school, an elementary school, a junior high, and a high school.

Norman is vastly different.  It has a thriving commerce that is not agriculture based.  I can do almost anything I want without leaving Norman.  Although Norman was not yet a city when I moved there in 1984, it was a large town.  Norman has a lot of wealth which really affects it’s social strata.  Playing in Norman for a kid is more structured.  The sports were organized.  I don’t recall ever playing a pickup game as a kid in Norman like we used to do in Lonoke.  No, our parents had to be involved.  Norman had so many schools.  I really couldn’t count how many schools there are in Norman.  In Lonoke, I could no every kid in my grade for the entire town.  In Norman, I couldn’t even know every kid in my grade for my one school.  Lastly, no more black friends.  I don’t recall more than 3 black students at Whittier at that time.  It was a white school.

When I moved, I was so optimistic about my new life.  I’d never had problems making friends or being successful in school.  I thought I understood the world and how it worked…how it worked for me, but Norman changed that.  Norman was a much wider world.

On the first day, Paul and I arrived with identical jackets and identical home done haircuts.  The only difference between us was that I was wearing a plaster cast on my right leg.  We were given a quick tour of the school which was so perplexing.  It was an open classroom configuration.  After our tour, the math teacher, Mrs. Pierce, took us to her area and tested us.  This test would determine our mathematics path through our entire public school career.  And for the first time, Paul and I took different academic paths.  Paul got into the advanced math class and I didn’t.  I have this vague memory that there must have been a mistake.  I had always been on the enrichment path with Paul, but that had ended.  I was now unsure of myself.  If that had ended, then what else might end?

I’d never been the object of teasing and bullying before.  I’m not saying it didn’t exist in Lonoke, but I’d never encountered it.  On my first day, I was weaving through the crowd to get to my locker and a big 8th grader grabbed me by the neck with both hands and screamed in my face.  In my math class, a girl teased me about my name, Burns.  Kids had tried to tease me about that before, but the best they could ever come up with was “David burns it,” but it never stuck because what does it even mean?  But this girl must have watched M.A.S.H and known about the Burns in that and his relationship with Hot Lips Houlihan.  She called me Hot Lips for a year.  But you know what?  At first, I just thought she was flirting with me.  But then I saw the way she treated other kids and realized that she wasn’t.  I was an innocent kid who assumed the best of people…still am.

But the worst incident in that first year happened in English class.  I’d given up on math, but English was one of my top subjects.  I loved the teacher and she seemed to love me back.  I was the kid who raised his hand with every question.  I didn’t really realize I was making an ass of myself, I just wanted to please the teacher and do well in the class.  I got tagged with a nickname, Mr. Computer, but it wasn’t from friends.  I didn’t have any friends, yet.  After class one day, the biggest kid in the grade came up to me with what I can only describe as cronies. The kid had actual cronies.  He addressed me as Mr. Computer and then grabbed what little meat I had on my chest hard (purple nurple) and said that if I wanted him to let me go I had to whistle.  The problems was, I didn’t know how to whistle.  But this was really hurting and people were staring.  “Whistle!” He shouted again.   In my panic, I did the only thing I could think of to do. I made a wolf whistle with my little 6th grade falsetto voice.  They laughed at me and he let me go.  In retrospect, it was kind of funny, but I wasn’t laughing at the time.  I went home reliving that sense of helplessness and humiliation.

Friends did come eventually. I shared a lab table in science with two boys, let’s call them Robert and Josh.  I’d been at Whittier long enough to know what these kids were.  They were losers.  They were at the bottom, and I believed I was as well.  I had come from a school where everyone liked me.  Perhaps I wasn’t cool, but I was socially fluid.  If there was a social strata, I felt comfortable with all groups.  And now I was at a school where kids called me Hot Lips and Mr. Computer and wouldn’t have anything to do with me except for Robert and Josh.  And why were they losers?  I found out when I went to visit them each in their homes.  They were poor.  At Whittier, to be poor was to be a loser.  These were the kind of friends that always tried to make friends with the new kids like me; the kids who might not realize the nature of their social status.

In the same year I got catfished hard by a girl over the phone.  She pretended to be someone who wanted to be my girlfriend, and for all of a day I thought things were looking up.  I thought this could significantly raise my social status which was something that was becoming very important to me.  Read the whole story if you like! Girlfriend Bamboozle

Then I met Trent, and everything changed.  He sat in front of me in English.  The first thing I noticed about him was that his hair was clearly cut by a professional.  No home cuts.  This kid was living the life.  And he was smart, but kids didn’t hate him for it.  He mostly kept to himself in class.  I struck up a conversation with him after class.  God only knows what was said, but we hit it off.  He soon invited me over to his house.  He wasn’t poor.  He had a nice house, even nicer toys, and an endless supply of Fruit Rollups.  He was not a loser.  After meeting him, I stopped hanging our with Robert and Josh.  I made up excuses not to go to their houses or have them over.  I did not understand at the time that I was contributing to the same social rules that had made the first part of my time at Whittier so miserable, and even if I did, I might not have cared.  I needed to find a place in the world, and making this new friend was the first step.

He was in band, and so was I, and soon I would begin identifying as a band person, a musician.  I wasn’t the most popular kid in band, but I was one of the best musicians.  This was my group until I graduated high school.  I’d found my place in the large world of Norman and I quickly made new friends.  There were other humiliations, damaging rumors, bullying, but I felt secure in my place.  There were people who didn’t care about the rumors.  Even some of the girls liked me.  Especially Jennifer Wilson.

We lived in Lonoke, Arkansas from the time I was four-years-old to the time I was eleven.  Our journey to Norman, Oklahoma in 1984 began many days before our move;  the day when my father gathered us into the front living room of our house on Center Street.  I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he broke the news that we would be moving to Oklahoma for him to preach at another church.  There were no tears or complaints.  It was if in spite of our love for Lonoke, we were ready to go.  If my mom wasn’t ready, she did not show it.  Paul and I were up for an adventure and John may have been too young to really comprehend.

Paul and I knew that going away parties were a thing and we decided to throw ourselves one.  I didn’t think this was weird or inappropriate until many years later when Paul pointed out that it was customary for friends to throw the party.  I do also recall that we invited people to bring presents.  I don’t remember who all was in attendance, but I did remember that Todd, the African-American kid who kindly pointed out that my first day of class clothes were for girl, was there.  I point out that he was African-American because I was starting to become more aware of race, and when his mother came to get him, I watched as my mother and his mother had a friendly chat and I realized that my mother was not like other white members of the community who would never have socialized with black neighbors.

I’d become obsessed with kissing a girl ever since my long time crush had a boy-girl birthday party with a dance.  I saw her slow dance with the coolest kid in school and he kissed her on the lips.  I was very much in a devil-may-care mood about it, but I didn’t know how to do anything about it.  I imagined holding a dance myself, but all I got was the party we threw for ourselves and it wasn’t much of a kissing party.  I didn’t get my first kiss until church camp the summer before my freshmen year of high school.

My father had brought a chamber of commerce map back from Norman, and Paul and I studied it hard.  We couldn’t believe we were moving to someplace so cool.  There were restaurants, bowling alleys, a mall, a roller rink, three or four movie theaters, and an enormous public pool.  We bragged to our friends in Lonoke about Norman, and I remember bragging particularly about our new house having wall-to-wall carpeting.  I’d gotten the impression from flooring commercials that this was a luxury.

I remember very little about leaving Lonoke other than taking note as we passed the rice towers (grain elevators) on I-40 that it might be the last time in awhile that I would see them.  They were significant to me because they were always the first and last signs of Lonoke you would see from the interstate.

It was Halloween, but Halloween was the last thing on my mind.  I was eager to see our new house and our new town.  When we reached the border of Oklahoma, there was a welcome sign and we all got out of the yellow Ford Fairmont station wagon to take a picture.  There was trash everywhere.

When we arrived, it was dusk and we were soon greeted by members of our new church with the oddest casserole I had ever seen or smelled.  It was beef and rice baked in a whole pumpkin.  I’ll always associate that house on Leslie Lane with that smell.  I thought we must be lucky to have friends waiting for us.

The woman who brought the casserole also brought her daughter and grandchildren.  They were dressed for trick-or-treating.  The boy was dressed as Satan and after a few stops I thought the costume was appropriate.  Again, I appreciated the welcome.  We would have missed trick-or-treating altogether if it weren’t for them.

School would start very soon for us, perhaps the next day.  We came from a town where school was a very positive thing for us.  We had friends and made good grades.  There were no truly rich kids in Lonoke and social strata had not fully formed in our grade, and so Whittier Middle School was a culture shock to me with it’s cliques and wealth.  I’d like to write more about that transition because it set some things in motion for me that formed my notions about myself for years to come.  Read Finding a Place

I visit Lonoke once in awhile and wonder what my life would have been like if I’d stayed or if I returned to live there, but I ultimately reject that line of thinking because I have been so greatly blessed to live in Norman, Oklahoma.  As I matured here, I developed this sense that God had brought us to Norman and that it was the best possible outcome for me and my family.

It’s important to know your audience.  This is a story that I have told to teachers several times and it never comes off well.  I’ve finally learned over the years not to tell it at all at my wife’s teacher parties.  I think the reason why is because it is a discouraging story and relevant commentary on public education.  Perhaps that’s why I’ve never written about it.  It also does not reflect well on me.  It’s the story of how I went from being a public school music teacher to being a software engineer.

In 1996, I graduated college with a bachelor’s of vocal music education and immediately began looking for jobs as a middle school or high school choir director.  Apparently, those are tough positions to find so I settled for a job as an elementary school music teacher at two schools in Moore, Oklahoma.  I was to split my time between two schools both of which had music teachers and needed someone else to take a few grades.

Although I had strengths in putting together fine choral programs, I wasn’t really good at nor was I interested in the music education curriculum.  I also struggled with classroom discipline.  Overall, I was a pretty mediocre teacher, but it was a job with benefits and our expenses were very low.  It was just Jenny and me and this was the most money I’d ever made.

There were things I liked about the job.  I grew to love my students very much, even ones that raised hell in my classroom.  I say classroom very loosely because most of the time, I only had a cart to wheel from classroom to classroom.  Eventually, one of the schools gave me a prefab classroom which was a great improvement on my life.  I liked teaching songs and playing games with them, and they liked my class as long as that’s what I did.  You may think that that is all there is to a music class, but I was also expected to teach my kids how to read and understand music and maybe even play some instruments.  But remember, all I really cared about in the beginning was directing choir, and so that’s what I often did.  No one complained that I know of.

In my second year, Jenn and I had our first child and things changed.  Suddenly, my salary wasn’t enough for us to live as comfortably as we had been living.  This created a strain for us.  Then I began what became my final year of public school teaching.  It started with a letter from Moore Public Schools.  This letter is the reason I think it’s a good story and part of the reason why it’s not popular with teachers.

Around the time the new school year starts, teachers receive a letter informing them of their annual raise and any changes to their benefits.  My first raise had been modest, but we were getting by; however, this letter was different.  I remember only two things from that letter.  It began with

Dear Mr. Wilson-Burns,

Congratulations!  We are pleased to offer you $-1 raise in your pay.

It was clearly a form letter.  If a person had actually looked at this, they might have changed “congratulations” to “unfortunately”.  I was stunned.  I read and reread the letter until I realized what had happened.  The second thing I noticed is that my healthcare premium had raised enough to eclipse my raise in pay.  I entered my third year feeling the strain of having a new baby and the resentment for not having received a raise.

There was a change of location for me that year that was convenient.  They moved me from one school building a couple of miles away to an annexed building across from the other school.  I got the idea that I could march my kids over to my prefab and teach in my own space.  So one nice early fall day, I took a third grade class across the street to the prefab.  Everything went smoothly until we left the class.  In front of the building, and I’ll never know why, there was a post with a rope mounted on the top of it.  I turned around to get the kids in order and one of them had wrapped the rope around another’s neck and was intentionally choking him.  I shouted at him to let go.  For an uncomfortable two seconds he stared me down before he finally let the kid go.  I don’t remember what I said or did next, but the kid picked up a large rock and aimed it at my head from about six feet.  I tried to keep my cool, but I was really disturbed and seriously afraid he was going to knock me in the head with that rock.   I must have said something to convince him to put the rock down because he did.  And that’s the first time I thought it, “I don’t get paid enough to put up with this shit.” And that was the last time I took them to the prefab.

Soon after, I was in the other third grade class and there was this one problem child.  He had a sweet disposition, but he was prone to bullying.  One day, I was teaching the song John Henry, and the kid got up from his desk and so did the kid in the desk in front of him.  It’s important to note that my little bully was about fifty pounds heavier than any other kid in the class.  A chase ensued. Desks were knocked over.  I managed to catch the big kid from behind, but he was big enough that when he collapsed, he took me down with him.  I would have been in big trouble for doing that today, but things weren’t so tense then.

I took the kid to the principle’s office with one of my collaborative discipline cards.  Collaborative discipline or cooperative discipline, not sure, is when I ask the kid what he thinks the consequence of his behavior in my class should be.  He was very cooperative.  He decided that he should sit out of my class for a couple of days and copy out of a music book.  I consented and we both signed the card.  I asked him to send it home to his parents.

The kid was true to his word.  He never complained about his consequence (let’s get real, it was a punishment).  I was so proud and pleased with myself.  But at the end of the day, the principal called me into her office and this I remember in detail.

She said, “Mr. Wilson-Burns, please have a seat.”  She spoke in very calm and measured words,  “I’ve just received a call from a mother.  She didn’t like the way you disciplined her child.  She thought it was sadistic of you to make him come up with his own punishment.  She’s on her way to school to, and I quote, ‘kick your lily, white ass.”

I was stunned.  I’d met this woman.  She was a big lady that carried a cane.  She had a mean streak and it was easy to see where her son got his violent tendencies.

“She’s probably in the parking lot by now, so there’s no escaping her.  Here’s what I suggest.  The staff bathroom has a lock on it.  Go in there and lock the door and let me take care of her.”

I did not feel good about this, but I was a skinny, lily white kid who did not want to get caned by someone’s scary mama.  By lily white, I don’t think she was referring to my race because she was white herself.  She was referring to the fact that I was an educated, highfalutin music teacher who would probably hide in a bathroom if she came up to see me.

Nowadays, I would have stayed and worked this out with her.  I would have showed her the respect of listening to her concerns, but the principal had scared me.  And then for the second time I thought, “I don’t get paid enough to put up with this shit.”

Soon after, I recalled a conversation I’d had with Jennifer’s uncle at a family reunion that summer.  He told me about a company who would train and hire anyone to be a computer programmer on the Y2K switch if they could pass a test.   They’d start me at 10k higher than I was making as a teacher and would give me a 5k raise once I finished the training.

I didn’t know anything about computer programming, but I figured “What do I have to lose?”

I passed the test, got the job, and resigned my position without notice.

I’ve wondered over the years what would have happened if I’d remained a public school teacher. I supposed I would have toughened up. I figure I’d probably eventually gotten into a high school job.  I dream sometimes of being a high school choir director, but it’s no use.  We couldn’t afford for me to take a public school salary.  I’m contented with being a church choir director.

When I’ve told this story to teachers, they start off enjoying the story, but at some point they see a man who traded the chance to change a child’s life for the big bucks of software engineering.  They see a man who cowered when a mom came to school to see him. Perhaps they see someone who crumbled under the kinds of pressures they endure every.  I hope not.  I hope my teacher friends don’t have to deal with threats of violence on their person from parents and kids.  I don’t know why I think a teacher would think this was a good story.  My intentions are good, though.  I want to show teachers that I used to be one of them even if only for a couple of years, but instead I remind them that they are underpaid and that the good ones often leave.  But I don’t think anyone of them walked away thinking I was one of the good ones.  I know I had potential, but it would have taken a few more years for it to become anything.  I suppose I’ll never know.

But I believe things happen for a reason sometimes.  I believe I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.  There’s no point in regretting anything I did or didn’t do twenty years ago.  I share this story, not as an expression of regret, but to share a pivotal part of my life for whomever will read it.

In third grade, I developed a little bit of a violent streak.  I popped two people in the eye at recess:  my best friend and the school bully.  Larry, my friend, could be a little annoying and I blew up at him on the playground one day.  I knock him to the ground and I had hoped to give him a solid uppercut like on tv, but instead I popped him in the eye.  And for that moment, we were no longer friends.  I still remember the look of hurt and betrayal on his face.  He went to the office to tell on me, but nothing really happened, and we resumed our friendship by the end of the day.

The school bully looked like a bully.  He was thickly made, had lots of gaps in his teeth, and wore a buzzcut.  He looked mean.  He had been held back a year so he was bigger than average for a third-grader.  We met on the playground one day and he wanted to play.  We played a game called salt and pepper in which we clasped each others hands criss-cross, leaned back, and spun around.  The loser is the first person to fall.   After a few good spins he let go of me and I fell.  As is the case with many children’s games, you just make up the rules as you went along and to me this was foul play.  I climbed up, shoved him to the  ground, got on top of him and, once again, socked somebody in the eye.  But I had no sense of my violence.  I was too busy being disappointed that I didn’t do a perfect upper cut to the jawbone.

I’ve thought over these two incidences in recent years.  I wondered what was so special about that year that I committed the only two acts of violence toward a human being in my entire life.  Today, I was talking about it to my twin brother, Paul, and something occurred to me that had never occurred to me before.  Why did I think that kid was a bully?  He had never bullied me before.  I don’t recall ever seeing him bully someone.  Of course, my memory is a little fuzzy.  The truth is I didn’t know the kid at all.  The truth is that he may have just looked like a bully from tv.   He may not have been a bully at all.

I’m rethinking this fight.  What if it happened this way?   This kid approached me on the playground to play.  He didn’t come over to harass me in any way.  He didn’t have any friends because all of his friends went on to the fourth grade which was five blocks away, and finally he meets somebody who will play with him.   I lost the game and blamed it on him.  He may have let go, he may not have, but if you think about it, it’s not necessarily cheating, it’s just really good strategy and kind of a funny, harmless joke.   Then I shove him to the ground and sock him in the eye.

And then I wonder, has this 45-year-old person been telling the story about how he was bullied by the preacher’s kid in third grade?  Was he the one who slugged his best friend and an innocent playmate?  Had he been a sore loser and thrown a violent fit?  No.   Which raises the question, who was the bully?

On the way home from work yesterday, I decided to make beef stroganoff out of some sirloin steak I bought a week previous.  The closer I got to home, the more worried I became about whether the meat was still good.  I nearly called Jennifer to check for me as I drove, but I decided I didn’t want her to worry about it, too.   I thought about the other dishes I could make, but I really wanted the stroganoff.

When I got home I went immediately to the refrigerator.  Sure enough, it was two days after the freeze date.  But what does that mean?  Does that mean it is expired?  I tore open the package and gave it a good sniff.  Not bad.  No rotten egg smell like you get from bacteria consuming meat.  So I rinsed it off and cut it up.  As I did it, I noticed it was too much meat for the three of us:  Chris, Jenny, and myself.  That’s the new reality.  My daughter lives on her own and cooks her own meals.  But I decided to use it all anyway.  I fretted about it as it cooked, tasting ever 10 minutes or so to make sure nothing was funky.

When the beef, onions, and mushrooms where browned and simmering, I went into the living room to watch tv, and as soon as I sat down, I got a text from my daughter Alli.  She was feeling out of sorts so I invited her over for a meal.  I was making plenty.  This made me so happy.  I don’t see her enough these days.

When Alli arrived, I gave her a tour of our fall decorations which included some Halloween stuff.  Halloween is her favorite and I hoped it would cheer her up.  And as we ate, she asked if we could spare some decorations.  I said that we could and so I climbed into the attic and brought down a few boxes.  These were special boxes because they were filled with a collection of Lemax Spooky Town miniatures.  I hadn’t put them out in years because that all had broken pieces.  Each miniature is a building that when you plug it in has moving pieces and makes spooky sounds.  I was really excited by the idea of her having them.  She didn’t seem to care that some of it was broken.  It’s exciting to me, because my family picked them out together several years in a row.  It had become a Wilson-Burns family tradition and now it was being carried on.

After dinner, Chris went to his room and Alli and I sat in the living room to visit.  Somehow, we got to talking about a childhood Halloween favorite, Disney’s Halloweentown.  I found it on Amazon, but I didn’t dare suggest that we watch it.  I had just that evening said that I don’t watch Halloween movies until October.  But Alli persuaded me.

“Please? For nostalia’s sake?”  she said.

I thought about how fewer our moments together had become.  She was an adult now.  How often would I get to do this with her?  Halloween was is in some ways our father-daughter holiday.  We both loved spooky movies more so than Jenn and Chris.  We used to watch them all through the month.  I confess some of them were way too mature for her, but she loved them anyway and endured the nightmares without complaint.

And it was nostalgic.  We had loved those Halloweentown movies.  I love stories which involve magic and monsters.  Chris joined us part way through so we watched it all together.  This first one was made in 1998 before the Harry Potter movie craze which means that it’s witches and warlocks weren’t riding on the coat tails of Harry, Ron, and Hermione like so many did.

We watched the whole film and then she left.  I decided that it was ok that I broke my rule about Halloween movies.  I make these rules because I don’t want to be burned out before Halloween arrives which must have happened at some point, but I can’t remember when.

My heart aches a little to think that those early days are gone and can never return.  I’ll never take my kids treak-or-treating again.  Hopefully, there’ll be grand kids for that.

The strogranoff was perfect, by the way.  No one got sick at all!  And for a rare moment, we were all together for a meal.  We even sat at the table.

On July 30th, 1994 I married Jennifer Wilson and we became the Wilson-Burnses.  When we were engaged I asked her if she wanted to take my name but I knew even before she answered that that just wasn’t us, so we decided to take each other’s names instead.  We wanted to communicate to the world that we saw our marriage as an equal partnership.  We wanted to say that although we remained ourselves, Wilson and Burns, God created something new with us.  Also, I’ll just say right now that this was never meant to be a criticism of women who take their husband’s names.  We respect people’s choices for their names.

Hyphenated names were becoming common, so I didn’t think it peculiar at all until I went to get a new driver’s license.  A woman with a brusque manner at the tag agency said, “You can’t change your name without a judge.”

I said, “Are you married?  Did you need a judge to change your name?”

She scrutinized my face for a moment and then called to the back, “Can this man change his last name without a judge?  He says he just got married and wants to change his name.”

A younger woman stepped to the counter and assured her that is was no different than a woman changing her name.

The brusque woman sighed as if to say “what is this world coming to?”

Then I legally became David Hill Wilson-Burns.  And Jennifer became Jennifer Nicole Wilson-Burns.

There’s actually another guy in Oklahoma that hyphenated with his wife and he and his wife are both United Methodist ministers.  There are lots of men around the world who have a hyphenated name.  It seems more common especially in Hispanic cultures, but I don’t think it’s the same deal.

One day a coworker and I were driving back from lunch in Oklahoma City and I got pulled over for speeding.  The officer asked for my driver’s license.  He muttered my name to himself and then said, “Hyphenated.  What are you?  Mexican?”  And then he laughed.  I knew what he meant.

It’s so hard to communicate my name to people especially over the phone.  “Williamsburg?  Burns?  Wilson?  Can you spell it?”

I used to really take this personally.  Exasperated I would say, “Listen, it’s two names.  Wilson and Burns.  W-I-L-S-O—”

I’m in databases as Wilson or Burns all of the time.  I’m just used to saying “Can you look me up as Burns? Try Wilson.  Try my birthdate.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t seem to have you Mr. Burns.  Have you filled a prescription with us before?”

Only for eight years.

At some point I stopped taking it so personally.  I started answering to any combination of those two names.  After all, I chose this.  No one is obligated to accommodate my lifestyle choice.  It’s just my legal name.  Who cares?

In 2011 I had a bit of a breakdown and started going by Burns again.  I felt like I wanted my name back.  It confused the hell out of everyone.  So now at church, for example, many know me as David Burns.  I don’t correct any one anymore.  It’s all good.

But I bear this name with pride now.  I’ve been a Wilson-Burns for 23 years.  My kids are proud to be Wilson-Burnses, too.  I honestly don’t know what they will do with their names if they ever get married and have kids.  But our attitude has always been, “Well that’s THERE problem!”

When we stood up before God and our family and friends we made the following vows,

I take you to be my wife/husband, to love and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do us part. This is my solemn vow.

And for us, sharing our names has become a symbol of those vows.   It means that we are flesh of each other’s flesh and bone of each other’s bone…and name of each other’s name.

I don’t have a lot to say today.  Just a few thoughts.  As we enter Autumn, I’m getting a rush of feelings and nostalgia.  Fall for me as a child was a welcome season.  I looked forward to returning to school.  I liked another chance to excel.  I liked to be with my friends.  I have little memory of seeing my friends in the summer other than my baseball team and my twin brother, Paul.

Fall was a time for new things.  New clothes.  New teachers.  Perhaps a new friend.  And new shows on tv.  There were only reruns during the summer.  Reruns and advertisements for new shows or new episodes.

Then there was the knowing that although school might start in the heat, by the end of September, the heat would give way to cool mornings and evenings.  Then Halloween and Thanksgiving.  I won’t even try to tackle those holidays in this piece.

What I do want to tackle is why do I still love fall so much.  My work is steady.  There are no seasons in what I do.  Every day in my office is the same as the next.  And when I do get out,  I no longer play in the leaves.  I don’t dress up for Halloween.  Perhaps it’s the knowing that others are experiencing what I experienced as a child.

In school, kids will make jack-o-lanterns out of cardboard paper.  Thy will make decorations out of autumn leaves.  They will make turkeys by cutting out colored paper around their hand prints.  They will play touch football in the fallen leaves.  They will carefully plan costumes.  Do I want to be a part of that?  Not really.  My day has past.

But there are little things I do.  My wife and I decorate the house.  I like to put out a scarecrow, a bale of hay, and some pumpkins out front.  We take long walks in the cool weather.  I will eat and smell all things pumpkin.  I like to carve one of them into a jack-o-lantern on Halloween Night.  I will watch half a dozen horror flicks in October.  For Thanksgiving morning, I will cook a sausage from Goliad, Texas just like my Papa used to do.  Why is this all so exciting to me?  They seem like such small things.

I’m not sure, to be honest.  What I do know is that they are traditions.  And traditions keep me connected with my past.  And when you have as lovely a past as I do, you want to remember it.  My childhood was a golden thing.  This is something I was fortunate to have had.  I suppose I took it for granted then, but I’m grateful for it now.

But it’s not just about the past.  It’s the possibilities of the present.  There’s always the possibility that I will make new memories.  For some reason, it seems more likely to happen in fall.

And so every year, I look forward to taking this journey that goes all the way to the threshold of Christmas;  a journey I have taken many times and intend to take many times again.  It will start very soon, and I’m no less excited about it then we I was 9-years-old.

I have two degrees:  a Bachelor’s of Music Education at the University of Oklahoma and a high school diploma from Norman High School.  I’m very proud of my bachelor’s degree and of being an OU grad.  But for a long time I didn’t think much of being a graduate of NHS.  “So I went to high school”, I would think, “big deal”.

I was never exactly proud to be a Tiger when I was there.  I loved being in the music program, and I was proud of that, but I never really cheered our teams on and isn’t that at the heart of Tiger pride?  Sports?  To many, at least, that is true.  Yes, I played my tuba at the games and flirted with the flute player I eventually married, but I didn’t really care much about the game.  I didn’t really know much about football and still don’t.  I thought of Tiger pride as something reserved for the cool kids;  the kids in the student section getting out of hand while we played “In a Godda Da Vida”.

To be honest, I don’t even know if those were the “cool kids” or not.  I’m not even sure what that means anymore.  All I really knew then, though, was that I wasn’t one of them. But then something happened many years later.  My wife gave birth to two Norman Tigers.  They too joined the band and played at football games.  We became band parents.  I came to games and helped setup and take down.  We watched and cheered and visited with the other parents many of whom were NHS grads as well.  Now the players and the students were just kids to me, hoping to be adults soon.  And I’m a dad who cares about kids and about Norman High.

Now my kids are out of high school and we’re no longer band parents.  But something is different.  I’m proud of my diploma.  Not everyone earned one.   I worked very hard for it.   And I’m proud to be a Tiger.  NHS is a fantastic school with fantastic teachers, administrators, and students.  And now our new phase begins.  My wife and I can be that couple who comes to games and concerts not because we have kids in the program, but simply because we’re Norman Tigers and good Norman citizens.

You see, I love living in Norman.  I intend to live all the rest of my days here.  In Norman, there is so much to be proud of and so much to be a part of.  I have both my alma maters here and all that they offer to the community.  Norman has a great music scene.  And if I ever became a big sports fan, wow, so many sports.  We have a fantastic community theatre for me to see or to perform in.  Great food.  Many wonderful festivals.  It is a vibrant community and always will be.

Last night, my wife and I went to the first NHS football game since our kids left high school.  We saw the first half of the Crosstown Clash with Norman North.  We loved the energy in OU’s stadium where the game was played.  I just don’t think adults get as a excited as kids.  It’s good to be around.  We cheered them on and especially the band.  And then, when it got a little too late for us,  we got to walk through our college campus.  “Of campus beautiful by day and night” so our school song goes.   It was a beautiful night full of love for both my alma maters.

It was a good moment to reflect on what alma mater means to me.  It means that all the work I did, all the friends I made, all of the experiences my class shared, and all of the legacy we inherited has left a permanent print on me that connects me to who I once was and who I’ve become.  It’s my choice whether I’m proud of that, and I have chosen to be a proud Tiger.

As young children, we have our first dreams about what we want our life to be.  We dream of being princesses, fire fighters, and any number of famous kinds of people.  It’s the beginning of the process of discovering and defining who we are.  Some of these dreams come true, but most are childish and unrealistic.  I encouraged my kids, but I never told them they could be successful at everything they wanted to be.   I don’t believe that.  We have our gifts.  And it’s important to nurture your child’s gifts.

My earliest dream for myself was to be a professional artist.  I took art classes.  I set up a make shift studio in a utility closet at home.  I entered and won contests.  I idolized Leonardo Da Vinci and read books about him.  I even dressed like Leo for an event at school.  And I was a pretty good little artist.

Then came music, and I developed a new dream:  to become a professional musician.  I wanted to be an educator and an opera singer.  The problem was, that although I developed into a good singer with a modicum of talent, I was never good enough to be a professional.  It took me many years to accept that even though others around me already knew it.  But I did become an educator after all and I love it.

Then I got into writing.  I dreamed of becoming a professional fiction writer.  Just like art and singing, I loved doing it.  And some people liked reading it.  But it’s not going to happen, and I accept that…not without a lot of formal training which I know I’m never going to get.

What do you do when you realize that your dreams aren’t going to come true?  This is a really important question that applies to just about everyone.  The first most important point is when the truth is revealed that a dream isn’t going to be realized do we accept it or not?  I believe in fighting for dreams.  I believe into striving and giving it a shot, but at some point a person will either succeed or not.

We all know someone who hasn’t accepted the fact that it’s just never going to happen.  We know that person…I’ve been that person…who has some talent, but just not enough.  And it’s sad to see someone we care about kid themselves about their dreams.  But what do you do?  Do you say something?  Probably not.  This is something one has to discover on one’s own.

The second point is, what do you do when you’ve accepted that it’s just not going to happen?  I don’t believe in giving up on something I love.  Not everyone has to be a professional.  In fact, most will not be.  Amateur is a noble status.  Amateurs are people who practice their art because they simply love doing it.  I’m an amateur tuba player, writing, singer, actor, and artist.  I love all of that.  I no longer need or yearn to be a professional.  It’s not sad to me.  I realize I’m only talking about career dreams, but isn’t that what many people mean when they ask about dreams?

Third, for me this is where faith comes in.  I believe in the prayer Thy Will Be Done.  I believe that there is a force in the Universe which has a will which is far greater and wiser than my own.  I believe that if I’m willing to surrender my own dreams for myself in exchange for God’s dreams for me, that I will be at my happiest.  God gave me dreams which are being realized in very satisfying ways.

God gave me a family.  God gave me fatherhood and marriage and a home.  It’s a dream that I never really held for myself, but now that I’m living it I wouldn’t trade it for any of that other stuff.

God gave me a choir.  This is where my dream and God’s dream synced up.  God gave me the tools.  God gave me the dream.  Of all of the things I know how to do, choir directing seems to come the easiest and I’m pretty good at it.  I worked hard to get good at it, but it never felt like work.  It was never a struggle.

I admire people who sacrifice and struggle and strive to achieve their goals.  The world needs them.  The world needs the people who are willing to fail 100 times before they succeed.   So how do you know if you’re one of those people?  I don’t know.

On the one hand, I have this memory.  It was my first clue that I would never be a pro singer.  I was in college and lying awake one night.  I was thinking of the other students who were being courted by grad schools and who were being chosen for important solo positions, who were being encouraged to reach for the stars.  I was not one of those people.  No one had ever told me that I would be a pro.  So did that mean I shouldn’t continue to trying?

On the other hand, one of my friends was an average musician who was striving every day since he was 15 to be a composer.  I didn’t see it in him.  But now he is a very successful composer.  Should he have given up?  Apparently not!

So did he know?  Did he have doubts like I did?  I don’t know.  Only he could have known whether to continue to work at it.

But I knew.  I knew because when God’s dreams came true for me I was happy.   Striving to achieve other dreams never made me happy.  I enjoy them so much more than that. I’m not trying to be something I’m not.

A final thought.  There are some dreams that are achievable, but does that mean you should do it?  There are some sacrifices worth making.  But not all sacrifices are worth making.  Family is not negotiable to me.  If I’d had the chops but it meant not having or caring for a family, I just don’t think I would go for it.  Then it’s a choice.  How much is it worth?  Some dreams are childish.  Some dreams are selfish.

This is not a pity party.  Oh, poor David gave up on his dreams.  I’m sorry, but I don’t see it that way at all.  I’m a very successful software engineer.  Something I never imagined being.  It makes me a good provider, which is something I did dream of being.  I help a group of people to sing together for the glory of God in a way that helps other people worship.  I feed and love my family every day.  I’m happy.  I’m grateful.  I’m accepting of who I am.  This is not a tragic story.  This is a success story.  Dream on that!

The first day of school is a huge event in a child’s life.  It’s a new start.  Will my best friend be in my class?  Will my school crush be in my class? Is this the year I will finally become popular?  Is this the year I won’t get any spankings?  And it’s also the time for new clothes if you’re privileged enough.

It’s not that I didn’t get new clothes.  I generally got a new pair of sneakers.  New socks.  New underwear.  The kind of Blue jeans that were so blue and stiff and long that when you were old enough to care you begged your mom to wash a dozen times before you had to wear them.  But most of my clothes were hand-me-downs.  Not just any hand-me-downs: the hand-me-downs of the two most popular brothers in town.  We could count on Polo and Izod and OP and whatever else was cool at the time.  Because of this, my twin and I dressed pretty well for poor preacher’s sons, and we always got the clothes in time for the first day.  Like most kids we already had our clothes picked out before the first day.  And I never had to worry if my clothes were cool because I got them from the cool kids.

In my second or third grade year (I’m not sure) I laid out all of my new hand-me-downs on the bed and made some very careful considerations.  I could go the safe route with a polo and some white tennis shorts, or I could take a riskier route.  The thing is, I knew I would be taking a chance with the other option because I had a queasy feeling about it, but I was feeling particularly devil may care and so I went for it.

The outfit that I chose was a red and white satin track suit.  Red satin track shorts with white trim. and a white satin tank top with a red stripe down the front.  This of course went with white knee socks and my knew Nike shoes.  I like the way they felt; soft and silky.  Perhaps that should have been a red flag, but I knew that they were cool or had been because of the last kid to wear them so I put my concerns away and chose them.

On the morning of the first day, no one said a word. No Paul, not my dad.  Oh, perhaps my mom said, “Well, David, that’s an interesting outfit,” but that was before I knew that when my mom said “interesting” she often meant that maybe it wasn’t the best choice; however, she always let knew choose my own clothes by then.  Besides, I was too busy being proud of my uber-stylish new-old clothes to notice.  Before leaving, my mother snapped a shot of us in our new-old outfits and the lunch boxes from the previous year.

We walked to school, which was about six blocks away.  This gave me time to really adjust to the idea that I was really going to wear this.  I was really going to walk into the school with nothing by satin.  I held my head high when I walked to my class, and I was pleased to see that my best friend was in my class.

At some point, my teacher needed a volunteer to run an errand and I was the lucky one.  Running an errand was generally reserved for only the very trusted members of the class and I counted myself one of them even though it was the first day. I set out for the destination.  While I was walking across a breezeway to wherever I was supposed to be going, I encountered another kid in my grade:  Todd.

Second/Third grade boys have been taught manners, but they don’t use them on each other at all.  And they certainly have no tact.  He stopped me as if to say, “Let’s have a little chat,”  and said, “No offense, but those are girls’ clothes.”

Despite being blunt, he said it in such a friendly way.  He was not being rude, nor was he making fun of me.  I looked down at my clothes and I immediately saw what he meant.  On some level, I already knew.  I knew by my stomach ache which happened when I was anxious about something.   I didn’t argue with him about it, and I made up my mind never to wear them again.  In fact, I wished I could have gone home right then and changed.

Todd immediately became my friend after that.  In my own little 2nd/3rd grade little boy way, I really appreciated him.  He saved me some future grief.  It was a kindness.

At some point after that, I realized something about those clothes.  I worked it out on my own.  How could such a cool kid wear girl clothes?  How could such a cool kid wear clothes that were so uncool?  The truth was that they were cool because he wore them.  He could pull them off, and I could not; plain and simple.

p.s. My mother has the picture of me in this outfit before leaving for school.  The one and only time I ever wore it.  I will post it as soon as she sends it to me.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written My Wife Says I’m Complicated.  My schedule hasn’t allowed it until now.  I’ll start with a grab bag.  Go!

Writing Mood

Me not writing isn’t totally about time, though; it’s about mood.  If you are a regular reader, you know that I have Bipolar Affective Disorder.  The last time I wrote a lot, my mood wasn’t totally level.  I was a teency bit manic.  When that happens, look out!  I will write up a storm.  Ideas come quick and plentiful.  I might write as many as three or four posts in a day.  I’m funnier, edgier, impulsive, more emotional, and pushing the bounds of appropriateness.  All of these makes really interesting blogging, at least I think it does.  After my most recent medication adjustment, my mood leveled out and some of that went away.  I’m calm, thoughtful, even-tempered, and generally lacking in creativity.  That’s why this post is so hard for me.  I’m too damn normal!

Avant Garde MRI

I’ve been having shoulder problems for the last couple of years, and it’s made it painful to swim.  Swimming is my primary exercise.  After putting it off for a couple of years, I finally went in to see an orthopedist who sent me to get an arthrogram MRI.  I’d never had an MRI and I was EXTREMELY anxious about it.  They offered a sedative, but I didn’t want anything in my body that could intoxicate me, so I decided to tough it out.  Before sliding me into the machine, they asked me if I wanted any music.   I said that I would like classical music and that they could find it on 90.1.   I knew that was a risk.  Many people think that all classical music is beautiful chamber music that is relaxing.  But I should know better.  What I was hoping for was some Bach or Dvorak or Mendelssohn.  But what I got was the music of someone being tortured and murdered and buried.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I like modern classical music.  I like the dissonance and erratic rhythm and atonality.  But it was the last thing I wanted while being stuffed and confined in a big metal box being banged on with what I could only imagine were the pick axes of angry, subterranean dwarves.

Civil Rights

Ugh!!!  I can’t write about this without getting people into trouble.   Let’s just say that I never thought I’d personally have to stand up for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.   I stood my ground and justice prevailed.  End of story?  I’d be happy to share the saga offline. You’ll be shocked.

Super Cantata

As fall approaches, I’ve begun teaching my choir this year’s Christmas cantata.  This year, to save money, I didn’t buy a new cantata.  I took bits of the last six cantatas and built a super cantata.  SUPER CANTATA.  I scribbled down an outline of the Christmas story from various Gospels on a sheet of paper and spent several days filling it in with the pieces of the previous cantatas to tell the whole story.  This required choosing pieces which work together cohesively with varying tempos, keys, styles and with a compelling musical and story arc.  None of the cantatas by themselves tell as complete a story, so this is something unique.  We’re calling it “God With Us” and it will be performed December 17th at Goodrich Memorial United Methodist Church.  It’s a funny thing to think so much about Christmas while it’s still August, but choir directors around the world are doing just that.

Hummingbird Addicts

One of the wonderful parts of life in our new house is having a wonderful back porch with a garden and lots of stuff for birds.  There’s a regular seed bird feeder and a water fountain and a hummingbird feeder.

I really enjoy sitting out on the porch listening to an audio book, sipping a La Croix, and watching the birds come to our garden.  I’ve seen a goldfinch, a dove, and may other birds I cannot name, but the most frequent visitors are the hummingbirds.  As far as I can tell there are three hummingbirds who visit.  One of them does its best to keep the other two away, but they always find a way to sneak in a few sips.  And these birds are constantly dipping their long narrow beaks into the little plastic flowers where the sugar water pools.

It’s constant!  These birds will suck that feeder dry into just a few days.  Now, I’ve never fed hummingbirds before, but how can that be good for them?!  It’s nothing but sugar water! So I did what any grown adult would do when they’re worried about something that they know nothing about; I grumbled to my wife.

“Honey, did you feed the hummingbirds?” she would say, pleasantly.

“Well, I guess I will, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to get diabetes,” I would grumble.

Etc. until she said something like “I’m getting sick of your grumbling.  Just look it up.”

So I looked it up.  Sugar water is essentially the same as the nectar they live off of in the wild.  It doesn’t hurt them.  So I refilled and went back to watching them on the porch.  Greedy, little buggers.

Ok, well that’s a good start to my return to blogging.  I’m sure I’ll come up with something interesting to share soon enough.

Thanksgiving is upon us; a time of traditions, family, and expectations.  The Burns’ have a few traditions.  We have tamales and chili on Wednesday night.  We have a special sausage from Goliad for breakfast on Thankgiving morning.  We eat around 1:30.  And at some point, we see a movie.  My vote is Care of Magical Creatures and How to Find Them.  We’ll see how compelling a case I can make.  This year, my brothers and their families will join us at our parents’ house.  I’m never happier than when I’m with my brothers.

But Thanksgiving can be a very difficult time for people, even for people who actually like being around their family.  As I prepare to make my Aunt Pat’s fabulous cornbread stuffing and a sweet potato casserole, I’m mindful of expectations.  Nothing does more damage to a family gathering than expectations.  This is where resentment and disappointment and arguments begin.

Take the sweet potatoes.  I’ve never made this dish.  I couldn’t find the ingredients I expected to use to make precisely the recipe my mom has made since we were children.  I am stressed out about it.  What if people expect it to be exactly the same?  My new motto with cooking has been to take the easy route.  I don’t have time in my life to make everything from scratch the way I used to.  I want to open a can of candied yams, mix in some butter and spice, and cover with marshmallows.  I know for a fact that that will be good.  How can I lose with yams, sugar, spice, butter, and marshmallows?  It’s a sure thing, but it may not be what my mom has been making.  Maybe she uses eggs and evaporated milk.  Maybe I should ask.  But how silly is it that I’m stressed about meeting an expectation that may not even exist? ( By the way, I just called my mom.  Simple.  Mash them with a little brown sugar and cover with marshmallows.)

With an expectation comes the possibility of disappointment.  If you expect a certain interpretation of a tradition, say mom’s sweet potato casserole, and you don’t get it, you might be disappointed, and you might resent me for causing that.  I’ve struggled with this for years.  If all of my many rules and expectations for Thanksgiving and Christmas were not met, I could be a pretty miserable soul and a pain to be around.  Expectations lead to suffering.

So why do we do this to each other and to ourselves?  Why are traditions so important that we would get upset about them?  A tradition is something we did for the very first time once and somebody liked it enough to do it again.  Take fruitcake.  In the old days, this was one of the few ways you could get fruit in the winter, and fruit was a wonderful treat.  And so fruitcake became popular at Christmas.  Fruit, nuts, and cake.  What’s not to like?  Personally, I love it.  But most do not, and yet, it is still a tradition.  And people still buy them. Perhaps you had a favorite relative who always brought them and you hold the tradition to honor them.  Perhaps it makes you think of the many gatherings with the fruitcake and some special punch.  Perhaps it just doesn’t feel like Christmas without one.    Maybe now the tradition is to complain about how awful they are.  This tradition just won’t seem to go away no matter how much people hate it.  But is it really worth it to do a tradition that nobody likes except for crazy Uncle David?  Perhaps I hold the family hostage over it.  Hey!  Don’t forget, crazy Uncle David haaaaass to have his fruitcake.  He will throw a fit.  That’s not a very fun tradition.  What an awful thing to do to a family with that expectation, and yet people do it.

You think fruitcake is too small a thing to get upset about?  Wrong!  For years, my wife’s grandmother gave us all fruitcakes.  She was very poor, and so one year she stopped buying them.  I expressed my disappointment in a really immature way in front of everyone.  “What?  No fruitcake?  Awwwwwwwwwe.”  But the look on her face told me that she felt bad and didn’t appreciate me putting that on her.

This year, we might need to make some allowances for our movie tradition.  This is a great tradition,  but this year is different;  we have 5 little ones who can’t go see a movie.  My kids are grown, but my brothers’ kids are young.  The reality is, that when you have kids, you have to make some sacrifices.  You might not get to go to the movies when you want to.  But people have expectations.  People might be disappointed by a change to this tradition.  I know I will.  I really look forward to seeing a movie with my brothers.  But it might not work out that way.  Our expectations might not be met.

I’m not willing to say that we should throw out our traditions.  I believe in the value of traditions.  What I am suggesting is that we learn to manage our expectations.  With a little forethought, I can anticipate a deviation or I can prepare myself for the possibility.  None of this is worth being bent out of shape over.  Even the expectation of always getting to see your family can be unreasonable.  It just doesn’t always work out.  Not everyone has that.

My motto this Thanksgiving is go with the flow.  The stuffing is too drippy?  Go with the flow.  The sweet potatoes are too bland?  Go with the flow.  We don’t see my movie?  Go with the flow.  Who knows?  Maybe we start a new tradition.  Maybe we stay home and play a board game so everyone can participate.  We actually bought one just in case.

From a Christian stand point, when we get together we are joined by Christ.  We are blessed in some special way;  perhaps in some brand new way.  May we be open to the possibility that God has something better in mind than our own human expectations.

hustler – a person who employs fraudulent or unscrupulous methods to obtain money

One of my favorite things to do is see the Dallas Opera with someone I love.  There was a new-ish opera based on the novel Moby Dick aptly named Moby Dick.  I’d never seen an opera from this millennium, and so I didn’t know quite what to expect, but it didn’t really matter because I would be seeing it with my twin brother.  We would have fun, no matter what.

Although I love to see the opera, I do not like the journey there, other than stopping for a fried pie in the Arbuckle mountains on the way (apple, raisin, pecan, by the way; a seasonal offering).  It is the most stressful drive I make on a regular basis. Although I’d never been late once, I was always worried that I would miss part of the show.  I left from Oklahoma City at 2:30, which should have gotten me there around 6:30; an hour early.

Mistake #1, I left without a phone charger.  Mistake #2, I left navigation on the entire trip. Mistake #3, I listened to a few hours worth of The Moth story-telling podcast.  My battery was all but drained.  All I’d really needed navigation for was the last 30 minutes of the trip to get from I-35 to the Windspear Opera House in the Arts District of Dallas and I had wasted it on a straight shot down the interstate

I began to panic.  I switched my phone to ultra power savings mode, which would save it from dying but would prevent me from using the navigation app.  I intended to switch it on at the last minute, but as I approached I realized that I would not even have enough power to do that.  I called Paul and asked him to talk me in.

Paul had been a resident of Dallas before and now he lives near Garland.  It was a simple trip to him.  He told me what exit to look for.  By now it was dark and the traffic was slowed to around 10-miles-an-hour because of construction so I was a little disoriented. I didn’t make the exit.  I was on the road to Waco.  Paul told me that I might not make it in time.  I prayed this prayer.

“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change.”

I relaxed a little and decided to take the next exit and buy a car charger.  I found a dive of a convenience store.  As I pulled up, I could see that I was about to get hustled.  There was a ragged looking man hanging around the front door.  As I approached he opened the door for me with much aplomb.  He was clearly pretending to be blind.  His eyes were closed, but he would take little fluttering blinks to, presumably, see where he was going.   I knew that he was going to hit me up for something eventually.

When I entered the shop, I could see that it was Pakistani (or some such) mom and pop store.  Minimum credit card charges required, English second language clerk, tons of sketchy energy/potency products, plexy-glass enclosure around the counter, AND a million cheap phone chargers hanging off the front of the enclosure.   There were two guys hanging around the register, not buying anything.  As I searched for the right charger, I said, “You guys go ahead.”  But they didn’t pay me any attention.

I tried to slide the charger under the plexy in the change dish but he already knew the price, or was making up the price.  When I came outside, there was the “blind” man furiously wiping off my perfectly clean windshield with the sleeve of his filthy jacket.  He said,  “I cleaned that for you, mister”   I pushed past him to the door and he said, in a raspy voice,  “Hey man!  I got chargers, too.”

Curtly, I said, “No thanks. Goodbye.”  And I almost said, “I have an opera to attend.”  But really? How bougie would that have been?

These were the lamest attempts at hustles I’d ever seen. There were two poorly constructed hustles.  The concierge/door man and the window-wiper.  In the concierge hustle, a guy pretend’s to be an employee of a business who should be tipped for his service.  He holds the door, carries your bag for you, and gives you directions. And in the window wiper/lawn mower/car watcher/whatever, they perform a service that you might have paid for otherwise and they make you think you should pay them.  But he didn’t have the will to follow through with it.  Honestly, he would have done better with me asking for money for drugs.
I was late to the opera so I had to watch the first half on a screen in a little auditorium off the lobby.  The opera was fantastic, both in the auditorium and in the house.  When I left, I was on cloud nine.  It was past eleven, and I had a three hour drive ahead of me so I stopped at another mom and pop to get some caffeine.  I pulled up next to a beat up old Chevy with an old black woman and a young man.  Already, I was suspicious at anybody hanging out in a convenience story parking lot at midnight.

When I came out, the very typical gas station hustle began, but with a twist.  The woman hung her head out of the window and said with great command, “Young man!  I say young man!”

I made a mental calculation of how much money was in my wallet, three dollars.  There was something about being called young man by a formidable, albeit strung out, black woman that triggered something in me.  I don’t know if it was some sort of latent white guilt, or a respect for the elderly, but I reached for my wallet expecting the typical hustle.

“Young man, my son and I have a long ways to go, and we need some money for gas.  Anything you can give will help.”

“Well, I have a little bit, but not much, ”  I said as I handed her the money.  But without even saying thank you she shoved a clothes iron still in he box in my face.

“See now, it’s still in the box!”

I waved it away, and walked to my car.  I don’t know exactly why I thought so, but my immediate assumption was that she was trying to legitimize herself to me in some bizarre show of affluence.  An hour down the road, the more rational but no less peculiar idea occurred to me that she was luring me in with the need-money-for-gas hustle into the peddling-irons-out-of-her car hustle.

The journey back was more or less uneventful.  I drank Red Bull and coffee, listened to an odd selection of Gloria Estefan and The Bengals all the way home.  The heart wants what the heart wants. When I got home, I took two Benedryls and fell to sleep immediately with the song “I’ll do anything for you” in my final thoughts.

I’ve been hustled in San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Jamaica, and at home.  One guy, also black, started his hustle by showing me a tattoo of a swastica scratched on his forehead. Yes, a black man with a swastica.  It still haunts me to think of how it got there.   Here’s a fictionalized account of the real story. Lost and Found Street Hustle. I don’t really smoke Marlboro and wear boots as the character in the story does, by the way.  I just wanted it to be gritty.  He thought I looked like the kind of guy who had a little weed on him.  Once, a guy one tried to grift me with a tuba.  I almost bought it.  But most of them are too strung out to come off as believable.  I feel compassion for people trying to make it on the streets.  I help when I can, but there’s something about the dishonesty of a street hustle that makes me a little less generous.  The most honest panhandler I have met sat on a corner in San Francisco with a sign which read “Too lazy to work.  Need money for weed.”  No hustle, no lies, just straight up begging.  I gave him five bucks and thanked him for his humility and honesty.

Back in the 90s, before I was a software engineer, I was an elementary music teacher in Moore, Oklahoma. I was starting to get into keyboards using an old book I had swiped from my dad which was designed for people who had been taught the classical method but could never just play from a chord chart.  I practiced often on my breaks in a closet which doubled as an office for me.  There, I had a keyboard and a piano with which to practice.  I’d bought a book called a fake book which contained dozens of songs with only the melody and chords.  I learn how to play 20 or so classic pop songs including Bill Whithers’ classic “Just the Two of Us”.

Around that time, Will Smith made a rap using “Just the Two of Us”.  It was a mega hit and all of the kids knew it.  And so, when I gained the confidence to begin wheeling my keyboard around to my classes, I decided to try out the song.

The kids, who were merely tolerating my lessons, lit up with recognition.  Suddenly, I was the cool teacher who could relate to them in ways that their other teachers could not.  They didn’t realize that it was based on an old song for old people.  Every time I came to a third grade class, especially, they demanded the song, and I happily obliged.  After three years, I was finally a hit.

In my last days of being a teacher before taking a job in Tulsa as a software engineer, the school counselor, who had heard through the grapevine of my recent success with the kids, asked me to come up with a song for the kids to chant at the district-wide anti-drug parade. I was hitting the big time now. And this is when I came up with the brilliant idea of using my hit song.

I began crafting anti-drug lyrics to “Just the Two of us”.  “Just the two of us, building big castles in the sky”  became “Every one of us, we don’t need drugs to make us high.”  I was to lead it in the school assembly to get them ready.

I’d already accepted the position in Tulsa, so I knew that it was likely that I would never march in the parade that year, and boy would they miss me, the most popular teacher in school.  The cafeteria was packed from pre-K to 6th grade.  I’d been afraid to teach the 6th graders the song because they didn’t like me.  My manner was more geared for young children.  But I felt that all of that was about to change.

My keyboard was plugged into an amplifier, and I was set up with a microphone waiting for my cue. I was about to become a rock star. The principal turned to me and nodded.  I hit the drum track and I was off.  I would sing through it once and then shout, “Everybody sing!  Everyone of us…”  But it didn’t come out right.  I messed up the words.  I hesitated.  And then it happened.  The big kids on the back row began to laugh.

That’s when I realized who I’d become.

Around that same time, Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer were doing a bit on Saturday Night Live parodying middle school music teachers trying to be cool by playing the top 40 hits of the time on the keyboard in a ridiculously square style.  Of course, they were a joke to the kids at that school who regularly heckled the them.

I finished out the song, deflated.  My big idea had failed and everyone knew it including the principal who said at the end something like “Alright, Mr. Wilson-Burns, thank you for your hard work.  That was truly unique.”

I was comforted only by the fact that I would be leaving at the end of the week; a week in which I showed movies non-stop.

I learned an important lesson that week, kids can spot desperation in adults and they find it very unbecoming.  Being the cool teacher has it’s perils.  Today, when I teach kids in my church I don’t even try to be cool.  I’m much better at goofy.  Kids enjoy an adult who can be silly once in awhile, but what they really love is to feel that they can do great things.  And for kids to do great things, they need a great teacher who doesn’t care about being cool.

Oh, and don’t do drugs!

To be sheep, in common parlance, means to follow blindly and ignorantly and spinelessly.  But Jesus has a different idea about sheep.  He tells a story about what it will be like when the Son of Man (King) comes into his “glory” and sits on his throne with the angels and all that.  He says all the nations will be there and he will separate the people like a shepherd separates the sheep and the goats.  He says to the sheep

‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the “righteous” on the left (goats) start whining

‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

They are freaking out!  They’ve been looking for the Son of Man all over the place so they can serve him, but apparently they never found him.  So the king says,

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Then he goes on to put them in their place pretty hard,

‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

He condemns the goats to eternal punishment and the sheep, whom he now calls “the righteous” get to hang around and be rewarded.

I gotta say, I’m having a hard time reconciling some of the behavior and beliefs of people identifying as Christian and Republican with this scripture. I’ve never seen more uncharitable sentiment and behavior from Christians in my life over the last year.  This turns people away from Christianity! We’re supposed to be making disciples not alienating them!  Many liberals call conservatives hypocrites for preaching their anti-gay gospel at the government level but not supporting a governmental approach to the prime principles of Christianity.  The conservatives say that those principles are  supposed to be personal and not national.  I almost buy this.  I might buy it if they hadn’t been fighting so hard to legislate how we should live our lives according to their religion, particularly with gay folks.  It is incongruous to me that the ‘no no no it’s not the government’s job to feed the poor’ say that it is the government’s job to enforce their personal religious views on everybody.  I don’t buy it.  Nope.  You canNOT have it both ways.  It is categorically indefensible.

But this leaves liberals in a weird place.  We’re making a fuss about this, but many liberals are not even Christian and certainly believe in a firm separation of church and state.  So it’s like, what are you going to do if you finally win this argument that the government should legislate the Christian principles of the goats and the sheep?  It’s a trap!

So where do I stand?  I am a Christian.  I’m a music minister, in fact.  I was brought up in a Christian home with a father who was a minister.  I read the Bible.  I pray. And I’m a left leaning moderate.  Many conservatives do not believe that I exist.  There is no such thing as a liberal Christian!  I could easily say the same thing about conservatives, if you take Jesus’ radical Gospel for ordering the Kingdom of God seriously, where the last shall be first and the first shall be last.  But I won’t say that.  That’s not fair at all.  No one has a perfect faith.  In fact, no one gets to be right about EVERYTHING, including me.  The Democrats don’t get to be right about everything.  The Republicans don’t either.  Libertarians, and such.  What I believe is that the government is the people and is for the people.  It is to serve and protect the people.  From my view, it’s to help make this a great country to live in without the partiality of greed and power and prejudice.  The rich and powerful have a role to play, but someone has to look out for injustice, it certainly won’t be the rich and the powerful who often benefit from it. You don’t become rich and powerful by being a good Christian.

²³ Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!” ²⁴ This amazed them. But Jesus said again, “Dear children, it is very hard^[b] to enter the Kingdom of God.²⁵ In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”

Hey, we all want to be rich.  That’s fine.  But Jesus is warning us that money complicates righteousness.  The Republican party wants the government to help the rich get richer, but doesn’t want to help the poor pay some bills once and awhile.  So yeah, I believe in public assistance, affordable healthcare, easily available mental healthcare, public education, civil rights, refuge for the refugee, work permits for the immigrant worker, and anything that makes this country a great place to live in for those who are struggling.  It’s already a great place to be for people like me; white, well-to-do, straight, Christian, male.   We pay a lot of taxes so I expect people to get a little back when they need it.

In Jesus’ story, the goats are the people who are doing all of the right things by the law.  They are righteous in that sense.  They go to church.  They pray. They don’t hang out with the sinners.  They follow all of those rules that make the pure stay pure, the holy stay holy.  I see this in my religion. The Baptist General Convention recently passed motions aimed at the removal of churches accepting LGBT people as members.  But what does Jesus say?  He says that what’s really important is taking care of the least of these.  And believe me, I’ve been cared for by gay folks when I was in need.  And as far as I’m concerned if the government can help out with caring for the needy, then please tax me for it.  IF, and I mean IF, we were to be a Christian nation, I believe we would look a lot more like the sheep than the goats. May I we become woolier  and woolier.  May we become a nation of sheep.

I was among the half of the U.S. population who watched in utter shock and dismay when it became apparent that Donald Trump would be our next president.  But this is something that happens every four years.  And now it was the Democrats’ turn.  Politics as usual.  Right?

Wrong.  This is not politics as usual.  This is a revolution of a sort that hasn’t happened in this country, perhaps since Andrew Jackson, as one Republican bragged.  What it means is that half of this country was at a breaking point.  It means that half of this country, mainly whites, felt so oppressed by a huge and steady wave of liberalism which only a man like Donald Trump could save them.

In the last eight years (from the conservative perspective), they saw marriage redefined in a way that defies God’s natural order of things.  They saw the country take a dangerous step toward socialism in Obamacare (ACA).  They saw executive orders to make it easier for illegals to work in the U.S. and for trans folks to threaten the bathroom privacy of women and children.  They were called homophobic and bigoted because they believe homosexuality is a sin. They were called uneducated for not all getting college degrees. They continued to be dismayed that prayer was unwelcome at school. They counted many thousands of babies murdered in the womb.  They were called racist because they were tired of the illegal immigration of millions of people into the U.S and because they were tired of cops being prevented from doing their jobs.  And they were called Islamophobic for wanting to keep terrorists from entering the U.S.  And lastly, tired of being told what words they can and cannot speak in public.

It would be so easy to be dismissive of these concerns.  I don’t share that perspective, but it is not small enough to dismiss and not a simple and two-sided enough to count myself as righteous over.  I am not willing to paint all Trump supporters with the brush of racist, bigoted misogynists.   This is half of our country who are desperate for change.  Although many of my conservative friends love Trump, many were very reluctant to vote for him, but they wanted change badly enough to do it.  Friends, I’m here to tell you that half of our country is not insane and hateful. Yes there are many hateful people who supported Trump, but I don’t know any of them personally.  My conservative friends are good people. They are fearful for their freedom, their safety, their jobs, and their way of life.

I am in no way changing my stance on Trump.  I find him unfit to be President.  I find him to be indicative of some of the worst qualities of humanity.  But now liberals and moderates have to deal with it, each in their own ways.  Let your voices be heard.  Pray.  Reach out. Protest. Get into politics.  Move to Canada.  Whatever you gotta do to.

I will write.  I will pray.  I will try to understand.  I will try to find a common ground with which to work.  That is not the right way or the wrong, it is simply my way.  I will continue my relationships with my conservative friends and family.  I refuse to unfriend.  Although some of you have, I’ve never found it truly necessary.

A very wise conservative friend of mine shared this on Facebook:

The people took him seriously, not literally.

The media took him literally, not seriously.

This is a part of the new reality of our country.  But hyperbole is nothing new.  Teachers and leaders have been using it forever to inspire whatever they’re trying to inspire.  Those who voted for him know that much of what Trump has said will never happen.  It’s just something that resonates with them in some way.  And what way is that?  It is that they feel like someone is finally listening to them and will champion them.  We all need that so badly.  You can judge about what they are saying, but don’t you listen to people who you love even if you don’t like what they are saying?

Before I write another word, let me make it very clear who I am.  I am white.  I am straight. I am Christian.  I was born in the U.S.  I am male.  I am Trump’s primary demographic.  I have never known discrimination for may sex, my gender identity, my sexuality, my race, my religion, or my citizenship status. The only thing I’ve been discriminated against for was mental illness.  That is not a small thing, but I still consider myself privileged beyond reason.   Perhaps it is my naivety and privilege that allows me to write this piece. One of my first involuntary thoughts when I woke up to find that Trump had won was that at least I was who I was and had nothing to fear for myself, but I do fear for many people in my country given Trump’s many remarks, and his supporters’ responses.

Although it is true that Trump is often merely rhetorical in his speech, there are still dangers.  I don’t like what I’m seeing.  It’s one thing to be validated personally by him, but for him to incite hateful words and behavior is offensive to me.  It is against my Christian values.  I think of Jesus’ stump speech, The Beatitudes, in which he said that we will be blessed for being merciful and for making peace.  Or when he said to return no evil for evil.  And when he said love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  Feed the poor.  Clothe the naked.  Take care of the widow.  And when Moses instructed his people on how to welcome the immigrant.

Those are my Christian values.  Those do not appear to be Trump’s values. Being anti-abortion and anti-gay does not make a person a Christian.

Concerning Christians who voted for Trump.  They ARE Christians.  They will continue to do the work of Christ in their communities.  They see those Christian values I listed as critical personal and community values;  just not a way to run a government.  I know that is perplexing to some given their governmental stances on abortion and gay marriage.  It is what it is.

I’m sitting here in a state of disarray, seeking wisdom.  Feeling powerless.  But you know what?  I know the gift of powerlessness.  As an alcoholic, I know that one of the greatest gifts God ever gave me was to be powerless over something.  I have had no choice but to seek a higher power to look after my life;  the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I trust him deeply.

And so I close by sharing that although God may not change Trump’s ways, He can make good out of ALL things.

Last weekend, I drove my wife and son down to Garland, Texas for my niece’s baptism.  We’ve driven south on I-35 enough times to have a tradition.  In Oklahoma, there a few mountain ranges.  Now understand, when I say mountains, I mean a few rocky hills, but we love them for what they are.  As you drive south on I-35 from my hometown of Norman there is a range called the Arbuckle mountains.  There are appealing lakes, waterfalls,  springs, camping, and creeks to enjoy.  But most importantly there is Arbuckle Fried Pies.  We stop there nearly every time we pass.  We get apricot and coconut usually.  The picture says it all.

And so we stopped thinking we might get a meat pie and and a fruit pie and make a meal out of it, but we were in a hurry and the meat pies would take 8 minutes, so Jenn and I ate apricot pies and Chris ate a coconut.  I decided that we would eat burgers to-go at the Denton McDonald’s on down the road.

When we got there, the drive through line was very long, so I parked the car and went in to order.  When I entered, I was greeted by the cool gaze of a veteran police officer standing to the side of the counter.  He was absolutely classic.  Perfectly trimmed mustache.  Short spikey salt and pepper hair.  Barrel chest.  Uniform in perfect condition.  He was quiet and appeared very calm.

I wondered why he might be guarding a McDonald’s.  What had happened here to warrant law enforcement?  What crazed lunatic had caused a ruckus here, perhaps earlier in the day?

I wanted to know, but I didn’t want to be the guy who sticks his nose in someone else’s business so I just asked, “Everything going ok?  Having a nice evening?”

He turned his gaze to me and nodded, pooching out his lips as if he were thinking it over.  “Yes.  Everything is fine.”  And then he adjusted his belt a little, reminding me of Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show.

“It seems very calm to me.  You have a calming presence,” I said only as a friendly observation.

But then he said, “Well,  some people wouldn’t say so,” and then he rolled his eyes just slightly.  I immediately thought of the Dallas cops recently shot at the rally.  Could he have been alluding to the fact that cops were getting a bad rap?  Or was he just a toot.

And this was my opportunity to get the story.  All I had to do is say, “Oh?”  and he might have spilled his guts.  He might have said, “Well, we had a guy in here the other day who got the less calm version of me.  I had to smack him with my night stick and drag his stinking ass out of here.”  Or he might have confessed that he was a member of a rageaholic group.

But I didn’t ask.  I really just wanted to get my food and go.  I’d ordered it and was waiting.  So he turned his focus on a lady in line wearing a t-shirt which said, simply, “California”

He called over to her and said, “Did you just come from California?”

She smile and revealed a missing tooth and called back in a thick Texas accent, “Naw, I just like the shirt.  But I wish I was there right now.  Probably cooler.  It’s been 107 degrees here.”

The cop said, “Was it a 107 today?”

“Well, it was around 98.”

“Is it a 107 right now?”

“Well, it’s not too bad –”

“Well there you go.”  And then he went into expert mode.  “California is cooler.  It’s probably around 85 degrees, but you know what?  I said do you know what?”  Then he prompted her to answer.

“What” she said, losing her good humor.

“It’s humid.  California is very humid, so it feels hotter.”

And then I could see why some might not see him as a calming presence.  I’m not sure what his point was, but it sounded kind of like, “Quit your complaining.  I just wanted you to know that I’m in charge.”

Later that night, I debriefed my brother about the McDonald’s cop.  He was aghast.  “That was a missed opportunity.  Who knows what you might have learned if you’d asked why!”

But I didn’t need to ask why.  I saw enough to give me a pretty good guess.

Once upon a time, there was one way to greet another person with your hands.  It was called the hand shake.  You reached out together, thumbs on top, clasp hands, and shook 2-4 times.  Simple.  There are variations of course: palm vertical, better, palm up, hand in hand, lingering, the push off, the pull in, the superior, the lesser, the finger cruncher, the bone cruncher, the palm pincher, the twister, and the very unpleasant dead fish.

I know that stuff like…well…the back of my hand.  Come at me with any one of these and I’ll pick it right up.  But that’s where my abilities end.  If it were just a classic high five or low five once in awhile, I could manage just fine.  What about the bro hand shake?  What about all the weird bro hand jive stuff?  Fist bumps?  Fist bops?  I’m afraid it’s all too much for me.

The fact that there are dozens of options throws me off.  I’m leaving my current job, so I got a goodbye handshake from a man.  He came in with the thumb extended high.  Hand-shake?  Or bro shake?  I went bro, and he went standard handshake and so I just ended up grab his thumb solo.  Try that out sometime and feel how awkward is.  And it’s not the only time I’ve done it this month.

A good friend of mine, a very COOL good friend of mine ran into me at a farmer’s market.  He lifted his hand up over his head with the palm down, wrist and fingers limp.  I know that that is a huge low five now because my little brother explained it to me, but what I did must have been the most awkward, botched, hand greeting in history.  If someone had gotten it on the phone, it would have gone viral.  We’re both pretty tall, and he’s taller than me.  He went up high with his left hand (right facing me).  I panicked.  The best I could figure was that this was going to be a mirror-facing high five of some sort.  So as I walked his way I put my right hand up high for the five but his left hand didn’t flatten out and so I clasped it.  But that’s not all.  I then used my left hand to bring him in for a weird sort of hug, but because we were mirrored hands up and arms clasping each other our cheeks kind of came together noses toward right each other.  It must have looked like the ugliest two-man tango in history.

And this goes for hugs as well.  I was at a party with a bunch of Bengali men, and we got a little tipsy and as a result we bonded.  We made pledges of lifetime allegiance to each other.  We would be uncles to our future children.  We would be at the weddings.  At the end of the night, one guy came up to me as we were leaving and said. “David, we are cousins now.  That’s how we do it in Bangladesh.”  Then he came at me with a hug, arms wide open.  Now, I’m a real hugger, none of that macho bullshit.  You come for a hug, I’m going to squeeze you for at least four seconds, and so that’s what I tried to give him.  But he stepped back,  and held a wait-and-watch index finger up in front of me.

“We hug like this.  Hug.  Two hard pats on the back.  And step away.  Try.”

Yeah, well I don’t know if this is a Bengali thing or not, but that’s the way manly men hug.  I’m used to it now.  But what happens when it starts with a handshake which ends in a hug?  Well, you’re supposed to do the hard slap or the shoulder bump and break away.  Nope.  Not me.  I do the hand clasp and the tight hug with hands smashed between bellies at least 60% of the time.

I don’t know exactly how this happened to me.  I didn’t have a lot of male friends, for one.  And the ones I had were really sensitive musician types.  But I fear that it is too late for me. Without significant remedial training, I will be strictly a hand shake guy.  If I see a greeting coming on, I set the agenda first.  I initiate a handshake before you have time to do any crazy shit.

I don’t always know what I will write when I begin.  I love observing people, but making a story about people you know who might read it isn’t always wise.  And there are other things happening in my life both good and complicated that I just can’t talk about, yet, and so I’m left to wonder what can I write about today?

I’m tired of forming opinions about presidential politics or fact checking Facebook friends or defending my candidate.  I think people have pretty much made up their minds except for the Bernie or Die folks.  But they’ll come around, and so will the Republicans who have vowed never to vote for Trump.  All Democrats will vote for Hillary, and all Republicans will vote for Trump.  The Independents will decide the next president.

But I’m tired of that.  We live in a nation of rich culture and endless activity.  We’re reading books, watching television and movies, rooting for sports teams, going to church, protesting corporate greed, knitting scarves for winter,  learning music, cooking our grandmother’s pound cake, and on to infinity.  There is so much more to this country than our politics.  So much more to agree on.  So much more to disagree on.  Like do you put beans in your chili.  Texans say chili is not chili if you put beans in it.  Can we are argue about that for a change?

I’ve heard our great society described as a fabric.  In other words, it is many different threads which make up a single thing…a single function.  We often feel that our lives do not matter, but think about that fabric.  Without your thread bound to all of the others, there is a flaw, a weakness.  Let’s dig deeper than our differences and alliances.  The more we are knit together, the stronger our society, our country, becomes, and the more we care for each other.

I have this image of billions of people expending and restoring their energies right now.  It’s a process we must be tethered to in order to live.  It exists between people as well; giving and taking and working together.  We may think we are alone, but there is always someone or something connected with us, engaging us, keeping us from fading into oblivion.  And so this fabric or web is lit with living energy.  It’s far greater than our single thread.  It’s all there for us.  It is a greater consciousness which we can weave our way through.  This has either everything to do with God or nothing to do with God, depending on how you see it; how you envision the great weaving forcing binding us and all life together.

And so, as our country becomes more and more divided over things that may not even affect our daily living, I ask the Great Weaver to inspire us to become aware of our connections to each other which are far greater than our beliefs about each other so that we may create something even greater than fabric; for fabric is only useful when it is sewn for a purpose.  I believe that purpose is love.  I believe that something greater than the cloth itself has a far grander idea of what we may become…together.

At my current job, I’m surrounded by accountants and managers and business people.  I’m one of only two programmers in my division and he’s an Access programmer, which I refuse  label myself as.  I didn’t really know how much I missed being around a team of developers until today.

My supervisor, a Cobol programmer from a neighboring division, and I trekked over to another building to have a meeting with a programmer for a system we are having to interface with.  When I walked in, I saw all the signs of a coder cave.  We made our way to a dimly lit room with 10 workstations scattered around, many  had as much as four monitors, one guy had a stand up desk, and 5 young hipster geeks were rat-tat-tatting away on their keyboards.  I saw Ubuntu Linux operating systems,  Intelli-J integrated development environments, and command line terminals with lines of output scrolling up in stops and starts.  All the signs of programmers were present.  I was among my people.

I wanted to establish myself as one of them in some way.  “Hey, you running Ubuntu?”  “What do you think about Intelli-J?  How does it compare to Netbeans or Eclipse?”  But I didn’t.  That’s not what I was there for.  And does anybody really like that guy?  The guy who wants to demonstrate that he knows.  Oh, I know, but what would be the point?

Perhaps I might get moved over there if they knew I was legit.  They seem to be understaffed.  But that’s not in my plan.  That place is a mess.  Management won’t let them use any modern tools for managing their code.  That’s a disaster waiting to happen.  Everybody at the center hates these guys, and it’s not their fault.  They’re trying to stand up a massive system with poor management and too few developers.  I don’t need that.

I’m just now realizing that I’ve worked in the same proximity as 4 or more developers my whole career; people I can chat tech stuff with; people I can help or be helped by.  A development team, in other words.

I don’t plan to be in this position for long.  It’s hurting my career working with this technology and with so little work to do.  I need to get back into the flow of professional programming.  I’ve asked my company to move me, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.  I’ve told them that I cannot stay in the position, as grateful as I am to have it.

In my last gig, I was working in a company with around a hundred programmers.  I was on a team with 5 programmers, 2 business analysts, a tester, and a project manager.  It is a hard-core software company.  And cool.  Ping pong room, video game area, foosball, no cube farm, huge windows looking out at the OU campus  We wore jeans.  Every Friday was super hero t-shirt day on my team.  I made good friends..  There were managers, business reps, and support staff, but mostly it was people like me, coding until our fingers hurt.  It was a tough job.  The system was enormous and complex.  The coding standards were high.  And the hours were tough.  In the end, I decided that it wasn’t for me.  But I miss the atmosphere.

Coders are different people.  They’re not like business people.  They don’t dress the same, act the same, play the same, work the same, communicate the same, or think the same.   They are creative, quick-minded, collaborative, tech-forward, and geeky.  Geeky is not what it used to be. Yes, there are still those kinds of geeks that dress without consideration for appearance, don’t know how to communicate (especially to girls), and are generally awkward, but then there’s the kind that are heavy into technology, comics, video games, and farming bitcoins…and still dress hip and get the girls.  This is like a new kind of geek.

I am neither.  I’m not into any of those endeavors, neither am I social awkward or poorly dressed.  I don’t know what I am exactly.  I communicate like a business guy.  I organize like a project manager.  I’m not brilliant coder, but I know how to satisfy the customer.  I care more about music than about videos games and comics…and I’m not sure I get bitcoin.

In some ways, I’m never around my people.  I like being around coders.  I like being around musicians.  I like being around business people.  I like being around church people. But there’s always something holding me back from fully fitting in.  I’m an odd duck.  Maybe we all are in some way, but I am in a lot of ways.

That leaves me the question of who are my people?  That is simple.  My family are my people.  My wife, kids, parents, and brothers are my people.  There is nothing holding me back with them.  I guess I’m pretty damn lucky to have that.  Not everybody has that kind of a family or has a people at all.

I consider myself blessed.

dictionary.com  patriotism –  devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.

This is not a bad thing.  I love my country.  I feel grateful and privileged to live here.  We should defend and protect it.  And we should celebrate it’s independence this 4th.    If that’s what patriotism is, then sign me up.  But somehow, the part about defense is what people mainly mean by patriotism.  Military patriotism, perhaps.  Do we support our vets?  Do we support our wars?  Do we hate our enemies?  Are we willing to die for the interests of our country?

Social Principles: The Political Community

Military Service

We deplore war and urge the peaceful settlement of all disputes among nations. From the beginning, the Christian conscience has struggled with the harsh realities of violence and war, for these evils clearly frustrate God’s loving purposes for humankind. We yearn for the day when there will be no more war and people will live together in peace and justice. Some of us believe that war, and other acts of violence, are never acceptable to Christians. We also acknowledge that many Christians believe that, when peaceful alternatives have failed, the force of arms may regretfully be preferable to unchecked aggression, tyranny and genocide. We honor the witness of pacifists who will not allow us to become complacent about war and violence. We also respect those who support the use of force, but only in extreme situations and only when the need is clear beyond reasonable doubt, and through appropriate international organizations. We urge the establishment of the rule of law in international affairs as a means of elimination of war, violence, and coercion in these affairs.

We reject national policies of enforced military service as incompatible with the gospel. We acknowledge the agonizing tension created by the demand for military service by national governments. We urge all young adults to seek the counsel of the Church as they reach a conscientious decision concerning the nature of their responsibility as citizens. Pastors are called upon to be available for counseling with all young adults who face conscription or who are considering voluntary enlistment in the armed forces, including those who conscientiously refuse to cooperate with a system of conscription.

We support and extend the ministry of the Church to those persons who conscientiously oppose all war, or any particular war, and who therefore refuse to serve in the armed forces or to cooperate with systems of military conscription. We also support and extend the Church’s ministry to all persons. This includes those who conscientiously choose to serve in the armed forces or to accept alternative service. When persons choose to serve in the armed forces, we support their right to adequate care for injuries suffered, and advocate for sufficient resources to meet their physical and mental health needs, both during and after their service. We are aware that we can become guilty both by military action and by conscientious objection, and that we all are dependent on God’s forgiveness.

Social Principles: The World Community

War and Peace

We believe war is incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ. We therefore reject war as an instrument of national foreign policy. We oppose unilateral first/preemptive strike actions and strategies on the part of any government. As disciples of Christ, we are called to love our enemies, seek justice, and serve as reconcilers of conflict. We insist that the first moral duty of all nations is to work together to resolve by peaceful means every dispute that arises between or among them. We advocate the extension and strengthening of international treaties and institutions that provide a framework within the rule of law for responding to aggression, terrorism, and genocide. We believe that human values must outweigh military claims as governments determine their priorities; that the militarization of society must be challenged and stopped; that the manufacture, sale, and deployment of armaments must be reduced and controlled; and that the production, possession, or use of nuclear weapons be condemned. Consequently, we endorse general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

I suspect that most of the members of my church have never read these statements.  I’m not sure how people respond to such a pacifist view.  Perhaps they would slough it off.  Perhaps they would join a more war-friendly church (if there is such a thing).  Perhaps the national consensus has little bearing on a local church.

And so I have a problem with the glorification of war and warriors in a worship service.  Yes, we should pray for the fallen and for the redemption of vets who are suffering from poverty.  Yes we should thank our vets for making such great sacrifices for our defense and continued freedom from oppressive countries, but I and the United Methodist Church have a problem with honoring anything related to war in worship.

But what do you say?  Although I’m a member of the church and the director of music, does that mean I get to deny the requests of people who do not share my or the UMC’s view on patriotic displays in church?  Well, I say yes.  Both my pastor and I have made a vow to support the United Methodist Church.  I don’t agree with everything in the Social Principles.  There are statements I would like to see changed, but until they change, I have to acknowledge that that is the way the majority of Methodists see things.  We vote through representation on our principles.

It’s hard to say no.  I’ve never been very good at it. It doesn’t upset me when people ask.  I love it when people make requests and get engaged with worship planning, but church leaders have to think about things that congregants do not, like is this language consistent with our theology? I don’t choose music with lyrics that I think are antithetical to the communal faith of the UMC or the teachings of Christ, and so I can’t in good conscience endorse patriotic songs in worship.  When we enter the church, we acknowledge that there is a kingdom greater than our own countries, and that is the Kingdom of God.  In our faith, God is the ruler, and love is the land, and the only just war is the one for our salvation from sin.

But I will belt out the The Star Spangled Banner at the ball game with my hat off and my hand over my patriotic heart.

EDIT: I recant my view on clapping because of this remark:

1. Stand up
2. Sing hymns
3. Sit down
4. Pass the offering plate
5. Pass the communion plates
6. Shake hands and say “Peace be with you.” “Also with you.”
7. And once in a blue moon, something called “The Laying on of Hands”.  That’s a whole other post.
8. Put them or clasp them together for prayer, and bow.
9. On Palm Sunday, we may wave palms if we feel comfortable doing so to a processional hymn.

Here are a list of sternly frowned upon things you would not do with your body in worship:

1. Waving or lifting of hands…even a little bit…except with a palm in our hands on Palm Sunday during the processional hymn.
2. Kneeling
3. Crying
4. Shouting “Amen”, “Hallelujah”, or “Praise the Lord” except in a moment of humor or profound poignancy.
5. Speaking in tongues, which falls in the same category of snake handling.
6. Aaaaand Clapping, except for anniversaries and graduations.

And so, I struggle with clapping in church.  I have too many hang ups;  theological issues, rhythmic issues, and just plain discomfort.

In clapping churches, people have all sorts of reasons for why they clap, and although I don’t always agree with them, I will never be the worship leader who tells people when or when not to clap.  Everybody hates that leader.  Here are the reasons I imagine people clap in church.  I’m sure I’d be surprised to hear why people actually do it, but this is what my non-clapping tradition brain sees:

Sometime in the 90s, possibly first on the Martin show, the phrase “Oh no you didn’t!” was popularized in black culture along with “Talk to the the hand” and other sassy phrases.  Because early adopters were primarily black, the phrase became a “black thing”;  off limits for white folks.

Like all cool things that were originated by black folks, white folks can’t wait to use them and make them uncool; or worse, cross an invisible line into mild racism or cultural appropriation.  It’s like when a new drug comes on the market and you have to wait ten years for the patent to run out so you can start buying the generic.  Such is the case with cool things black people say.

Enter uncool white guy, David Wilson-Burns.  In the early 2000s, when we were on the cusp of white people being able to use the phrase, “Oh no you didn’t! (di-int)” but not quite (except for maybe Betty White, she can get away with anything), I was in a meeting to plan a Christmas musical program for my division of the FAA.  Just think about that for a moment.  We planned to sing Christmas carols and a couple of emotional songs about Jesus in a federal agency, on federal property, during Christmas,  on federal time.  I don’t know how long this had been going on, but I don’t miss an opportunity to sing in public, so I overlooked my concerns about separation of church and state.  I don’t think they do it anymore, and I don’t think it’s because of religion.

At the meeting were a short white gal with intense control issues, a tone-deaf white gal who consistently sang in the wrong key to karaoke tracks and who insisted on singing the hardest songs and as many songs as possible in the program and who eventually caused the tradition to implode, me a classical singer trying to learn how to sing pop music, and a black guy with an amazing tenor voice who could sing anything.  I’d sung with him before and we were on very friendly terms.  He loved my voice, and I loved his voice;  a mutual respect.

I had been assigned the secret role on the committee to make sure the tone-deaf woman was following the “one solo/one ensemble” rule and that she was singing songs that were easier to sing in tune and to coach her when necessary because people were getting up and leaving when she sang because of how painful it was. I felt a little bad about it, but I knew the show would be problematic if I didn’t set these kinds of parameters.   It was actually a nice voice, but even a nice voice sounds terrible 3 or 4 steps off.  There’s the person who can’t sing well who knows it, but just wants to give it a go, and then there’s the person who can’t sing well, blindly insists that she’s the next Mariah Carey, and wants to dominate any program she’s in.  I can tolerate the former.  I don’t believe you have to be a great singer to sing in programs and churches.  I like everyone to have a chance to share their music.  But this gal was the latter.  Where is Simon Cowell when you need him?

At some point in the meeting, someone talked about someone else doing or saying something that offended the sensibilities of one of the white girls at the table.  I do not remember who or what, but it was the perfect time to say “Oh know she di-in’t” and in the absence of a sassy black woman and before I took time to consider what I was doing, I said it.  I may have even nailed it.  The white ladies laughed, but the black guy didn’t.  Instead, he raised his eyebrows at me across the conference room table and said, “Did you just do something?”

I knew I had just done something, but I played innocent.  I shook my head and said, “Nnnnnope.”

To which he replied, nodding slightly and speaking with calm finality, “You just did something.”

And I knew the time had not yet come for me to use that phrase, even though I had watched the same Martin episode years before.  But that’s just the way it is.  I don’t know exactly why it has to be that way, but I suspect it’s because in the history of America, white folks have taken all of the good stuff, including credit for stuff that black folks came up with first.  Elvis is a prime example.  He did not invent Rock and Roll, and yet he gets so much credit for it. He was just a white early adopter with a mediocre voice, awesome hair, and a few weird dance moves that made 14-year-old girls weep hysterically.

I tell my “Oh no she didn’t” story once and awhile. It gets a laugh.  It was a lesson learned, and it was funny.  The guy was likely not offended by my gaffe. He never said another word about it and we remained friends.  He just wanted to hold my feet over the coals a little bit.  His prerogative, I suppose.

At this point in my life, I don’t pretend to be cool, or appropriate coolness from anybody.  I am who I am, and in some ways that’s kind of funny.  I’m the kind of guy who could easily be a a super white neighbor character in an episode of Martin who says “Youuuu betcha.”

MyWifeSaysImComplicated is primarily a Facebook blog.  If you’re reading this, then you are probably my friend on Facebook and so you know a little bit about how I operate.  I suspect, not everyone agrees with what I do, especially with how I interact with conservatives. I’ve taken some flack for it.   So, I want to share a perspective that I’ve been developing over the last couple of years to help you understand what I’m doing and because I feel strongly that something must be done in response to the Orlando shootings and the direction of our societal landscape in general.  We all have our roles to play.  And this is what I do.

I do a lot of thinking and experimenting with how to get along and even benefit from getting along with people who see the world radically different than I do, especially with politics and religion.  I’ve been criticized for being a little too generous with conservatives on their perspectives; the implication being that I need to learn how to draw the line a little firmer, or that I’m condoning something bad by giving someone’s perspective a little air to breathe…because otherwise, you know, I’m letting Nazi Germany happen again.  And doesn’t it always come down to Nazi Germany in Facebook shootouts?

But I feel that I’ve never benefited from drawing lines between myself and another person.  It’s good to stand up for principles and advocate for those who are suffering.  I’m not arguing against that.  But there are people to do that in more demonstrative ways than me.  We all have our roles to play and I’ve become comfortable with being the learner, the moderator, the diplomat.

One of my goals in my dealings with people is not to prove that I am right or to rally the troops or preach to the choir with statements that only people who agree with me will find compelling; it’s to understand why someone thinks they are right and thinks that I am wrong.  Sometimes the person I am discussing with’s arguments falls apart when held up to logic and fact-checking, but more often, I find that people have very good reasons for believing what they believe.  They don’t all hold up to my standards.  They don’t all reflect my values or arguably good character at all.  But there’s usually something there worth thinking about and talking about.

Honestly, it is usually me who benefits in the end.  I gain greater understanding.  And something else happens, I gain someone’s trust and respect.  I have conservative friends who will freely discuss anything with me because they know that I will not attack them no matter what they say.  They know that although I might not agree with them, I’m on their side.  I know that doesn’t sound logical, but there are many ways of being on someone’s side.    That’s when true dialog begins…life-changing dialog perhaps.

But it’s not all about conservatives.  My most contentious discussions are with people who I’m supposed to agree with.  There is a sense of betrayal with fellow liberals when I talk critically about commonly held liberal perspectives.  The reason I can be critical is that I’ve explored the conservative perspective enough to see that there are problems with both.  I do this, again, not to prove that I’m right or that a conservative is right, but to stimulate or moderate a more balanced discussion in the absence of an actual conservative.  If we choose discussions exclusively with people who agree with us, then it’s really more of a group therapy session or pep rally.  And how will we ever know when we are wrong?

My ultimate goal, over other stated goals, however,  is not to persuade or even to learn, it’s to gain a sense of solidarity with someone.  The country may be going to hell in a handbasket, but I refuse to let that stand in the way of love and friendship.

Wow, David, so that’s your plan for fighting gun violence? Making friends? Friends listen to each other.  Friends support each other.  Friends go to each other for advice.  When you listen to someone with no motives other than listening or supporting, there is the small chance (I would say one in ten) that the other person might return in kind.  That’s a lot better odds than persuading someone with clever memes on Facebook.  When we listen, then we can being solving problems. That is diplomacy.

The mass murder in Orlando is one of the most complex events in my history.

1. We have a Muslim
2. We have a legal gun owner
3. The gun is an AR-15 which many believe should be banned.
4. We have an anti-gay religious guy
5. We have a man who has been coming to a gay bar for as long as a year
6. We have a guy who has been flagged by the FBI
7. We have a guy who is on the no-fly list

1. We know the guy is a Muslim.  He attended mosque.  But is he an extremist?  If he is, why do the other people in his community not identify him as one?

   And we have conservatives looking to liberals to explain why they do not connect yet another atrocity committed by a Muslim as being not linked to Islam in some way.

   If he is an extremist, then what do we call him?  Here are words we are debating:

   Radical Jihadist
   Radical Islamist
   Radical Islamic Terrorist
   Islamism
   Terrorist
   Mass murderer
   Hate criminal
   Evil

2. As far as we know he purchased the rifle legally.  That puts the NRA folks in a position to want to protect his rights to own the gun even though it goes against their ideology regarding terrorists and their weapons.
3. We are debating, and have been debating, whether assault rifles or AR-15s should be legal for private citizens.  Or although AR-15 isn’t technically an assault rifle, should it be considered one.
4. We assume that this was a religiously motivated hate crime, but could he be a closeted gay who was struggling with a moral conflict with Islam?
5. Why was he having dating chats with gay men who come to the club.  Why was he spotted at the club dozens of times of a year?  Reconnaissance?

   You have liberals having to defend their belief that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. What if the guy had been a Christian? When the say it had nothing to do with Christianity?

   And what do that extreme anti-gay Christians do with their belief that gays should be executed. Do they applaud a Muslim for the terrorist attack?

6. If he was interviewed by the FBI, should he be allowed to buy a gun?  What do you do if he already bought the gun before the FBI investigated him?
7. Should people on the no-fly list be buying guns?

This is complicated.  NRA people defending a Muslim “terrorist”.  Radical Christians defending an Islamic hate crime against gays.

This is a hard event to process.  One thing that occurs to me is that radical Christians and conservatives have more in common with radical Muslims than they do with the rest of their faith.

The debates are confusing.  We have people who support Trump, defending a man because of his anti-gay, pro-gun positions, but who Trump says should be banned from our country.

I do not know how to debate this issue, because it’s a ball of issues each of which are complex in their own ways.

It feels like something is shifting.  We’re seeing part of the country prioritize gun rights and anti-gay sentiment higher than their dislike of Muslims and terrorists.  What do we do with that?  I don’t know how to interpret that.

I was hoping that in writing this, I would be able to come to some sort of understanding, but all I really understand is that I’m concerned about people who do not see this is more complicated than black and white.

When I’m right, I’m right.  When I’m not sure, I say so.  When I’m wrong, I admit it.

This is what I yelled at my daughter the other day.  We’ve had a couple of spats recently on the subject of me correcting her or anybody when I believe they are wrong.  The accusation is that I don’t trust people’s claims to facts, etc.  It’s a fair accusation.  I am a skeptic.  I am an investigator.

But this is not how I see it.  It’s not about me being right.  It’s about doing someone the courtesy of preventing someone from propagating false information and possibly being embarrassed on down the line.  Nobody likes to be corrected, but nobody likes to sound foolish, either. It’s like if you walking out to the lady’s room with your skirt tucked up in your panties.  It’s embarrassing when I tell you so, but you’re grateful that I did. Many of us fact check and correct on a daily basis on Facebook, no matter the motives.  It is true that some people do it because they get off on being right.  That is not my M.O.  But, as you would expect, there is more to the story.

Case in point! A few days ago, my daughter and I took a trip to Barnes & Noble to browse books and sip espresso.  When she found a book, we stepped up to the counter for her to buy it.  The young woman behind the counter was wearing a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child dongle around her neck.

I asked, “So when is the new Harry Potter book coming out?”  She gave me a date and then I added, “So, I’m confused, did J.K. Rowling write this?”

Now at this point I was 99% sure I knew the answer, so asking this is kind of a  (pardon the vulgarity) dick move.  But what I knew was that the story was written by Rowling and then turned into a play which was turned into a book.  The playwright is Jack Thorne.  I didn’t want to sound like an insufferable know-it-all (see Severus Snape about Hermione Granger), so I tried to strike up a casual conversation which would end up with me correcting any falsehood.

She looked at me as if I was so sadly ignorant.  Of course J.K. Rowling wrote the book, it’s Harry Potter after all.  I left her with “Actually, I heard that someone else wrote it, but regardless, I’ll be here to buy my copy!”  It is was a big step forward in maturity for me to walk away, although I very nearly drove back to the store to set her straight after I confirmed my facts.

In the car, my daughter gave me what for for contradicting the woman.  She claimed that I don’t give anyone an credit, and that I always say that I’m right and that no one else is ever right.  Of course, that is hyperbole.  But even still, that is not true.  When I’m 100% certain, I usually confront someone on their bad information very politely.  When I’m not sure, I say “Hey, I’m no 100% sure about this but I seem to recall…you might want to check your facts…(or I just look it up myself).  Or if I’m not sure at all, I say that I don’t know or I don’t say anything at all.  I feel ok about this.  After all my, thing is not being right, it is helping people to not be wrong.  There is a difference.  Isn’t there?  But she is very perceptive;  there was more to the story.  I had a motive for the whole conversation.

The first headline for this “book” was that J.K. Rowling finally wrote another Harry Potter novel, but as I dug a little deeper I was disappointed to find that it wasn’t true.  Since then I’ve been spreading the truth about the “book” here and there because I don’t want others to be let down or misled when the book comes out.  It’s a play, first off, it’s not a novel. I’ve read plays…Shakespeare, for example.  They are not as satisfying as reading a novel, and nothing like reading a Harry Potter book.  Second off, Rowling did not write it, so either Jack Thorne tried to mimic Rowling’s writing or it’s not going to sound like Rowling at all.  It’s really just one degree away from being fan fiction.

And so, when I found out that this girl, who’s job it is to know about the books in B&N, thought wrongly about this monumentally important book, my motive was more than just stopping bad info, it was out of concern for the people who will likely be disappointed when they see Thorne credited as the writer and when they open the “book” to read “Act I, Scene I.  A man with unkempt black hair and a lightning bolt scar on his forehead sits by the fire…”

Even as I write this post, I’m slipping in facts about this silly book, and the book isn’t the point at all!

This example is a special circumstance.  There are other motives for correcting people.  For example, I really hate when someone puts out bogus information which disparages someone else or their beliefs.  In this case, I am coming to the defense.  I could think of other just reasons for correcting someone, but I’ll tell a story which demonstrates how far I’ve come with it.

In college, I dated a girl who believed an old wives’ tail that chocolate causes acne.  I knew her parents, and I knew her decrepit dermatologist and did not consider them valid sources.  There is only a tiny correlation between chocolate and acne and that is that sugary/fatty food can cause an inflammation that might lead to acne.  There was no Google then, so I had asked my doctor, he confirmed that it was a myth.  Then one night, I set out to prove her wrong.  She could not be moved no matter how much data I threw at her.  The end of the story is her parents hiding in a back room, her crying, and me in the front lawn raving and pounding my fists on the lawn over acne and chocolate.  I don’t think it was too long after that that she dumped me.

Compare that with me at the book store.  You’re welcome, America, for me not rolling around on the floor of a Barnes & Noble over who wrote a damn book.

nostalgia (origins) – a return to grief

It’s too early to think about Christmas.  I know that, but I feel myself sinking into a longing for it.  I know where that leads, and I’ve written about this before.

My seventh Christmas was a real sweet spot for me as far as Christmases go.  There was a moment that couldn’t have lasted more than 10 minutes that ranks as one of the greatest memories of my life.  I was in my front living room in our house.  We had a live tree with presents under it.  My mom had just given me permission to light the candles by myself for the first time.  An album was playing on the hi fi.  I believe it was somewhere in the neighborhood of a Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians Christmas album.  I was by myself.

I can’t tell you exactly what made that moment so perfect, and I’ve tried to recreate it with the smells and the music and the sights of it.  Scotch tape, burning candles, cedar tree, cozy music, low lights.  But ultimately I fail, because that house had a unique smell.  That candle  had a unique smell.  The weather had a unique smell.  That town has a unique smell.  And seven-years-old is irretrievable.  I have ached over this.

Nostalgia is really a kind of suffering.  It triggers depression for me.  It is a rejection of an unsatisfying present moment in exchange for the ghosts of better days.  Those who live in nostalgia are said to live in the past, but the past is dead.  The past does not really exist anymore, so a chronic nostalgia junky doesn’t even live in the past; they live in the present with no awareness of it.  They do not experience it at all.  It’s a longing for something that no longer exists.  It is a grief.  Those of us who suffer from nostalgia are grieving the loss of what we perceive to be better times.

It’s good to have remembrances and traditions.  But I’m talking about obsession.  Have you ever had a family member insist on a tradition that no one else likes?  They get angry at anyone who tries to disrupt it.  This is not happy nostalgia.  This is painful nostalgia.  It is hurting that person and the people around them.

There’s a movie called Cinema Paradiso in which a boy falls in love with a girl in his little Italian village.  She moves away and he does not know to where.  He spends his life trying to find her and living off the memories of her.  There is a theme in the musical score which represents his longing.  He suffers from powerful nostalgia.  When he finally finds her, they are middle-aged.  She is married.  They drive off together and have sex in the car, and that is all.  She must return to her home.  All of his pain and suffering are expressed in an ultimately empty act of lovemaking.  There is no closure for him.  He is empty, and the theme plays on.

I became obsessed with this movie and the song.  I lived off of his nostalgia as if it was my own.  I know that I should never watch the movie again.  It would trigger a depression that could last for weeks.  There are songs and movies and books that I can no longer experience without consequences.

But I have discovered how to battle nostalgia.  I seek out the moment.  I smell, see, hear, taste, and touch what is in front of me.  I make new traditions.  I watch new movies and listen to new music.  The truth is that what I long for in the past are moments in which I was fully present.  Kids know how to do this.  That may have something to do with why our most powerful memories are from our childhood.  We long for grandma’s peach pie, that one Christmas with a rare snow, the songs our parents danced to…because when we kids, we were fully immersed in those moments.  But we are just as capable of experiencing powerful moments in the present which we will one day look back on with happiness.  We will overcome the grief of nostalgia.

Recently, due to an elevated level of mania, I cancelled my church choir rehearsal.  For the first time, I told my choir exactly why I had to cancel, and people were supportive.  I’ve decided to be candid from here on out.  I will not be ashamed.  When I finally returned, at the end of the rehearsal, we expressed our joys and concerns.  I thanked the choir for their understanding and assured them that my new meds were helping me be more functional again.  Afterwards, a woman approached me.  She has a brother who is bipolar.  She said, “Just remember that no matter what, you’re still you.”

I was deeply touched, not only because of her concern, but because one of my favorite songs is You’re Still You by Josh Groban.  I don’t really know exactly what the song is about, but I love to sing it aloud frequently.  I attach my own personal meaning to it;

It seems kind of like a love song to someone who is about to die.  Honestly, I’m not sure and I don’t really care.  It’s the phrase “after all, you’re still you” that I focus on when I sing it.  And I’m not applying it to myself really.  I’m offering it to someone else for encouragement and support.  I don’t really know what to do with it for myself.

I’m going to break this down and figure out what this phrase really means.  “You’re still you” implies, first, that there is something called a you or a me. A me is something that must be definable.  It is the qualities that make up who I am.  So when someone says to me “you’re still you”, that means that there is something that makes me unique.  I’m not you, I’m me.  I accept that there is a me.  I think the way I think.  I feel the way I feel.  I behave the way I behave.  I have a unique combination of qualities and abilities all of which make me me.

Then there’s the word “still”.  This is where I get a little hung up.  “Still” implies that there might be another thing that isn’t me; otherwise, you would only have to say “you’re you”.  So there must be something other than the essential qualities which comprise me.

At another moment, the same woman said either ,”You seem yourself again,”  or “You seem back to normal again.”  I can’t remember which.  The first implies that I wasn’t myself while I was manic.  The second implies that I was abnormal when I was manic.  In  the first case, if I wasn’t myself, then who was I?  I can’t be someone else, but I can behave in a way that is not characteristic of myself.  So, in that case, I don’t have another self, but I have another configuration of self.  The configuration where certain qualities like patience change to impatience.  Or a quality like humility changes to braggadocios.  So what she’s really saying is you’ve returned to your normal configuration.

Have you ever messed up the settings (configuration) of your phone?  The ring tone isn’t what you want.  The screen is too bright.  You can’t find your favorite app.  Something in the configuration is changed, and your phone won’t work the way you want it to until you fix it.  That’s what bipolar is.  Our configuration get’s messed up and we need medication to get the settings back right and therapy to learn to deal with the settings that the medicine cannot get back right.

So back to “you’re still you”.  I suppose I could ask her what she meant, but I think I’ve got it.  She’s saying that although I may feel, think, and behave differently, my identity, my self continues on regardless.  She’s saying that I needn’t lose sight of me;  that I should never say that I am a horrible person because of what I’ve done, but that I’m a good person because that’s the way God made me regardless of what havoc my illness may cause.

And this is where I struggle.  I do not feel like myself, think like myself, or behave like myself when I am sick.  That’s the way it seems to me. Even my appearance changes depending on how far gone and how long gone I’ve been.  People look at me, or experience me in some way and say, this is not the guy I know.  This is someone else.

But here’s what I’ve learned over years of treatment.  There is a part of my mind which transcends my self.  Let’s call it the Observer.  When my consciousness is in the Observer, then I can observe what I am thinking, feeling, and doing.  I can look at it and think, “This is a manifestation of bipolar symptoms”;  kind of like a lucid dream.  If I can do that, then there’s a better chance that I can better control the situation.  Maybe that Observer is the true me.  Maybe the other stuff is simply the product of genes, environments, and ego.  Maybe that stuff is the vehicle, and the Observer is the driver, at least when it is awake. These are good maybe’s.  These maybe’s open up the possibility that I can, at least at times, transcend my disorder.  It opens up the possibility that “you’re still you” can be applied to me.

Yesterday afternoon, I logged into Facebook (professional way of saying I’ve actually been logged into Facebook at work since 2015) and saw this picture on my wife’s wall with the caption “First I smelled it, then I saw it. HOW?!?!?!”

It took me a moment to be sure what it was.  Was it a racoon?  A lemur? A monkey?  ORRRRRR a possum?

The next question was:  are we sure this is dead?  But if it smelled bad then it was undoubtedly dead.

The NEXT question, then, is HOW?!?!?!, as my wife put it.  How did a possum end up seemingly slung over my backyard fence dead?  I’ve seen possums walk across the tops of fences three or four times.  They are very deft creatures to be admired, even though they are extraordinarily repulsive.  Certainly it must have been walking across the top of the fence.  Then what?  It slipped and fell in just the right position to be stuck?  Look how it’s little nasty feet can’t quite reach the cross bar.  That would mean that it slowly died on my fence unbeknownst to me.  I showed my backyard to a realtor on Monday and neither of us noticed this.  Was it there struggling for it’s life?  It certainly wasn’t making any noise, if so.  I’ve never heard a possum make any noise other than a hiss.

A second theory, because possums are so deft, is that it had a little marsupial heart attack and sort of jumped up and around into this position flat dead on the spot.  I prefer this theory to the slow death one.

Another theory seems very far fetched, but is it really? We have new neighbors on the other side of that fence.  I know absolutely nothing about them other than they look like college kids.  What kind of people are they?  Dunno.  Are they the kind of people who would shoot a possum and sling it over our fence?  Dunno.  But it seems nearly as plausible as he other two theories.

Final theory, raccoon assassin.

So it’s about thirty minutes until quitting time and I’m running scenarios in my head about how to deal with this tragic possum situation.  I’ve removed a possum from my backyard before, but it was dead in a garden and mostly decomposed.  Shovel, bag, trash can, done. But this was a radically different scenario.  This was one was fresh.  It would smell foul enough to gag a person. It would be more than bones and fur.  I concocted two plans.

1. Put on gloves. Put a bag in a utility bucket.  Use a shovel to poke the carcass off the fence onto the ground.  Shovel the carcass into the bag, tie, put in trash bin.  But see, this has a flaw.  That possum is slung exactly half way over the fence.  To poke it over the fence could easily become dragging it over the fence for which the shovel is ill-equipped.
2. Put on gloves.  Lift the bag up to the back-end of the possum and GRAB the body with the bag until it DROPS into the bottom of the bag.  Put in the trash bin.  Now, I know everybody knows the difference between poking or patting a person and GRABBING them around the waist. I gentle pat is something friends do, but grabbing around the waist is a very intimate gesture reserved for romantic partners or lifting a baby.  So the idea of grabbing this carcass around the waist even with gloves and a bag is a huge barrier for me.

And so I brought in a couple of coworkers to look at the picture and problem-solve with me.  This is how the decision was ultimately made.  One of the guys says this.  “Ok, is the possum bloated?  Because if it is and you handle it, the bloated gas could be released from the body into your face or mouth and you don’t know if that possum is carrying a disease.  You need to call animal control.”  And this next part is what created some insecurity about the whole plan.  “And when you call, tell them you’re afraid for the safety of your kids and pets.”

To which I responded, “But my kids are 16 and 18.”

And this is said emphatically, “They. Don’t.  Need. To know that.”

So, at that point, because of the gas, I resolved to call in the animal control.  But that was not going to be a simple operation for me:  the mywifesaysimcomplicated guy.  I have two things I have to address here.  1.)  Real men remove dead animals from their property, and I have done it before.  2.)  If I have to mention I’m concerned about the safety of my children, then it seems like there’s a possibility that they won’t come out under every circumstance.  Like they might say, “Ok, sir, you’re telling me, that your pets are indoor and your kids are basically adults, and you’re a grown-ass man, and you’re asking us to send a person (who happens to be a woman half your size) to retrieve a smallish possum which is already hanging neatly on the fence for you?

And so I called my wife.  I said, “Hey, so you need to call animal control.”

She says,  “Hmmm.  Can you do that?”

I say, “Weeeellll, I think it would be better if you do.  It would be better if a woman calls.”

She says, “Babe.  I don’t want to.  Please just call.”

Nothin’ doin’.  So I look up “animal control norman” on my Google Maps app and what comes up is “City of Norman Animal Welfare”.  I read about it.  It’s about strays and adoptions.   It says nothing about removing dead animals.  But I call anyway, and I absolutely have to begin the conversation this way.

“Hello, yes, I’ah I am not sure if I’ve dialed the right place, but I’ve got a dead possum situation.  I’ve removed possums before, so…but this one is really peculiar. It’s hanging over the fence…so that’s a little weird, right?  I mean, I just don’t feel like I should be messing with it.”

“Sir, you want the animal control dispatch.  I’ll forward you to the dispatcher.”

She forwards me.

“Yes, animal control dispatch, how can I help you?”

I was out of wind and ego and worry by this point, so I simply said, “Can you pick up a dead possum?”

“Please give me your address.  Will you be at the residence?”

“Well, my wife will.”

“We’ll be right out.”

Simple as that.  None of my fears were realized.  Just “address please, on our way”.  No overt or implied judgement.

I let my wife know that they would be over soon and that she needed to be there to let them into the backyard.  When I got home she explained that the woman who came out speculated that it’s little feet may have gotten stuck on the fence.  She’d seen a cat hanging dead just like that earlier in the week.  I shuddered at the thought.

I enjoy the look on people’s face when I say that I’ve actually eaten possum.  I found it to be delicious, relative to it’s repulsiveness.  And so when my wife said she couldn’t eat the leftover roast chuck roast for dinner thinking about the dead possum, I had enough concern for her not to mention that the texture of chuck roast is very similar to possum roast.  That might have been the last chuck roast I cook in our house.

And now I will leave you with one last image.  My wife said,  “Oh, and when she removed the possum, it left a big wet spot on the fence.”

Wow.  There are a lot of mental health related months, weeks, and days.  But this is a good thing.  It needs a spotlight.

In 2014, there were an estimated 9.8 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with SMI (Serious Mental Illness). This number represented 4.2% of all U.S.

adults. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/serious-mental-illness-smi-among-us-adults.shtml

And that’s just the folks who have been identified as having SMI.  I suspect that millions more are untreated, undiagnosed.   That means that if you have 500 Facebook friends, at least 21 of them have a mental illness, which means everybody knows somebody whether they know it or not.

SMI is defined by the  National Institute for Mental Health as the following :

• A mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder (excluding developmental and substance use disorders);
• Diagnosable currently or within the past year;
• Of sufficient duration to meet diagnostic criteria specified within the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV); and,
• Resulting in serious functional impairment, which substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.

There are so many issues facing people with mental illness.  The availability of treatment is at the top, but so is stigmatization. Here are common myths/stigmas.

Myths about Mental Illness

Ten Common Myths

Here are ten common myths about mental illnesses.

Myth #1: Mental illnesses aren’t real illnesses.

Fact: The words we use to describe mental illnesses have changed greatly over time. What hasn’t changed is the fact that mental illnesses are not the regular ups and downs of life. Mental illnesses create distress, don’t go away on their own, and are real health problems with effective treatments. When someone breaks their arm, we wouldn’t expect them to just “get over it.” Nor would we blame them if they needed a cast, sling, or other help in their daily life while they recovered.

Myth #2: Mental illnesses will never affect me.

Fact: All of us will be affected by mental illnesses. Researchers estimate that as many as one in five Canadians will experience a mental illness at some point in their life. You may not experience a mental illness yourself, but it’s very likely that a family member, friend, or co-worker will experience challenges.

Myth #3: Mental illnesses are just an excuse for poor behaviour.

Fact: It’s true that some people who experience mental illnesses may act in ways that are unexpected or seem strange to others. We need to remember that the illness, not the person, is behind these behaviours. No one chooses to experience a mental illness. People who experience a change in their behaviour due to a mental illness may feel extremely embarrassed or ashamed around others. It’s also true that people with a history of a mental illness are like anyone else: they may make poor choices or do something unexpected for reasons unrelated to symptoms of their illness.

Myth #4: Bad parenting causes mental illnesses.

Fact: No one factor can cause mental illnesses. Mental illnesses are complicated conditions that arise from a combination of genetics, biology, environment, and life experiences. Family members and loved ones do have a big role in support and recovery.

Myth #5: People with mental illnesses are violent and dangerous.

Fact: Some people try to predict violence so they know what to avoid. However, the causes of violence are complicated. Researchers agree that mental illnesses are not a good predictor of violence. In fact, if we look at mental illnesses on their own, people who experience a mental illness are no more violent than people without a mental illness.Excluding people from communities is linked to violence. And people with mental illnesses are often among those who are excluded. It’s also important to note that people who experience mental illnesses are much more likely to be victims of violence than to be violent.

Myth #6: People don’t recover from mental illnesses.

Fact: People can and do recover from mental illnesses. Today, there are many different kinds of treatments, services, and supports that can help. No one should expect to feel unwell forever. The fact is, people who experience mental illnesses can and do lead productive, engaged lives. They work, volunteer, or contribute their unique skills and abilities to their communities. Even when people experience mental illnesses that last for a long time, they can learn how to manage their symptoms so they can get back to their goals. If someone continues to experience many challenges, it may be a sign that different approaches or supports are needed.

Myth #7: People who experience mental illnesses are weak and can’t handle stress.

Fact:  Stress impacts well-being, but this is true for everyone. People who experience mental illnesses may actually be better at managing stress than people who haven’t experienced mental illnesses. Many people who experience mental illnesses learn skills like stress management and problem-solving so they can take care of stress before it affects their well-being. Taking care of yourself and asking for help when you need it are signs of strength, not weakness.

Myth #8: People who experience mental illnesses can’t work.

Fact: Whether you realize it or not, workplaces are filled with people who have experienced mental illnesses. Mental illnesses don’t mean that someone is no longer capable of working. Some people benefit from changes at work to support their goals, but many people work with few supports from their employer. Most people who experience serious mental illnesses want to work but face systemic barriers to finding and keeping meaningful employment.

Myth #9: Kids can’t have a mental illness like depression. Those are adult problems

Fact: Even children can experience mental illnesses. In fact, many mental illnesses first appear when a person is young. Mental illnesses may look different in children than in adults, but they are a real concern. Mental illnesses can impact the way young people learn and build skills, which can lead to challenges in the future. Unfortunately, many children don’t receive the help they need.

Myth #10: Everyone gets depressed as they grow older. It’s just part of the aging process.

Fact: Depression is never an inevitable part of aging. Older adults may have a greater risk of depression because they experience so many changes in roles and social networks. If an older adult experiences depression, they need the same support as anyone else.

These myths—and many more—exclude people with mental illnesses from our communities and create barriers to well-being. If we want to reduce the impact of mental illnesses on our communities, we need to learn the facts and start with our own assumptions and behaviours.

What Are the Effects/Impacts of Stigma

Stigma limits a person’s ability to:

• get and keep a job
• fit in at school without being bullied
• find a safe place to live
• attend college or university
• receive adequate health care (including treatment for substance use and mental health problems) and other support
• be accepted by their family, friends and community
• find and make friends or have other long-term relationships
• obtain insurance or loans
• volunteer within their community
• take part in social activities

Prejudice and discrimination often become internalized by people with mental health and substance use problems. This may lead us to self-stigmatize, meaning we:

• believe the negative things that other people and the media say about us
• have lower self-esteem because we feel guilt and shame

Prejudice and discrimination contribute to people with mental health and substance use problems keeping their problems a secret.

As a result:

• we avoid getting the help we need
• our mental health or substance use problems are less likely to get better, and in many cases get worse
• we may become isolated, depressed and are at an increased risk of suicide
• youth may experience increased drug abuse, suicide attempts and teen pregnancy
• we may lose hope in our ability to recover

This myth that we all get depressed eventually is important to consider.  I’ve seen statistics that say that 1 in 4 people experience mental illness at some point.  But I don’t see it that way.  25% of the world is not mentally ill, folks. Yes, we all experience the occasional blues, but that is not clinical depression.  Many of us exhibit some obsessive compulsive tendencies, but that is not obsessive compulsive disorder.   Many of us experience the occasional mood swing, but that is not bipolar affective disorder.  When you say you have any mental illness but don’t meet the diagnostic requirements, you belittle those who do.  You’re saying, look at me, I get a little anal retentive about the dishes and I can still function, why can’t you?  I struggle with anxiety, but I meditated and it went away, you don’t need drugs, just do what I did.  Or I know what you’re going through, I was so happy yesterday, and now I want to eat a lot of ice cream because I had a rough day.  Or, I’ve suffered from mental illness just like you, and it wasn’t so bad, and I got better.  No, you do not know what it’s like.  4.2% is a lot of people, but relatively speaking, it’s almost no people at all.

I’ve been fortunate in that I’m not aware of having been the victim of stigma.  I surround myself with understanding/supportive people.  I’m also a very high functioning bipolar.  If I ever had a breakdown which greatly impacted my job, then perhaps it might be different.  But when things are looking bad, I communicate with my employer.  HR departments understand the law and the protections.  Bipolar is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), just like any other disability.  The law was designed to protect people with disabilities from discrimination in hiring, job assignments, promotions, firing, pay, layoffs, benefits and other employment-related activities.  I can’t say whether this fights stigma directly, but it does prevent a person with a mental illness from being treated unfairly because of it.

I’ve committed myself to fighting stigma over the last year.  I’ve taken a personal risk in doing so, but awareness is key.  Those of you who know me can say you know someone with a mental illness.  You can see that the stigmas are baseless in many cases.  But I acknowledge that I am the beneficiary of  good employment with good insurance.  I might look a lot different without that.  I must ask, would I be looked at the same if I didn’t have it so good?  Would you want me working for you?  Would you feel comfortable with me around your kids?  And if I were single, would you want to be involved with me?  I have nothing but sympathy for those who cannot get the treatment they need to function.  Nearly half of people with a mental illness are untreated.  Many of them are in prison.  Many are drug addicts and alcoholics.  Many are unemployable.

So what can you do?  Make yourself aware is the starting point.

Web fiction is written work of literature available primarily or solely on the Internet. A common type of web fiction is the webserial. The term comes from old serial stories that were once published regularly in newspapers and magazines. – Wikipedia

A number of years ago, I wrote a webserial called The Smell Collector.  The blurb is :

The experience of smell is the closest thing we have to intimate human contact.  A woman’s perfume, a whiff of cigarette smoked, a little bit of diesel fume, and some spearmint gum might come close to someone’s first kiss, for example.  Of course, it’s impossible to create a first kiss without the human element, but for Jim Bronson, it’s the best he can do.

It’s been read through only 132 times.  This is very small for a web serial, but the people who have read it love it, mostly.  Here are some of the reviews and comments.

“The Smell Collector is a story with high originality marks, because it’s something new and offbeat” – author of one of the most successful web serials of all time,  The Worm

“This is a fairly simple story, yet it manages to be funny, original, and ultimately, beautiful. It could easily have gone wrong by being too silly, or getting maudlin, or losing our sympathy for its oddball characters, but instead it hits all the right notes. It’s not often a story makes me smile and giggle, and also makes me cry.” – Fiona Gregory, Editior of The Web Fiction Guide

“Wow, this story is amazingly creepy (thus, awesome). I stumbled upon your blog when I was searching about webfiction. The way you write it is very interesting (the many different POVs), and it really would be perfect as movie! I just finished reading all the chapters you’ve written until now, and I’m amazed at how well I can see everything happening in my mind!”  – Reader Alice

It’s ranked the 4th most popular webserial in the category of modern fiction on topwebfiction.com, which a very small category.  I’m not sure what the problem with this serial is other than the fact that it’s not about super heroes, vampires, science fiction, or One Direction which is the vast majority of web fiction.  The story is creepy or unsettling at times.  The writing is not exactly professional.  Someone wrote that the first few installments were like jumping into ice water because the character’s mind is so foreign.  I do see many people read the first chapter and quit, so I changed it this week.  I started with a little action, which is a good rule.

I speculate endlessly about the prospects of this work.  I can see a film so easily, but I have no idea how to make that happen.  I don’t think the writing and storytelling is consistently at a professional level, but I think the characters and premise are unique and strong.

I plug this serial on Facebook and Twitter from time to time, and have very little luck getting people to read it.  Most of my reads come from other sites promoting it.  The main source of readers comes from The New Devil, which is a web fiction serial about a seventeen-year-old kid who dies and unwillingly becomes the Devil. He writes:

If you’re a sucker for an enigmatic lead character like I am, you might enjoy this clever and captivating serial.  It’s about a guy who is obsessed with learning how to recreate all kinds of smells, including each individual’s personal scent.  He’s creepy but endearing, and the stuff that happens in his life is fun to read.  This story is now complete, too, so you can get the whole story instead of having to check back for updates.

Web serial writers often depend on other writers to help promote their work.  The author of The New Devil will know that I promoted his site because his site will shoot him a notification.

The thing is, despite it’s very modest success, I think The Smell Collector has a greater potential.  I wonder sometimes if I should just let it go.  I have a very well-planned serial/novel which is just waiting to be written.  I’ve written a detailed outline and character sketches, as well as a rough first chapter.  The Belly of the Church.  Premise:  A reporter discovers the truth about his home town when he uncovers its dark secret.  In the process, he deals with his own dark truths.

I’ve also writting 50k words in a novel called Fly By Night.  It leans toward super hero.

Daniel is a 30-something computer programmer whose life has so far been a series of very fortunate events. His friends and family consider him to be lucky. To them, he just seems to sail through life. In fact, his nickname is “Lucky”. Well, Daniel’s luck is beginning to run out. His marriage is falling apart. His career is stalling. He can’t deal with his two children. He feels alone and depressed. Daniel is losing his way…that is, until he encounters a guide. This guide isn’t a therapist, a pastor, or a guru. In fact, Daniel’s not even sure if it is human. And soon, Daniel will a night job and a new direction.

It was my first attempt at fiction, and remains one of my best.  I just haven’t figured out exactly how to finish it.  It was well-received, but remains incomplete.

I think everyone fantasizes about being a professional novelist on some level.  I am not a professional writer, nor am I likely to be.  But I do have ideas that are worthy of professional writing.  My writing is not bad at all, but I know that it’s nothing as good as anything I read.

I write this post, not to promote my work, but to describe what I and many amateur or aspiring writings experience.  We badly want attention and recognition for our work, but we don’t want to pester anybody about it.  We just want someone to read it and enjoy it because it is good.  As you can see from the various comments I’ve quoted, people do like it.  I confess, I didn’t post any of the negative comments, like the review entitled “The Smell Collector Doesn’t Stink” which was a very mixed review by a very prominent web serial author.

So far, mywifesaysimcomplicated is a far more popular blog than any of my fiction blogs.  I don’t know why that is.  It’s still my writing and storytelling.  Maybe the title The Smell Collector is unsettling.   Perhaps I’ll attend some workshops to understand why it is not as popular though critically acclaimed in it’s own small way.  Until then, I’ll continue writing this blog.  Thanks for reading!

koan – a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment.

For quite a few years, I was a part of a meditation group in Norman. It’s still going, but I rarely make it. I learned some valuable skills with that group. I learned how to meditate. I learned how to listen. I learned how to commune with my inner divinity and with God. I learned how to open my eyes in a spiritual way. I felt as if I had been blind in someway until then.

My little brother and I both attended the group. He and I are forever changed by our experiences. We also share a bond over what we learned. When one of us is out of sync with our own divinity, we remind each other of this koan. The notion that humans contain a spark of divinity or that we are a piece of God is nothing new, but it was new to us.

In a way, it solved a theological problem I was having, which is where do I find God? And how do I speak with God? God is within, and we are within God. God is with us because we are a drop in His ocean. But it’s when we forget that that we thirst. We learned ancient techniques to experience the greater ocean of life. All I have to do, is do it. And yet, I became less and less prone to do it. Perhaps out of sheer laziness. So I wrote this koan to help me.

God is often like an untouched cup of water in front of a blind, thirsty man.

Strangely, God is often like an untouched cup of water in front of a seeing, thirsty man.

First we are attached to our blindness, then we are attached to our thirst.

Before I learned how to get into “The Stream” of God’s Energy, God’s Consciousness, or however you want to call it, I was blind and thirsty. But how absurd is it to remain thirsty when I can see the cup of water within my reach? And yet I do that. The paradox is that my blindness made me thirsty, yet my thirstiness made me as good as blind.

You don’t have to be a big meditation person to know what I mean. People of faith, spiritual people, all know what it’s like to be in God’s presence. We all know in our hearts that we are always welcome to enter God’s presence, and yet, we don’t do it! Instead we thirst, wondering where the relief is even though we’ve seen the cup and drunk the water.

Even as I’m writing this, I’m thirsty for God. I’m not blind. I see the cup. I could get up out of my chair, walk to my car, and meditate for 10 or 15 minutes. I would be relieved, at least for awhile, of my worries and sense of separation from the Almighty River of God’s divine energy. Perhaps I’ll do it.

My first blog was in 2005, fathermanseekingpeace.blogspot.com.  It was devoted to bringing peace into the world.   Although the blog is down, it’s content is still accessible to me.  The ideas still hold water, but they are cliche by now.  I found a handful of posts that were not spiritual, though.  I’ve thought of this particular post over the years.  The observation still holds true.

As I was washing my lunch dishes at work, I noticed that some thoughtful person had brought in a new bottle of liquid dishwashing soap. Normally, I might not have noticed, but we have gone without soap for a week, so I was excited enough to notice the label: Non-Ultra Dawn. There was nothing particularly non-ultra about it that I could see. Obviously, the original Dawn product has become the exception to the point that anything that is not Ultra Dawn must be described as Non-Ultra. Then it dawns on me (sorry, it’s not even that good of a pun) that this is absolute craziness. This bizarre way of describing things has gotten totally out of hand!

Let’s start with the smaller issue: Ultra, Super, Premium, Extra, etc.

It’s hard to buy a product that is not Ultra, Super, Premium, Extra, Mega, Double, or Triple. At what point do these words become meaningless? I’d say about 8 seconds after Walmart stops stocking the original product. And what happens when they want to enhance the already enhanced product? Consider L.A. Looks Hair Gel:

There is no regular hold gel, is there? There’s Super Hold, Extra Super Hold, Mega Hold, Mega Mega Hold, Extreme Hold, and Extreme Mega Mega Hold (I’m not sure about the last one, but it seems inevitable). Isn’t a gel that holds your hair in place enough for some people? If Super Hold keeps my hair in place wouldn’t using Extreme Hold mean that my hair will take on the properties of concrete?

Ok, now on to the bigger, more pressing issue: What do you call the rule when it becomes the exception? Why does Dawn feel like it has to call it’s original product Non-Ultra Dawn? Why are we calling coffee in it’s natural state Regular or (even worse) Caff? Whole Milk anyone? Then there’s the large assortment of Unscented products. Long ago, some guy decided that their product ought to be scented. They came up with pine fresh, mountain spring, april fresh, clean breeze, and so on. Now, to get the original product you’re going to have to look for something that’s been through the mythical process known as Unscenting. We unscented it. Geez, we could increase productivity by 20% if we didn’t have to unscent this stuff! Is this what my Aunt Ginger paid the vet to do to her ferret before it could become their household pet? Then there’s Unsalted butter and Unsalted nuts. How ridiculous would the process of Unsalting nuts be? Ok, Joe. You do the salting, then send them over Frank where he…

It doesn’t stop with products. Uncircumcised.  How do you uncircumcise something?

EDIT:  FYI, they don’t make Non-Ultra Dawn anymore.  They make Non-Concentrated Dawn, though.

My first school memory was in Austin, Texas.  I attended a preschool with my brother.  I very much enjoyed this school.  We ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  We ate celery and peanut butter. Lot of Peter Pan peanut butter.   We sang Singing in the Bathtub and pretended to wash our armpits. We took a walk to the corner store.  There were butter cup flowers along the path.  My teacher taught me how to hold the flower under my chin.  If my chin glowed yellow, then it was conclusive, empirical proof that I liked butter.  She assured me that I did.  I certainly did after that day.

My crushes on girls can be traced back to this class.  I was “girl crazy” from a very young age.  If I’m not mistaken, you can tell if someone is girl or boy crazy if touching the back of their neck makes them ticklish.  I was undeniably girl crazy.  I never went through an “ick girls!” phase.  I have only one recollection of the girl at that school.  I was looking out of the window of the second story classroom into the playground and I saw her in her coat and dress; brown hair and ribbon.  It’s hard to explain how a 3-4 year old crushes on someone.  Perhaps I simply wanted to hold her hand.  Or maybe it was far grander.  Maybe I fantasized about marriage and “playing house”.   All I know for sure is that my tummy felt funny when I saw her.  We moved very soon after.  It would be one of several experiences in childhood unrequited love.

We moved to Lonoke Arkansas when I was four.  There, we attended Ginger Bread Pre-school.  We ate chili mac for lunch. Kids got yelled at for not eating, but I didn’t have to be asked twice.  I steered clear of a kid whose nose was filled to the brim with brown boogers.  I joined the more daring boys on the playground clearing the slide in one broad jump from the very top.

As Christmas approached, a boy who would became my friend throughout elementary school stood before the class.  He was a plump kid.  Adults used the word “husky” for kids like that.  Consequently, his voice was very husky as well. He recited Twas the Night Before Christmas. It was the most impressive feat from a kid my age I had ever witnessed.  I cannot hear that poem without thinking of him.

My crushes continued on through kindergarten, but I lacked the courage or the skill to doing anything about them, and the few attempts that I made were sorely lacking ranging from the ineffective to the humiliating.

My parents could not afford nice clothes for us.  If we got new clothes, they were from the Sears catalog. But we were very fortunate that there were two boys in our church whose father owned the nice clothing store in town.  We got all of their nice hand-me-downs.  It was exciting to us to wear Polo and Izod.  Every kid wishes they were richer, and this helped me create the perception that we were.

On the first day of school (1st/2nd/3rd grade, I cannot remember), I chose some fresh hand-me-downs.  It was a red and white satin track suit (tank top, and shorts).  I was a little anxious about the satin, but I figured if the previous owner could pull them off, I certainly could.  I tucked the shirt in, put on some knee-high tube socks with red racing stripes and proudly strutted to school.

No one said anything at first, but finally a kid who eventually became my friend took me aside.  We were both running errands for our teachers.  As we walked he said something like “Where did you get that shirt?”

I lied and said my mom bought it.

He said, “Some of the kids are saying it’s a girl’s shirt.  I say wear what you want, but I thought you’d like to know.”  Or some little kid version of that.  I felt embarrassed for the rest of the day, and I never wore it again.  I must have wondered if I just wasn’t as cool as the previous owner.  At least not cool enough to make it work.

When I did finally get a girl to like me, she told me that her mother and father had forbid her to have a boyfriend.  I wondered if her parents were some sort of old-fashioned pioneer people.  I’m not sure why pioneer and not puritan or something, but we had a romance none-the-less.  She would not let me kiss her, but she did let me hug her.  That was good enough for me.  It was an ephemeral affair lasting three or four recesses.

My third grade year was the most violent year of my life.  I punched both my best friend and the 3rd grade held-back school bully square in the right eye.  I was disappointed because I was going for an uppercut to the jaw like on tv, but I couldn’t make it happen.  I never hit another person again.

Then came, the most awful, most violent thing I’ve ever done in my life.  I shudder to recall it.  We had a very sprawling playground.  There were several creatures that could be found out in the field.  There were dragonflies, bees, butterflies, and frogs.  There was a disturbing trend going on with the boys.  They were stomping toads to death for sport and for an initiation of sorts.  I did not fancy the idea at all, but there was a pressure to participate.  One day, I gathered the courage to do it.  I do not wish to describe the terrible result of my action.  I’m disturbed to this day by the thought of that poor toad.  Perhaps this is why I feel uncomfortable with toads to this day; guilt.

The bees were of interest to me.  I went through a period of catching bees in jars, and one day I decided to catch one in my hands on the playground.  I’d seen an older kid do it.  Naturally, I was stung.  The on-duty teacher sent me to the librarian.  I thought this was odd, because we had a full-time nurse on staff, but I didn’t mind.  The librarian was one of my favorite people.  I had spent several weeks as the library aid.

It was quiet, dark, and cool in the library, which was a calming change from the heat and noise of the children playing. My life-long love affair with books started in that room with Ivanhoe and a kid’s mystery series called Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators.   I showed her the sting which was already swelling.  She said very little.  She was a very quiet and stately woman.  She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, deftly extracted one, and proceeded to open it up.  She took my hand, pulled out the stinger, and rubbed tobacco on the skin.  It helped.  I don’t remember it bothering me much for the rest of the day.

There was one girl I was crazy about from the time I met her in first grade to the time I left Lonoke in sixth grade.  She was a quiet girl. Smart.  A good athlete.  She lived alone with her mother.  I thought she was extraordinarily pretty.  I began petitioning her in second grade with the standard form;  a note with a check box for like or not like.  At first she declined to answer.  Then she made a very ambiguous response.  Perhaps checking both.  Or adding a third box with friends or something.  But I was persistent.

In third grade, she finally checked yes.  She let me hold her hand on the playground for one day.  Then it was over.  She wanted to just be friends.  That was the first time I heard that line, and I was grateful to at least have that.  It wasn’t the last time in my life it happened to me.

In my final year in Lonoke, she had a boy/girl birthday dance party; the very first of our grade.  There, I learned that she was “going with” the coolest boy in sixth grade.  I watched them slow dance, and I knew it was hopeless. I would never be as good looking, athletic, or suave as he was.  We moved away, and I moved on.

There were many more crushes and girl-crazy moments, and many more cases of unrequited love, but eventually I struck gold.  In 10th grade I asked Jennifer Wilson to dinner and a movie.  She was my first true love, and I’m crazy about her.

I was born in 1973 which means that seven of my years were spent in the seventies.  My first memory was the summer of 1974.  We lived in a trailer in south Texas.  I remember one night, my parents were hosting a few friends.  My twin and I each had little scoot tractors and were perilously riding them down the gravel driveway.  Even at the age of 1 1/2, I must have been a Batman fan.  My mom made me a Robin mask out of the rubber skin of a toy tom tom drum.  It kept breaking and I kept coming in for her to fix it while the adults sipped coffee and laughed over adult stuff.

Most of my memories, however, occur after 1976 or so.  See, this is the way I try to build a case for being a child of the seventies.  I cite as many memories as I can.  I have a memory of the Bee Gees on the radio.  I got to shake Jimmy Carter while he was the president.  I drank Tang.  I watched Hanna Barbara cartoons on Saturday morning.  I road a banana seat bike.  I played outside for goodness sake!

But the truth is, I’m as much of a child of the 80s as I am the 70s.  I take little pride in this.  I admired the teens who had really lived the 70s.  I’m not saying I want to be older now, but I wanted to be older then.  And so, I have this strong yearning and misplaced nostalgia for teenage life in the seventies.  I feel like I missed something glorious.

This is one of the reasons I like seventies slasher films.  They all center around teenage life.  Life seemed freer then.  When Reagan became the president, the country became more conservative, more repressed.  Girls were hotter in the 70s.

But it’s more than hotter girls.  I’ve wasted hours youtubing commercials from the 70s.  There’s just something about that time that I miss, not just because I was alive then, but because I wish I could’ve lived more of it.

Of course, by the time the 80s came along, we rejected everything about the 70s.  The clothes looked ugly to us.  Tight clothes with earth tones gave way to baggy clothes with primary colors.  Hair got poofy.  Disco was trash.  Music became synthetic.  The 70s didn’t become attractive again until a new generation was coming of age.  Just like the 70s were obsessed with the 50s, the 80s and 90s were obsessed with the 60s, then the 2000s were obsessed with the 70s.  And guess what, the 2010s are obsessed with the 80s.

The hard truth is that there’s no going back.  I can watch old movies, and yes the movies are old now. I can watch old commercials, and listen to old music, but there is no returning. And there is no returning to youth.  I’ve gotten as much of the 70s as I will ever get.  I’ve written about the dangers of nostalgia here before.  It takes you out of the present moment.  It’s a kind of sickness.  I always end up concluding that it is useless.  I’m sure someone who really lived the 70s is thinking that I don’t know what I am talking about.  Why would this guy want to live in that decade?  Yuck!  Now the 60s is when I would live!

My house is very much 90s and 2000s television obsessed.  My wife and I are on our 4th run of Friends.  My son and I have been binge-watching Frasier.  He watches That 70s Show which is a double whammy.  It’s a 2000s show about the 70s.  Freaks and Geeks is popular in my house as well.  It’s a 1999 show about 1980.  It’s getting all mixed up!  We are becoming a society who’s hunger and thirst for nostalgia cannot be sated.

So what are the 2010s?  What is it about now that folks in the future will become obsessed with?  A fashion trend?  So much of the fashion is inspired by 70s and 80s.  A music trend?  There are new ideas, but the musical environment is different now.  We have access to the entire history of music.  Kids are listening to music from the entire last 100 years.  There is very little looking back at previous ages with the disdain that I looked back on 70s.  It’s a wider world.  Perhaps we are becoming healthier, more accepting of ourselves as we pass from decade to decade.

But 2016 is where the now is.  There is nothing more we can truly experience than now.  We live in a truly marvelous age in many ways.  And it’s an age in which there is nothing stopping me from integrating the good things about the 70s into my present life.  There is an entire industry dedicated to bringing us vintage candy, tv, movies, music, clothing, and cars.  But do I really want to be that guy?

I’m a thinker and a dreamer, sometimes to my benefit and sometimes for my detriment.  But I’m not very good at just sitting there thinking like a normal person.  I have to work out my ideas and dreams externally.  This blog, for instance, is a tool for me to develop my ideas and examine myself, but I can’t blog all of the time; especially not in the car.  Enter the NPR interview.

I listen to a lot of National Public Radio;  shows like Morning Edition, Here and Now, All Things Considered, This American Life, and Fresh Air.  One thing that all of these shows have in common are interviews.  I’ve listened to every kind of interview imaginable on these programs:  authors, inventors, politicians, civil servants, military personnel, musicians, journalists, scientists, actors.

I suspect it’s not an uncommon fantasy to be interviewed.  We’ve seen regular folks live out these kinds of fantasies in the form of wildly dramatic eye witness reports. People who have been ready for this moment for years.  People who have done absolutely nothing but witness something.  It’s produced it’s superstars:  Sweet Brown (Ain’t nobody got time for that), Hide your kids, hid your wife, Sir John, and many others.

I admit, I have fantasies of being interviewed.  I imagine being interviewed for just about anything: music, programming, writing, viewpoints on any topic, career, and job interviews.  I’ve heard enough NPR interviews that I can simulate one very easily.  Although there is some vanity and narcissism involved in these fantasies, it is primarily for working things out.

I’ll be driving home from work, and I can’t focus on my audiobook, NPR, or music.  My brain is wrestling with something.  So I turn off the radio and begin the interview. I can interview the whole thirty minute commute.  In fact, I will sit in the car in the driveway to finish up an interview if it is important enough.

Often the interview’s focus is on circumstances which haven’t occurred that I wish would occur, or I think I wish.  I won’t know if I really wish it until I’ve worked through the interview.  It is a way of in envisioning and even manifesting the future.  My hope is that by taking the time to imagine what I want, it will become manifest.

I suspect that many people have witnessed me talking to myself at the traffic light.  I hope that they think I’m on a hands free phone call, but I don’t really care all that much.  Actually, I enjoy catching someone doing something odd in their car.  Why would I deny that to someone?

An interview might go like this.

[Before I continue, I must point out that NPR interviewees tend to use the phrase sort of lavishly, and even though I detest it it’s important to be authentic,  so sometimes I do it out of a desire to fit the NPR interviewee mold. The proper way of saying it is beginning with a very brief pause followed by a very quick “sortof” which runs quickly into the subject.  I’ve written a [pause] sortof-web serial.   The purpose of sort of being to avoid making any [pause] sortof-absolutes.]

Interviewer:  I’m speaking to David Wilson-Burns, author of the web serial The Smell Collector which is being made into a major motion picture.  David, it’s good to have you on the show.  First of all, why don’t you explain to our listeners what a web serial is?

Me: A web serial is a novel which is sort of broken into a series of publications; chapters or parts or sort of episodes.  My hope is that it will be a sort of renaissance of the form so powerfully sort of championed by writers like Charles Dickens.  That’s what makes The Smell Collector exciting to me.  Rather than novelize my story and try to sell it, I’ve serialized it for anyone to read for free.  I published it sort of one week at a time.  This creates a sense of suspense with my readers that you just can’t get from a novel.  It becomes a sort of community of readers.

[etc.]

Although this was a fantasy, several readers did express that they thought it was cinematic.  I saw it that way from the beginning, so much so that I even cast it with actors just for fun.  I really wanted this serial to catch on.  Although it was not great writing in a tradition sense due to it’s eccentric form, I felt that it was my most original idea, but it never really gained any traction.  You might say, well of course it didn’t, no one reads web serials.  But that’s not true, Worm has had millions of views. In fact the author of the Worm even reviewed The Smell Collector. He entitled it The Smell Collector Doesn’t Stink.  It was a mixed review at best.

The interviews helped me envision what I wanted for this work.  It was a fantasy, sure, but it was the expression of my desire for it to be successful.  Powerful intent can make things happen.  The Universe has a way of responding to our fervent desires.   But alas, I think some things are simply lost causes.  But I enjoyed the interviews.  I enjoyed the fantasy.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes I have an idea which bears developing.  It may be a spiritual idea, for example.  Through a series of questions and answers I become more able to articulate my idea or I may find that it does or doesn’t have merit.  If it does have merit, I might write about it, or I may just tuck it away for a future conversation with an actual person.  I interviewed myself daily when writing The Eight Fold Path to Beatific Living.

Finally, there is the job interview.  This isn’t the same thing as an NPR interview, and it’s the most important interview I practice.  When I begin to get the sense that I might have to interview for another job, I begin practicing.  I’ve been in enough interviews to know what most of the questions will be.  I practice answering them, especially the ones that might trip me up.  But this is far more than Q&A, this is the practice of a method.  My best interviews have been the ones where I talk the least and they talk the most.  I become a consultant.  I ask questions like “What is the number one challenge that your business is facing today?”  “What technical issues are standing in the way of accomplishing your companies goals?”  These kinds of questions put me in a position to consult instead of interview.  It puts me in a position to propose solutions. When they explain their most complicated, troublesome issues and I listen actively, I suspect that they get the impression that I explicitly understand their issues.  I’m much better at that than answering technical programming questions.

There is an art to any kind of interview; even a fake one.  I don’t really use the “sort of” crutch when I interview.  There are “sort of” gray areas, but I’m not afraid to state a fact outright. I believe in choosing words which are custom fit to my ideas.  I rarely use words like thing, stuff, good, bad, or nice; rather, I’m specific.  I rarely use idioms.  I use illustrations for more complicated ideas. I don’t take it to a negative place.  I don’t ramble.  I know when to let NPR ask another question.

Oddly enough,  I’m not the only member of my family who does this. My twin and my cousin have been doing this all along without knowing that I was doing it.  I don’t know what this has to say about my genes, but it does suggest that it is my nature. I’m a born interviewee, and I look forward to the day when NPR finally calls me.

For past few years, I’ve taken my daughter (and once my son) to the opera.  We’ve seen the OU Opera twice and we’re about to see the Dallas for a second time.  I’ve been an opera fan since high school while at Midwestern Music Camp at the KU in Lawrence, Kansas.

I came to play tuba and baritone.  We played a medley of Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chenier.  I was mesmerized by the melodies to the point that I sought out recordings of the opera in the KU music library.  There, I found the CD release (a big deal in the 80s) of the Carreras, Marton, Zancanara production of Chenier.  I listened to it straight through three times that week.  Upon return to Norman, I discovered that OU had a very large music library itself with many records, cds, and videos of opera and opera singers.  I could be found there nearly every weekend in high school and through college where I studied music.

My hope was that my wife, a wonderful coloratura soprano, would join me in being an opera buff.  But she was not interested in it like I was.  But many years later came my daughter.  At an early age, she found her voice and has sung nearly incessantly at school since.  She is talented and she is interested in opera, perhaps not interested to the level that I am, but enough to want to see operas with me.  I’ve taken her to The Marriage of Figaro, The Coronation of Poppea, La Boheme, and tonight we will see Manon.

I’ve been to the Dallas opera only four times, but I’ve become accustomed to the trip.  We knock off early on a Friday and get gussied up.  Depending on how early we can leave we might eat in the Dallas Arts District or we might pick up McDonald’s on the way.  We always stop at the Fried Pies place at Turner Falls.  I like to get to our nose-bleed seats in time to read through the play bill and settle in.

The experience of live opera is not like what you’d expect.  When you hear an opera singer on tv or radio, it can be off putting.  It can sound shrill and very loud.  People complain that it hurts their ears.  But live opera is easy on the ears because it is entirely acoustic. Often, the first question people ask when they hear that I like to go to operas is “Are they miked?”  The answer is not traditionally.  I’m sure it happens, but it is very controversial.  I explain that much of the opera singers training is learning how to make their body the resonator instead of a mic/speakers.  It’s truly remarkable to think that something as small as a human larynx can be heard in such a large hall over an orchestra.

The house is big with 5 levels:  orchestra, box, mezzanine, dress circle, and grand tier on the very top.  The Winspear Opera House in Dallas has 2300 seats.   There are no bad seats in any of the houses I’ve been to.  The acoustics make it possible to enjoy the opera from the highest tier.

The second question is “How do you know what they’re singing?”  For most of history, you either knew the language, or you just figured our what was happening.  In Europe, though, most people would have known the language.  Operas are generally in Italian, French, German, Russian, and English and were often sung in the language of the locale. But now, we get supertitles.  They put the English translations on a screen above the stage.  Before going to the show, I generally read a synopsis, listen to the arias, and listen to the leads in the cast to orient myself to the performance.

When the lights go down, there is nothing but the orchestra and the stage.  Sets and costumes are often stunning to see.  So much so that spontaneous applause may break out when the curtain goes up.  As the show progresses and you become invested in the characters and story, feelings intensify and if the performer is up to the task it is not uncommon for people to gasp, sigh, laugh (there are comedies), and weep.  The human voice when expressed passionately and beautifully enough can be powerfully mood altering. Seeing an opera can be a very emotionally fulfilling experience.

The trip back from Dallas to Norman is the not-so-fun part.  We usually leave the parking garage around 11pm.  This gets us home at 2am.  When we saw La Boheme, there was a lane shut down for a few miles.  We got home at 3:30am.  Tonight, we will likely get home at 3, but it will be worth it.  There are few things I like to do more than seeing an opera and spending time with my daughter.

I’ve never liked shopping at Walmart.   I’ve said many times that I’d rather pay more to shop at Target than Walmart.  I’ve said that Walmart treats it’s employees poorly, both foreign and domestic.  I’ve said that it’s too big.  I’ve said that it’s not a very happy place and it sucks the life out of me.  Whereas, I feel good at Target.  It’s a more enjoyable place to shop.

I expressed this to my dad once and he challenged me hard on it.  He said, “Those may not be the actual reasons you prefer Target over Walmart.  The reason you prefer Target is because of the people who shop there.  Target attracts people like you,  middle-upper class people, and Walmart attracts working class people who can’t afford to care whether Walmart treats its employees poorly.  Walmart is the cheapest, and that has value”

I bristled at this at first.  I’m not a classist, am I?  I rooted for Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink.  But the more I examined myself on the issue, the more I found that he was right.  At Target, people dress nicer.  They treat their children the way I treat my children.  They have a Starbucks.  People are well-groomed and more attractive to me.  Whereas, at Walmart, I’m likely to see people dressed in pajamas, yelling at and swatting their kids, people who are morbidly obese wearing spandex, and people who you might call rednecks.  I was forced to admit it, my choice for Target was based on an unconscious classism.

This was a turning point in my life.  I did not like what I was seeing in myself.  I began to open my mind to the fact that I was prejudiced against working class folks.  My first strategy was to speak differently around working class folks. I did what many politicians in Oklahoma do, I mimicked rural speech.  I don’t know if this helped or hurt my cause, but I never felt totally right about it.

Then, two things happened.

First, I got a job in the logistics center at the FAA.  I was now working at a forty-five acre warehouse and factory dedicated to building, repairing, and distributing National Airspace Systems (NAS) equipment.  I had been accustomed to working with electrical and software engineers and all manner of white-collar workers.  Now I was working with machinists and warehouse workers.

I identified strongly with Michael Keaton’s character in Mr. Mom.  He is an engineer for a car maker.  He walks down to the factory floor and tries to have a conversation with a few of the workers.  He wants to give a pep talk because there might be a layoff, but he can never get his ideas across.  He doesn’t really understand their struggles, and they don’t understand his Rocky illustration.  They know that he never even saw Rocky.

Working at a logistics center was disorienting to me at first.  I wondered what I could possibly have in common with blue collar workers.  I’m a liberal, college-educated, man with what some may call hoity toity, refined tastes.  I’m not a flag waving, gun-toting, beer guzzling, football watching conservative Christian.  I’m an opera listening, book reading, herbal tea sipping, progressive United Methodist.  For a while, I didn’t even know what to say to any of the working men, but over time I took the chance to strike up conversations in the break area.

What I discovered was that although some of my assumptions were correct, many of them were way off.  The working men were mainly as highly intelligent and highly skilled as any of my white-collar chums.  Perhaps we talked more about fishing and jimmy-rigging truck trailers than I would care to, but the more I interacted the more I found that my prejudices had warped my perception of the working class.  I even found the political talk to be stimulating and intelligent. At some point I realized how demeaning it had been for me to change my manners around working class folks, and how important it was for me to be myself.  Demeaning in the sense that I was not giving anybody enough credit to be able to understand and respect me for who I am.  The subtext is that you’re not smart enough to have an authentic conversation with me.  I let it go.

Secondly, I joined AA.  I know I’ve mentioned AA before on my blog, and I worry about what some of you might think of me, but I’m not ashamed of it.  We know now that addiction is not a moral failing, it is a genetic condition.  The people who go to AA are bravely fighting for their family, job, marriage, and their very life.

My sponsor is part of the Moore community and encouraged me to attend meetings with him in Moore.  Moore appears to be very different than Norman to me when it comes to class.  I’ve attended meetings in both Moore and Norman and I can tell you that they are very different.  I cannot give many details because it is an anonymous organization, but I can say that my Moore folks are solidly blue collar and often very poor.  I can also say that there are many felons, folks who have lost everything, and folks who have been homeless.

I worried, at first, that I would not be accepted because of my class, but I was dead wrong from the beginning.  I was warmly embraced in every way.  I learned that there was so much profound, hard-earned wisdom in that meeting.  I’ve learned as much or more from these men and women as I’ve learned just about anywhere else.

I write this not as a self congratulation but as a witness to the subtle class warfare going on in many of our hearts.  I confess that I still feel a little self-conscious.  I wonder if my language is a little too bookish for me to get my ideas across to folks who didn’t go to college.  Many folks in my meetings struggle to read.  But I think that is a different consideration that what I was doing before.  The truth of it is that humans are humans. We’re all struggling.  We all have something to offer.  There are prejudices among the classes and it goes both ways.  We think that all rich people are greedy and selfish.  We think that poor people are stupid and lazy.  We think that college-educated people are elitist.  There are certainly people who prove those points, but I’ve met very few of them.  I’m still not shopping at Walmart, but for just reasons.  I’m also not shopping at Target, because it’s not worth the money to be able to sip lattes with people who look more like me.

The good thing about a blog, is that I get to treat it like a pensieve (see Harry Potter).  I can unload my thoughts and examine them later.   I no longer have to fill Facebook with the constant stream of half-baked thoughts.  I can bake them a little bit more without you feeling like you have to read it or have to scroll a little more than you care to.

Superscience

In springtime, I become very spiritual.  It’s been that way for many years.  Perhaps it is because of the season of Lent.  I participate in the forums at The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC) to work out my experiences and ideas.  The forum is made up of Christian humanists, atheists, mystics, science junkies, the occasional conservative troll, seekers, and me.  My viewpoints regarding the supernatural (miracles, communication with God/Jesus, divine intervention, healing) is often in the minority.  I don’t fit squarely in any sect of Christianity, although I feel somewhat comfortable in any.  I say somewhat because there’s always some bit of any sect which I am in conflict with.

A recurring debate on TCPC is on the term supernatural.  Whether it is real.  Whether or not it’s the right word.  Whether or not I’m mentally unstable for believing in spiritual phenomena which cannot be explained with science .  Here was my statement:

I believe that the concept of supernatural is an illusion.  Scientific knowledge continues to evolve.  If scientists had it all figured out, then they could go and be professors or chemists or something.  There is a gap between the ultimate reality of nature and what we’ve observed scientifically.  Of that, there can be little doubt.  The word supernatural should properly be superscience because what I’m experiencing is natural.

What we generally agree on at TCPC is that there is nothing in our Universe that is not natural or superseding what is natural, though many outside of the forum would disagree. Some mean to say that nothing which science has not observed can be real.  Some mean to say that occurrences outside of scientific knowledge are in fact natural, but not understood in scientific terms. Enter my new word, superscience (outside of science).  It is natural, but it stands outside of the scope of science. But perhaps superscience as a term is superfluous.  Google defines supernatural this way.

Supernatural:

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Hey.  That is precisely the idea I was trying to convey with my new word superscience.  Case closed.

Tolstoy and Medicine

I’m reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.  The story takes place in the early 1800s in Russia during the Napoleonic wars.  It was written in 1863.  On occasion, Tolstoy writes of someone who is ill and must be attended to by a doctor.  He makes a point of explaining the choices his characters must make regarding medicine.

He puts medicine in the category of belief.  Whether pharmaceuticals and other medical treatments work is a matter of belief.  And the more one believes, the more likely the medicine is to be effective.  The doctors insist that the success of the patient’s treatment depends greatly on their willingness to be positive about it.

I don’t really know anything about 19th century medicine or if this stems from Tolstoy’s personal opinions which may be subject to bias.  But I’m thinking of how far we’ve come in such a short period of time with medicine.  We accept that drugs work, surgery works, and more because they do.  Ultimately, it is not the science which compels us, it is the result.  However, there are some areas which we are still in the 1800s about.  We doubt homeopathy, some nutritional treatments, chiropractics, and most alarmingly, vaccination.  But what is that?  Is it because of the lack of compelling scientific evidence or is it because it doesn’t work for us?

Vaccination is a known quantity.  We know that it works beyond a shadow of a doubt, but many are concerned about unwanted effects.  I think polio, however is an unwanted effect of not taking the vaccine.  But the other stuff.  How much does belief play a role in the success of herbs, cutting gluten and dairy, and spinal alignment?  Perhaps it’s just as quacky as whatever Tolstoy’s doctors were prescribing.  Or perhaps we need to do a little more work on it.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I’ve had tremendous results with saw palmetto and going gluten-free and I’m a huge skeptic with herbs and nutritional treatments.  I don’t think it works because I believe in it.  I believe in it because it works for me.   In a loose sense of the word, I’m an empiricist.  My experience forms my beliefs when it comes to subjective matters especially.  I believe in God because I’ve experienced God.  I believe in nutritional treatments for medical problems because they’ve worked for me.

Empiricist

The most controversial subject in my entire belief system is that eliminating gluten from my diet even though I do not have Celiac’s Disease has solved a problem for me. I’ve written about it before, but I write about it again to illustrate the way I work.  I have friends who wouldn’t dream of harassing me about spiritual matters or political matters who would write an entire book about gluten and how bogus a threat it is to prove me wrong about this.

The truth is, I’m very much a skeptic of natural solutions to medical problems.  I trust pharmaceuticals.  But I was out of ideas for a problem I was having. I take several heavy-duty meds for bipolar disorder.  They dull my senses.  My functional IQ dropped 15-20 points according to the most rigorous online IQ tests I could find.  My career as a software engineer requires a very high intellect, and I was getting very bad at my job. So I went to my psychiatrist with the problem.  We agreed that any shift in my drugs could destabilized my continued wellness.   I knew what I thought he’d say.  He’s a DO (Doctor of Osteopathy), not an MD.  A DO can do anything an MD can do, but they tend to have a more holistic approach.  My doctor prescribes drugs, but only at the minimum.  He prescribes supplements, nutrition, sunshine, and exercise with his patients.  He sees himself on the cutting edge of psychiatry, and I viewed him as a quack.  But I don’t any more.

What I thought he would say was, “No dairy, no gluten”.  Because that’s the trend.  I tend to lean toward Dr. Zorba Paster (On Your Health) on NPR.  He says, skeptically but politely, “Sure, it’s perfectly fine to try x. It will not harm you in any way.  There is no scientific evidence to support that it helps, but if it works for you then go ahead and try it.”

But my doc did not mention dairy.  He explained that wheat had been perfectly fine until the 50s when some guy got the Nobel Prize for inventing dwarf wheat, because dwarf wheat grows very fast.  The idea is that it would solve the hunger problem, and it certainly has helped.  But the problem with dwarf wheat, he says, is that it contains a much higher gluten content to the point that it is affecting some people in a negative way, gluten-sensitive people.  He rattled off a list of possible gluten-sensitive symptoms, and I certainly had a lot of them.  But the most important one was brain fog.  And this is why I was there asking him for help.

Although I was skeptical, I was willing to try it because this was a serious problem and I saw no other alternatives.  Within a short period of time, I was getting significant results.  My performance at work picked up.  The same IQ tests I took before, were showing a return of my mental functioning.

You can show me any scientific material that shows that gluten has no negative effects on people who do not have Celiac’s Disease, but all I really trust is my experience.  It works for me.  When I try to introduce gluten in my diet again, the problem comes back.  I’ve tried three times with the same result. Perhaps I wouldn’t need to cut gluten if I weren’t on such heavy meds, but that’s not going to change.

So how much of an empiricist am I?  Well the truth is, I accept most things as fact because I trust the people who are saying them either because they are in the majority or I trust their expertise.  But there are gray areas, subjective areas,  where it comes down to my own experience.  I acknowledge that  my personal experience contributes very little to the fact of a thing, but it makes all the difference in the world for me.

I understand the non-theist’s skepticism to my experience of the superscience, Tolstoy’s skepticism of medicine, and my well-meaning friends’ skepticism of my gluten-free lifestyle.  But what they might not understand is if they experienced what I’ve experienced they might see it differently.

Every time we went to San Antonio to stay with my father’s sister’s family, we would take a tour of the older generation.  We visited Grannie Floss and Big Nanny in Goliad, Grannie Mac in the nursing home in Corpus Christi (which sounds like Carpus when my dad’s family says it) , and Uncle Billy and Aunt Doris in Portland (near Corpus).   That we did this, I learned later, was evidence of my father’s loyalty to family because he was the only one who really wanted to go. I suspect that my mother simply endured it.  She was prone to car sickness.  My brothers and I were awful about it every time.  We made it stridently clear that we were perfectly comfortable remaining with our cousins in San Antonio.  I was never comfortable as a kid being around the 85 and up crowd.  Too many unsolicited kisses, and too many manners to mind.  Plus, it was a three our drive on which we had nothing to do but count the little windmills up and down the highway.

My great uncle Billy lived on a cotton farm in a little house with his wife, Doris.  I learned from my father that he was in fact a millionaire.  He had found oil on his land.  But he was a very quiet, very humble Baptist man who must not have seen the value of living a millionaire’s life.  I felt a misplaced pride over his millions.  I bragged to friends about my rich, but humble Uncle Billy.  The response was nearly always the same.  “Are you going to inherit a lot of money?” “No,” I would say, and then they would frown, unimpressed.  In fact, I believe he left his fortune to Texas A&M and his church.

Uncle Billy said no more than twenty words to me my entire life, and most of it had to do with his loofah vine out back. He mainly watched pro wrestling or the Atlanta Braves.   It was Aunt Doris who made things interesting.  She doted on us more than any relative.  She was a gift giver; an unusual gift giver.  We could always count on a two dollar bill wrapped in a red ribbon.  She would often send us home with some unusual object lying around her house.  I remember, in particular, a letter opener with a peacock handle, which I treasured.  On at least one occasion, she sent my father some odd possession of hers in the mail; just something random and perplexing.  I could tell that my parents thought she was a bit of a kook.  She had no less than twenty paintings of windmills in her house.  I loved this peculiarity.  I was very interested in painting and she knew it. She would tell me about a few of them when I visited. I also made a game out of counting them all.

While we were there, we would often drive down the road toward Corpus until we would find a shrimper on the side of the road selling fresh-caught jumbo Gulf shrimp by the pound.  I came to love boiled shrimp on those visits.  On one occasion, I was shown how to prepare, boil and peel the fresh shrimp myself.

The one luxury they allowed themselves was membership to “the club”.  We only visited the club once for lunch.  Everybody there knew Uncle Billy.  They treated him like royalty.  It was clear to me at my young age, maybe 12, that he spent a lot of time at the club because he moved with such familiarity around the dining room and was greeted by all of the staff as Mr. Stark, and now I suspect that he must have tipped very generously.  He showed it off to us, mostly with gestures.  He directed us to a chef stir-frying scallops and pasta at a little station in the dining room.  This was the fanciest place I’d ever been.

At the table, my dad carried the conversation.  Being a minister, he knew how to do this.  I’d seen him make a conversation out of absolutely nothing with people who didn’t appear to know how to speak, all of my life.  Dad made it clear that this was Uncle Billy’s treat and that he had instructed us to order what we liked.  This was an important distinction for him to have made.  On a preacher’s salary, we rarely went out to eat and when we did it was clear that we were to eat on the cheap. I’d become very accustomed to ordering burgers, sandwiches, pasta, and chicken.

I looked at this menu in a brand new way. I allowed my eyes to peruse every item on the menu regardless of price.  The waiter came to me first.  I ordered the most expensive item on the menu, the blackened rib-eye well done as I had heard it ordered in movies.   Then my brother ordered cheap.  My mother ordered cheap.  My dad ordered cheap.  But Bill and Doris took my bet and ordered something equally as expensive.  I was grateful for that.

The details here are fuzzy, but I do seem to recall my twin brother casting me very disapproving looks as I ordered and perhaps whispering “David!”.  My mom might have said “Are you sure you want that?”  I sweated it out.  The lunch felt very tense to me from the moment I ordered, but I also held my head up high.  I began to imagine myself as a “club” person.  Perhaps the staff would think I was a millionaire myself.  I wouldn’t be surprised if my twin recalled me using some sort of affected speech with the waiter.

When the server finally put the steak in front of me, he asked me to cut into it.  I examined it and saw that the steak was indeed blackened, but not in the way I expected.  I merely thought it would be heavily rubbed with spices and seared.  I cut into it, not really knowing what was expected of me and indicated my approval.  It was a very tough piece of meat.

I hoped, in that moment, that the blackness of the steak was not an indication that it was heavily burnt, but as I took my first bite I was sorely disappointed.  It was indeed burnt.  I chewed, but it was no use.  I never swallowed the first bite.  I discreetly spit it out into the cloth napkin.  I dug into the potatoes and green beans instead, hoping that no one would notice.

But my dad noticed.  I don’t remember what he said, but there was something in his tone that suggested that if I was going to order something so expensive, I’d darn well better eat it.  But Billy understood.  He understood that it wasn’t what I had expected.  In as few words as possible, he indicated that he wanted to know if I’d like something else and that I need not feel obligated to eat it.  I declined to order something else.  I knew that I’d already pressed my luck beyond the pale.

On the car ride home, my twin gave me what for in the backseat, or at least that’s the way I remember it.  I suspect that he was a little jealous that I had grabbed the golden ring which had been out of his grasp due to his humility, and not for the first time.  My twin is a decent person.  He recognized the expectations made of us at the club.  We were guests.  We were not the millionaires.  We were still the preacher’s kids.  And although I recognized these expectations as well, I also recognized that Uncle Billy, the millionaire cotton farmer, could afford the blackened ribeye.

I’ve made quite a few posts which I felt were pret-ty pret-ty good.  But when I went back and reread them, I could see that my thoughts were fragmented in some way.  They were broken into pieces and not all the pieces were communicated.  Ideas which were fairly simple were made very complex because of the way my brain was functioning at the time.  Perhaps you have read something like that from me, but most likely it was deleted before you had the chance.

I can see that there is some level of inspiration and intelligence going on in these kinds of posts either on this blog or on facebook, but when my mind settles down again I can see that something was off.  There was an uncomfortable intensity and some level of incoherence.

What this likely means, is that my writing was the product of bipolar affective disorder (manic-depression).  In mania, my mind sparks with creativity but lacks the coherence to effectively present it.  When my mood gets elevated high enough, you might call this kind of writing ravings.

I have raved quite a few times over the last half-decade or so.  I’ll think that what I’m doing is brilliant,  but it is really gibberish.  Perhaps one day I’ll start a new blog mywifesaysitscrazy to publish this archive fragmented writing.  The train of my thoughts skip ahead or even jump off the track; creating a fragmented piece of my thoughts.  I’ll have a thought which results in a conclusion which result in another thought which results in another conclusion, but you might only get the first thought and the last conclusion.  This may also be the product of Attention Deficit Disorder. I don’t know.

It also means that there is a certain level of delusion.  I’ve gone back and reread things that I’ve written when manic and once in a while I can see where I thought I had struck gold, but what I found was  fool’s gold.

I’ve taken down dozens, perhaps hundreds, of these kinds of posts over the years because I felt embarrassed when I reread them.  I checked, and I’ve written twenty-two posts on this blog alone (I have a dozen blogs) that I either pulled down or didn’t ever publish.  I’m no great artist or writer, but many of the best artists and writers have had bipolar affective disorder and we get a sense of the exhilaration and suffering which goes into their work.  It’s ok to enjoy it and find meaning in it.  Many of these people refuse treatment because they don’t want to lose their abilities.  It’s a sacrifice they are making for their art

What you don’t know is that when I behave this way, people who know me best send me messages asking if I’m ok; telling me that they’re concerned.  People who know me best can tell.  I need this sometimes, because it’s hard for me to tell. Even now, when I look at some of my posts I can’t tell if they’re mad or not, nor can I tell if this post is.  I depend on my wife for this.  She is looking for  mean-spirited or arrogant/superior or incoherent or inappropriate or overly intense.  I’ve been a little tight-lipped about it because I don’t want to make people uncomfortable.    But I’m going to trust that you guys love me and don’t care that I get a little fragmented sometimes.  If you’ve never noticed this in me, then you might want to consider that you’re a little fragmented, too.

I published a series on The Beatitudes here on mywifesaysimcomplicated, but it’s hard to read it in order on this blog.  I’ve created another site devoted to this series.

The Eight-Fold Path to Beatific Living is an eight week study of the The Beatitudes from the perspective of spiritual growth.  It is designed for either a personal devotional or a group study.  My prayer is that you will develop a beatific life through Jesus’ teachings of virtue and blessing.

The Eight Fold Path To Beatific Living

NOTE:  I took this post down soon after I posted it because I thought it was rubbish, but I also put it on  a progressive Christian forum and it sparked a marvelous conversations.  So, I’m putting back up

In the book, The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, the author states that he rarely uses the word “God” because it is a broken word.  It has been used and abused in so many ways that it is no longer useful or helpful when discussing the infinite being in which our Universe lives.  I would like to explore this idea; why it is the case and how we can move passed it.

We all know what a user interface to a computer is.  It’s the part of a computer system that we can see, touch, click, type, swipe, and speak to.  Every computer has an operating system that we can interact with through various apps;  on our phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.

So why do we need a user interface (UI)?  Well, a computer thinks with zeros and ones.  Those are on’s and off’s.  It’s called binary.  Think “bi” as in bicycle. A pair of things.  UI software translates something that humans understand into something computers understand (one’s and zero’s) and vice versa.

Although the UI is part of the software, it’s really only the part by which we tell the software what we want it to do and by which the computer can tell us what it needs to tell us, but now how it is done.  Under the hood is where most of the computing happens.  Stay with me now!  What this means is that we can only use the computer in ways that the software’s UI allows us to.  And we can only use the computer in ways that the software is programmed to use it.  There are millions of interfaces out there which all serve different functions to meet our needs.

Are you still with me?  We’re getting very close.  This is where my computer science becomes a little inexact so that I can make my point.  There are infinite combinations of one’s and zero’s strung together, but a very finite combinations of the uses of a UI.  We will never fully realize the entire capability of a computer because it is limited to what humans can conceive.  There will never be a moment in which a software engineers says “Ok guys, we’re done!  There is nothing left that the computers cannot do!”  Perhaps you are already guessing what I’m about to say.  In my analogy, God is the computer.  God’s abilities, knowledge, qualities, forms, and interfaces are infinite and vastly incomprehensible.

I was born into a Presbyterian family.  I was given a particular interface to God; particular theology, particular beliefs, particular hymns, particular symbols,  particular names, particular buildings.  In college, I became a United Methodist and my UI shifted a bit.  In my 30s,  I began to meditate and study other spiritual paths.  I acquired and developed different interfaces in which to relate to God.  As an example, I learned that quieting my mind, I could experience God in a way in which I could not through worship and prayer. Meditation is an interface to God.

I hear people say that they can’t believe in God because they don’t believe in Jesus or Christianity.  They say it just doesn’t make sense to them.  It doesn’t work for them.  I also hear people say that God is so much greater than our way of relating to him/it/she; therefore, we should shed all of our names and traditional understanding of God, as perhaps Tolle is suggesting.

But the truth as I see it is that although we might glimpse the one’s and zero’s of God through spiritual/mystical experiences, in general we need a human construct, a user interface, to have a relationship with God.  And this is where we get stuck.

Think about the apps on your phone which you have deleted.  Why did you delete the app?  Perhaps it didn’t do what you wanted it to do.  Perhaps the interface was not user friendly. Now, because of this, did you ever throw away your phone?  No, you found another app which made sense to you.  You found a different interface into the same computer.

Over the years, my understanding of God and my needs of God have changed.  And over the years, my interface with God has adjusted given the changes in me, the old way of interacting with God doesn’t make as much sense to me.  God did not change, but I did.  God is still one’s and zero’s.

This idea will be rejected by many religious people; people who believe that there can be only one interface to God.  But the idea that there is only one way is losing traction, at least in America.  The SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) crowd it growing, and the diverse interface idea with it. The one size fits all God User Interface concept is shrinking.

If I believed that there was only one way of interacting with God, then I might not be a Christian today, because Christians can’t even agree with which God User Interface to use.  Do we go through Jesus?  Do we got through the Father?  Do we go through the God of Grace?  Do we go through the God of Judgment?  The God of Purity?  That’s just not the way I work.  I name God in the way in which I need God.  Did I need the guiding hand of a father.  The friendly companionship of a brother.  The comforting arms of a mother.  The infinite mystery.  A God of forgiveness.  These are interfaces to the same thing. And then there are those powerful moments in which God interfaces with me in ways I do not understand or would not have expected.

Also, I think that the world has fallen into the trap of thinking that God is the interface.  Remember how I said that the UI is just the part of the software we can interact with and that under the hood is where all of the real computing is happening?  God is infinitely greater than our understanding of him.  Just the word him here is a limited way of referring to God;   mainly limited by a lack of gender-neutral pronouns for another being in the English language.  And so we make God a male or a female.  God is not the interface we use to relate to him.  It is just the part of God that we can grasp with our human hands.

As limitless as God is, I do not believe he will be everything we want him to be.  He is not a random collection of stuff at our disposal.  God has some sort of fundamental character, the nature of which is subject to endless debate.  Just because I want a God who does my bidding, doesn’t mean I get it.  Ultimately, this is a poor interface which will eventually fail.  Where the God as a computer analogy fails is that the computer is a human tool designed to do what we want it to.  I do not believe God is a tool nor do I believe he is human designed.  That is my personal belief.

If the multiple God User Interface principle were  commonly accepted, I believe that there would be far fewer people who feel separated from God, or who cannot believe in a God at all based on God User Interfaces which did not work for them.  I will continue to play with this idea this Lent.  I will be examining my interfaces with God to see if there is a way to adjust my GUI (God User Interface) in a way that allows me to have a greater understanding and a fuller relationship with the infinite being which I call God for lack of a better term.

I am a music minister at a United Methodist Church.  My duties include directing an adult choir.  I am very intentional with my choir leadership.  The first rule of my training as a church musician is that church music is not a performance, it is an act of worship.  Sometimes I wish that this wasn’t so ingrained in me.  I get a little too serious about it.  After all, it’s just choir. It’s 5 minutes a week.  I don’t expect everyone to feel about it the way I do.

I confess, that I do get bent out of shape when I feel that my choir’s musical offering is received as nothing more than a musical performance, like we went and had a little concert in the middle of a worship service. When that happens, I wonder if I’ve done my job as a worship leader poorly.  And I also wonder if there is a little confusion about what we’re actually trying to do.

So if the choir’s anthem is not a musical performance, then what is it?

This comes down to my church music philosophy.  Let me break it down.  This is my intention for choral offerings on Sunday mornings.

Instrument of Worship

I intend for the choir to be an instrument of worship.  I teach multiple stages of singing.  Learn the notes and rhythms.  Learn the musical expression.  Learn to express the text.  And finally and most importantly, learn to worship with the music.  If we only get one of those things right, it must be the worship.  Have you ever been moved to tears by a musician of humble ability, and bored to tears by a brilliant musician?  Music is a form of expression.  Without expression, it’s not really music, and your brain understands this.  Our business is to move people, not just with our skills but with our worship expression. We actually take time in rehearsal to worship with our song so that when we stand up on Sunday morning, we can let go and worship.

Worship Leaders

Not only are the singers worshiping, they are intending to lead everybody else in worship. We pray about this every rehearsal.  We pray that as we sing, someone’s heart might be turned to God in an act of worship.  If this isn’t happening, then we’re doing something wrong.  I would need to rethink my selections or do a better job inspiring my choir to be filled up with worshipful energy when they sing. We could be singing Mozart’s Requiem like the Robert Shaw Chorale, but if worship did not occur, it is absolutely worthless.

And there’s more to worship than praising.  There is surrender, mourning, praying, confessing, professing, repenting.  If the choir can help you do those things, then we did our job.

Witness to the Word

The anthem is a witness to the Word.  In worship, there are many ways of witnessing to the Word of God.  Our hymns develop around the themes of scriptures.  The liturgists reads the scripture.  The pastor preaches on the scripture.  And the musicians sing the scripture.

Musical Excellence, but not for it’s own sake

That the singing will be excellent in a way that most effectively presents the offering of music.  We work very hard at the technical aspects of singing and musicianship, but I never put it higher than the worshipful aspects.

Offering

The anthem is an offering to God, not to the congregation.  This is when my seventeen singers offer music as a gift to God.

These are my intentions.   Some may not see it that way.  Perhaps some folks are just music fans and like the performance aspect and don’t need all the worship mumbo jumbo.  Or perhaps you’re not a fan of choral music and prefer a band .  No matter.  Choirs and bands are going for the same result.  My hope is that when your music leaders stand up to sing or sit down to play this Sunday, that you will become a part of the offering.  Open yourself up to the possibility of having a moment with God.

For more of my thoughts on choral music in church:

Are Choirs Relevant to the Modern Church?

Preparing a Song for Worship

I’ve had a number of spiritual experiences over the years.  You might call them mystical experiences.  As a part of Lent 2016, I’ve been digging into my archive of spiritual writings to reexamine them.  This comes from 2009.

I believe that all life has both a physical and a spiritual nature. When you become in tune with the spiritual nature of life, you are having a mystical experience. Some are quite ordinary, while some are extraordinary. They are real, but when they are over, they feel like the memory of a dream. They are over when you place your consciousness back on the physical nature of life, which is necessary in order to function. I believe it’s possible to be simultaneously aware of both physical and spiritual nature. This is a state of enlightenment.

So, how do we become “in tune”? Many different ways.

Most of the time it’s out of our control. It seems random. It just happens. Something powerful throws our spiritual switch (so to speak).

1.) A powerful event. A trauma. A tremendous act of love. A death. A birth. A musical performance. I call these a sacrament.
2.) A powerful place. Undisturbed nature. A church. A place where a powerful event occurred. I call this a sanctuary.
3.) In the company of highly spiritual people. When your switch is thrown, my switch might respond. These people are teachers, prophets, healers, or just friends. It’s communion.

With practice, you can throw the switch yourself. Certain activities engage the spiritual self deeply enough that the switch will occur. I would break these into two categories: sympathetically spiritual and directly spiritual.

1.) Sympathetic. The activity is physical, but it often sparks a spiritual response. Singing, gardening, painting, dance, yoga, sex. These are things that don’t just happen to you. These are activities you choose to do. Do them often!

2.) Direct. This is a primarily spiritual activity. Prayer. Meditation. Yoga. Being in the moment. The lines are a little blurry, but some activities are entirely spiritual in nature. You are directly engaging the spiritual self as a means unto itself. Once you are there, you might have a more specific intent….insight, wisdom, peace, love, or simply being.

When your switch is thrown, to fully experience it awareness is important. How do you know when you’re having a spiritual/mystical experience?

1. Time becomes relative.  If an hour feels like 20 minutes, then you may have been in a highly spiritual state.  This happens when I meditate, swim, and when I drive long distances; anytime I become engrossed in the moment.
2. When I experience any form of ecstasy. “an overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement.”  Many people take mind-altering drugs to experience this, but I can witness to the fact that they are not necessary.
3. A powerful experience of connectedness.  When you cease to experience the boundaries between yourself and creation.
4. When you experience direct contact with God (whatever that may mean to you);  visions, words, intuitions, nudgings;
5. Your perception of your environment is altered.  When your surroundings are transformed in some beautiful way or cease to exist at all.
6. When you feel detached from your body.  When all you experience is pure consciousness to the point that you feel unaware of your body or that you have come out of your body.

I’m sure there are many more, but these are the ones I’ve experienced.

And finally, what do we do when we have become aware of our spiritual experience?  This is where drugs and true mysticism split.  Ecstatic experiences precipitated by drugs are less likely to lead to action other than using more drugs.  A spiritual experience can transform our way of thinking, our behavior, our perspective in a positive way which could lead to positive changes in our lives.

A mystical experience should not be wasted.  Yes, they are novel to think about and talk about and become enamored with, but ultimately, we must ask the question, what good can I make of this?  What can I bring down from the mountain top into the valley when the switch is thrown?

Beatific living does not mean that we will receive some sort of spiritual easy street.  The blessings we receive come with responsibility.  They come with righteousness.  Righteousness and blessing are intertwined.  We can earn neither.  They are both gifts from God which require a willingness to receive and to share.

This path is not a self-help path.  The help comes from God, and the result is that we  become helpers.  In that way, it is the opposite of self-help.  This will not make you rich in monetary wealth.  In fact, it may do the opposite if your money is standing in the way of righteousness.  But it will give you comfort, satisfaction, mercy, a vision of God, peace, a new parent, and the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus spoke this message to thousands. He was calling for a revolution; not the revolt that was expected of a Messiah.  He did not ride into Jerusalem with an army as many wished he would.  He came in on a donkey, poor in spirit.  He called us to turn the world upside down, beginning with our own lives.

By reading this study, you may be becoming open to the first steps toward beatific living.  I’ve offered you ideas out of my own study and inspiration.  When an idea takes hold of your mind, transformation becomes possible.  But the Beatitudes are more than ideas to ponder, they are a radical way of living; living into the blessings of God.

Although I have presented the Beatitudes as ordered and enfolding, there is nothing to stop God from transforming you and blessing you in any way and in any order he chooses.  But I do believe it all starts with the first.  When you empty your spirit of the riches of ego and self-fulfillment to become poor in spirit, then the journey stops being an idea and starts becoming a new life.

May God bless you and transform you.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

When you are called a child of God, you can withstand all manner of pressures to swerve from the path of righteousness,  you will experience beatitude.

I do not believe this beatitude is about being persecuted for professing your belief in Jesus.  It is about righteousness living.  It’s about the seven virtues which we’ve studied so far which add up to righteousness.  People who live in profound righteousness become agents of change for any injustice which is causing suffering because they are hungering and thirsting for it.  The unjust are not fans of the righteous.  Perhaps this is the litmus for righteous action.  Does it oppress people, causing them to suffer, or does it free people, releasing them from suffering?

But righteousness has scale.  We may not all be called to unseat oppressive regimes.  We are all called, however, to attend to those who are suffering injustice in our midst.  And we may or may not be persecuted by people for it.

So what happens when we are not persecuted by people?  Does it mean that we are not righteous enough?  Does it mean that we will not receive the blessings of heaven?  That would seem awfully stingy of God.  Can we help it if we are not persecuted by external forces?

I propose that in the absence of external persecution, we consider anything which might compromise our faith to be a persecution.  Some of you might call it Satan, the adversary. Just to name a few persecutions which come to mind:  addiction, temptation, hatred, greed, selfishness, fear.  These can be adversarial agents in our lives.  These can destabilize our purity (single-minded devotion).  When Jesus faced Satan in the wilderness, he was tested and tempted.  He was persecuted by Satan.  And yet he remained pure.

But we have been given blessings.  We have been given virtues.  We have been filled with righteousness.  In our becoming peacemakers in the world, we have become children of God.  And when we are children of God, we will withstand persecution, whether it is external or internal.

When we’ve emptied our spirit in exchange for righteousness, something is formed in us, let’s say it’s like a bubble.  This bubble is under threat.  It doesn’t matter if a terrorist is threatening to chop off our heads over our righteousness or we are struggling with addiction, the result is the same.  It is a threat to that bubble.  But when we become children of God we will withstand any persecution.  And when we do that we will be given the Kingdom of Heaven.

Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God is something which John the Baptist says “is at hand”.  It is something so close to us that we could touch it; at hand.  Jesus is not preaching about an afterlife paradise.   He is not saying that if you are persecuted, you will go to an eternal land of reward.  He is talking about a kingdom which is ruled by God here and now in which we are rewarded by blessings which beget virtues.  We become God’s subjects with all of the privileges and responsibilities that come with that moniker. We experience beatitude; supreme blessedness and happiness.

As I’m writing this, it is Lent.  I’ve given up a bad habit and so has my twin brother. This bad habit has become a lesser god to me. We’ve been supporting each other.  I broke my Lent and sent him a text to tell him about it.  His response was “You have another chance to choose.”  I had been under persecution by temptation and I would be again.  My brother’s point was that just because I crumbled once, doesn’t mean I have to in the future.  It is a choice.  I let my bubble be disturbed, but it doesn’t need to be broken.

My response was this, “My meditation is that when I choose not to reward myself, it opens up the possibility that God can reward me with something far better.”  In the case of being persecuted for my attempts at righteousness, my reward is greater than the reward of giving into persecution.  Jesus says that I will be rewarded with the kingdom of heaven.

It is right to deny ourselves pleasures when we recognize that we have an unhealthy dependence on them.  This takes us back to the very first kind of righteousness: Blessed be the poor in spirit.   When we reward ourselves richly, we will not experience the blessed poverty of righteousness.  Can God reward us if we’ve already rewarded ourselves?

When Jesus was persecuted by Satan in the wilderness, he had the opportunity to reward himself with food, power, and privilege, but in his resistance he received God’s favor and blessing in the form of a baptismal dove.  When Jesus warned us about making a display of our giving, fasting, and prayer, in Matthew 6, he said that these people have had their reward, but if we do these things in private, then God will reward us.  God will reward us when we are persecuted for righteousness sake, I believe because we have not rewarded ourselves.

The world does not necessarily want us to be righteous.  It wants us to conform to its standards whether they are righteous or not.  There is a systematic persecution, a pressure, to be like the world.  The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

When we become persecuted, it is an opportunity to be transformed, and in transformation we receive the kingdom.  When we endure persecution, we have put our trust in God’s goodness.  We know that we will have it no matter what happens to us.  Saints have been made from this process.  If Jesus had not been persecuted by Satan in the wilderness, perhaps he never could have fulfilled his destiny.  When the moment arrived, could he have endured the persecution which led to his death?

Questions:

1. When have we felt persecuted?  For what?
2. If you withstood persecution, how did you do it?  If you didn’t, why?

Prayer:

God of Heaven, give us the blessings of righteousness that we might withstand persecution both from within and without.  Amen.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

When you experience the true nature of God, you will have peace and will share it with the world, then you will be called a child of God.

In the previous beatitude, in our purity, we experienced God.  And in this one, when we experience God, we find peace.  When I think of peace, I think of a prayer, “The Peace Prayer” or “The Prayer of St. Francis”.   Although it is was not written by St. Francis, I believe it carries some weight.  It was originally published in French, and this is one of several translations.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life

It expresses the idea that peace is not only something we feel, it is something we do, and it expresses a desire to become an “instrument of Thy peace”.  It describes a series of peacemaking actions as the response to a series of sufferings.  The writer is asking God to equip him/her to make whole the brokenness of hatred, injury, doubt, despair, darkness, and sadness.  When we see the face of God, or experience God in any way, we will experience God’s peace.  And with God’s peace we are deeply compelled to spread it.  The Peace Prayer is a powerful expression of the desire to spread God’s peace.

When we think of peace, any number of ideas come to mind.  We may have heard one of our parents yell Give me some peace and quiet!  In this case, peace means to be left alone.  There is peace which is the lack of war.  There is a peace of mind.  This is when we are assured that everything will be ok.  Peaceful can mean that an environment is quiet. There is inner peace.  This is a state of mind in which strife, anxiety, resentments, worries suffering, are all relinquished so that the mind is able to be quiet and content.

But the word that Jesus uses is shalom.  Shalom can be interpreted as “wholeness”, “completeness”, or “healing”.  It is not simply the absence of strife.   Jesus is referred to as the Prince of Peace, which could mean Prince of Wholeness, Prince of Completeness, or the Prince of Healing.  Jesus is a peacemaker.

Another word for peace is reconciliation.  In order to be made whole, the parts that have broken from each other must be reconciled to each other.  To be made whole.  When we experience God we are reconciled to him.  Our separateness has been destroyed.  The missing piece of us which can only be filled by God has been replaced. This is shalom. Then we feel compassion for those who are not whole, who do not have shalom.  We look to bring love, pardon, faith, hope, light, understanding, and consolation to a broken world because peacemaking is about brokenness.  It’s true that becoming whole will bring you inner peace, but peace is not only an internal thing.  It is a very active thing.  It is the process of restoring brokenness into wholeness.

It had been a month since Joseph had walked out on his wife and two kids. He was living in a back room of an old, poorly maintained house.  He believed that the differences with his wife were irreconcilable and that his poor behavior had cinched the deal.  He was sitting in the den in front of the tv eating a solitary dinner when the owner of the house walked in and handed him an envelop.  After she left he opened it.

It was a card from his church with a picture of a recent wildflower altar arrangement.  The card’s message was very simple:  We are praying for you.  He knew that it was sent by the Prayer Team, because he had been on the prayer team for the last three years.  He laid the card down and continued watching a PBS broadcast of the 20th anniversary of Les Miserables.   He was pondering the words of the musical and of Hugo, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

Soon after, he received an inspiration; a loving feeling toward his wife.  On an impulse, he sent her a brief text asking how see was doing.  She responded amiably.  He called her, and as they spoke the beginnings of reconciliation arose.  What he didn’t know is that she had called his brother for counsel on whether to fight for her marriage or move on. Joseph’s brother prayed with her, and instructed her to pray for a sign.   Three minutes before Joseph’s text, his wife had been on her knees praying for a sign.  Later, he and all who heard the story would marvel over the miraculous synchronicity of that day.

He returned home very soon after and he began the process of become whole with her.  Peace had returned to their house. The arguing had ceased.  He found that he still loved her very much, and that she did as well.

Joseph’s church and his brother were peacemakers.  I believe God spoke to him through them and the musical.  The beatitudes suggest to me that when we see the face of God, we will become peacemakers.  God revealed himself to Joseph through the prayers and the words of Victor Hugo, and he become a peacemaker himself.

When we assist God in the process of restoring a broken world, we will be called children of God.  I believe we are all the children of God no matter what we do, but this is something different.  Jesus is trying to teach us that when we are doing as God does, we are akin to him in a new way. We have inherited his traits just as a daughter inherits traits from her mother.  Being a child of God means doing the work of God.

Questions:

1.  Where is there brokenness in my life?  Is there hatred, injury, doubt, despair, darkness, sadness?

2.  How can I help restore what is broken into wholeness, shalom? With love, pardon, faith, hope, light, love?  Talk about what that would look like.

Prayer:

God of Peace, make me an instrument of your peace in a broken world.  Amen.

This Sunday, my pastor preached on the love scriptures in Corinthians.  And something struck me.  The pastor paraphrased a very famous verse, 1 CORINTHIANS 13:1, which is:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.

My pastor said:

You can do all of the right things, but without Love it’s nothin’ but NOISE.

As I pondered this verse, I began to wonder about noise and music.  Certainly the sounding brass and cymbals is more than noise.  But is it?  And although it was a great sermon, I confess that I daydreamed about this for a minute or two. I posed these questions:

When are musical instruments just noise?

Is it a foregone conclusion that if a musical instrument is played or a voice is sung that it is music?

Ultimately, I want to use Paul’s formula to solve the question of music:

If I have sound, but have not X, I am making noise.

These are questions which dominated music of all genres in the 20th century.  Music that is now accepted as such sounded like noise at first.  Modern classical, jazz, and rock and roll in the 20th century were all criticized as being noise at some point.  This raises another question:

Is “sound” music when the composer says it is, when the musician says it is, or when the listener says it is?

Of course, this is a highly subjective and speculative subject.  I’ll start with a few definitions.

1. Google – “vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.”
2. Merriam-Webster – “the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity”
3. Me – Sounds, other than plain speech and cries, which express ideas, emotions, form, stories, texture, or patterns.

Google is very conservative.  They say that three components have to be present in order for it to be music: form, harmony, and expression of emotion.  If you interpret this strictly, then sound which is emotionless or lacking harmony or lacking form is not music. Which means that it is something else:  noise.

Merriam-Webster is decidedly different.  It defines music as either a science or an art.  It says nothing about emotion.  It alludes to harmony and form.  So what is music as a science?

In my Music Theory courses in college, we learned that composers in the 20th century experimented with numeric sequences in the form of music notes.  To be honest, it did not sound like a human expression.  It sounded like what a computer might produce as music.  And yet, it expressed a human idea.  Science is ideas proven with experiments.  These pieces were musical experiments which resulted in music theories.  The process by which sounds are organized into music is grounded in science.

Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. It generally derives from observation of, and involves hypothetical speculation about how musicians and composers make music

My definition for music, is very broad.  I used an “or” instead of the “and” , which means that any one or any combination of the components can qualify as music.  The key that holds it all together is “expression”.

So, back to my questions. Of the six components I’ve defined music as, where do the components exist?  Within the mind of the composer? With the performance of the music? Or in the mind of the listener?

When the composer writes, they have an idea or feeling which they want to express.  And then the musician uses that idea or feeling to make sounds.  And then the listener must interpret the sounds as an idea or feeling.  You might postulate that this circuit of the three is where music lies.

But what happens when the circuit doesn’t close?  What happens when the sounds do not register in the mind of the listener as ideas or feelings?  Is it noise?  Or what happens when the musician fails to convey the music?  Think of the beginning violinist in elementary school practicing at home.  It sounds awful.  It might not even sound like anything but chicken scratch.  Is it still music?

Silence is a very important element of music.  Without silence there is no beginning or end to the music.  Without silence you have a wall of sound, which although it is music,  lacks the punctuation of phrases or the dramatic effects which only the stopping and starting of sound can create.

But what happens when there is nothing but silence in a composition?  John Cage, a classical composer of the 20th century wrote 4’33”.  To perform this piece, a pianist walks on stage, opens the lid of a grand piano, sits down at it, and then lowers the lid. With a stopwatch set for exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds, he sits in complete silence, occasionally opening and closing the keyboard to indicate the various “movements” of the piece.

There is certainly a performance element to this, but what would it sound like on a CD?  Is it music?  Perhaps when you see the violinist and the piano, you might experience something related to sound, which is silence.  Sound is nothing without silence. They are fundamentally related.  By my three definitions, this is not music at all.  I use an idiom based on the old tale “The Emporer’s New Clothes” from time to time.  Everybody fusses over the king’s new clothes, which is actually nothing at all.  He is naked.  He was scammed.  That is how I feel about 4’33”:  The Emperor’s New Music.  But someone out there loves this music.  It is still performed in big halls to this day.

I would also add that when I hear a train running through town in the middle of the night, it is music to me, but to the person living near the tracks, it may be noise.  It’s just the racket that is keeping them up.  Birds and whales and wolves all make organized sound which might express feelings and information.  Is it music? And haven’t studies showed that both animals and plants respond to human music in remarkable ways?

The Apostle Paul says that the good things we say are nothing but noise without the presence of love.  So what is the component which must be present to make noise into music? Love must make the speech of men and angels into something other than noise.   The allusion to musical instruments may just be a random expression of his dislike of noisy music, but maybe he had a sweeter idea in mind.  Paul, whether intentionally or not, has expressed that when we speak with Love then we are making something akin to Music.

If you recall, it is this formula I want to solve for.

If I have sound, but have not X, I am making noise.

When I first started writing this, I thought the missing word would be humanity because music exists in the minds of humans.  But what of the animals?  Are their calls simply a form of speech and only music in the minds of humans? Are their responses to music unintelligent?  I do not know.  My second thought was expression.  And that is certainly true for the making of music.  But what of the hearing of music?   The reason why the 20th century music was received by some as noise, was their lack of knowledge.  Without a frame of reference in one’s mind, stimuli is meaningless.  Meaningless sound, is noise.

And so I conclude:

If I have sound, but have not meaning, I am making noise.

And meaning exists in the mind and in the heart. And so, I revise my definition.

Music is the expression of sound, beyond that of speech both articulate and inarticulate, which has meaning in the heart or in the mind of it’s creator, performer, or listener.

And if music is such, then it is far more than entertainment. It is a sound we make to express meaning when speech and noise cannot.

In a time of relentless presidential campaigning, the word “integrity” often enters the discussion.  It’s not really a word that I grew up with.  When I first heard it, it was in reference to men.  Men of integrity.  And I still didn’t understand exactly what that meant.

My first given definition was “someone who says what he means and means what he says.” For some reason, in my mind, this sentence was always spat out of the mouth of a grizzled, old cowboy. I also came to know it as a synonym for “honest”.  Someone who tells the truth.  Not that my family of origin lacks integrity, but I married into a family of impeccable integrity.  My wife, in particular.  But it’s as natural as breathing for her.  Not for me.  It is a hard-learned behavior.

WARNING:  YOU WILL SEE A WHITE MAN SQUIRM THROUGHOUT THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE

My definition for integrity didn’t truly crystallize until well into adulthood.  Before I tell the story, I must confess something.  I’ve never revealed my race to you because it hasn’t been relevant, but I am in fact very white. Like, I bought the soundtrack to Juno. I practically had Reality Bites on a loop during college. I eat cream-on-top, organic, grass-fed, yoghurt as a treat WITH the “h”. I researched Oklahoma’s laws on the selling and purchasing of raw milk because I really thought it might help me.  I’m gluten-free as a life-style choice. Ok, continuing.  So, I was working in a predominantly white organization (wow, that sounds bad). By “white organization”, I do not mean I was the IT guy for the KKK headquarters.  I mean I was working in a field dominated by white folks (still sounds bad).  There were only a few black co-

Stop.  Let me first pause to go through the litany that runs through my head EVERY TIME I have to describe someone when their race is an essential component of the story.   As a white person, I don’t know how to respectfully identify the race of someone with African descent. I say “as a white person” because, in a way, it’s easier for black people to speak about their race in terms of labels without upsetting anybody (not easy, but easier).   If I say “African American”, then it doesn’t apply to African Canadians.  If I say “black”, although people know what I mean, it doesn’t seem to fit very well given that no one really has black skin.  If I choose not to identify the person’s race, then this story will not make as much sense.  #WhitePeopleProblems.  Am I right?

(litany continues, because now we have to talk about labels)

All of this struggle with labels in our world!  Our brains need labels.  They are shorthand for creating meaning and understanding of a complex environment.  We’d be in a constant state of confusion (or wonderment) without them.   The problem is that our understanding of our environment is finite. If we depend solely on labels for people, places, and things then we might miss the finer, more essential elements of the object them.

It’s tough to speak in a way that offends nobody and respects everybody.  And as someone who possesses every kind of privilege the world affords, it seems incumbent on me to get it right. My policy, when I can make it work, is to call you what ever you feel most respected by, and for some people that’s simply “Bob” or “Mary” or whatever your name is.  Simplifies things. So, litany over. Whew! (every time folks. e-v-e-r-y time with this litany)

So, this black woman.  She was enjoyable to be around, professional, smart, funny, and kind.  I liked her.  Then, one day I overheard her talking to another black coworker.  It was like seeing her for the first time.  She was expressive and hilarious and free in her speech.  She seemed more at ease in her body.  And in that moment, I felt short changed.  I wanted THAT version of her.

But, for people of color, it’s not that simple, is it.  Over centuries, minorities have been conditioned to speak and act within the confines of a very white environment.  So, I certainly wouldn’t have expected her to do me any favors.

But that is when an idea struck me.  Have I been short changing anyone?  If white people can feel shortchanged, then do black people feel that way as well?  If I’m around a black person, and I change me behavior and speech based on what I think it should be around a black person, would they feel shortchanged?  If I started adding “girrrl!” to then end of my sentences instead of “I know, right?”, perhaps it would even be insulting.  Based on the black comedy trends of the last 30 years, black folks think white folks are hilarious when they’re not being terrible to black folks.  Why would I want to stand in the way of someone’s comedic enjoyment?  When you see those posts that say Stuff White People Like, I ace it EVERY TIME.  I’m a living stereotype.  And I’m cool with that.

I live in a very rural state.  There are many folks around me that you would call “rednecks”.  We all have an idea of what a redneck is.  Blue collar worker.  High school education. White. Guns.  Trucks. Rebel Flag, Heavy accents. Republican/Libertarian.  For many years, I changed my speech around “rednecks”.  I literally dumbed down my speech.  I used poor grammar.  Heavier accent.  Simpler words.  Politicians do it ALL THE TIME.  But how insulting is that?

I’ve been attending AA for awhile now.  Many of the meetings I attend are full of rednecks.  But I am astonished to learn that many of these folks are highly intelligent and very wise.  That’s when I realized how atrocious my behavior had been. By doing what I did, I was calling them all stupid!

But it’s not just that.  I also want people to like me.  There was a time when I would do just about anything to be liked.  And so, given the anti-intellectual climate of my home state, I kept my intellectual range tucked away.  I didn’t want to be pegged as a rich, intellectual prick…especially around a redneck.

But I’ve come ’round.  I can’t really help who I am.  I can’t help that I’m a white, upper middle-class, college-educated, straight, liberal, Christian, intellectual who loves the music of the incomparable Barry Manilow.  Now, understand.  NONE of these things are a point of pride with me.  And if you think that you know me based on these labels, then you’re getting shortchanged by your own limited view of me.  But I am trying to develop integrity now.  Not the kind where if I say I’ll do the dishes, and do them 100% of the time.  That is worth something, but not as much as this.   I’m talking about giving of my honest self, regardless of who you are and what the circumstance.  This is what I’m striving for.  But please continue to like me.

I really want to write a blog post today, but I have very few whole thoughts.  Instead, I will attempt to tell you what is on my mind, no matter how fragmented.

Harry Potter

For years, my friends have told me that I needed to listen to the audio rendition of the Harry Potter series as narrated by Jim Dale.  I have read the first four books twice, and the rest once, but I’ve never read all seven back-to-back.  I listen to a lot of audio books using Audible during my one hour commute, which means I can listen to a book every two weeks.

Harry Potter wasn’t released until last November 2015.  So from November to January, I listened to the entire series without interruption.  Jim Dale does an excellent job.  I don’t like all of his voice characterizations, but his Dumbledore is stupendous.

Listening to the books, I was able to break away from the movie actors a little bit and get closer to what JK Rowling was trying to convey.  It really gave me a fresh perspective.  Also, having listened to it all in such a short time span, I was able to appreciate her world-building and story arcs.  There were very few holes, unlike the movies, and the tone was a lot more consistent than in the movies.  I will likely read or listen to the series again and again, but now I’m moving on to something else.

War and Peace

The epic novel “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy has been on my bucket list for years.  It is hailed by some as the greatest novel in human history.  However, I confess, I’ve been dreading reading it.  Greatness does not always mean enjoyability.  But I’ve been very pleasantly surprised to find that this book is, in fact, delightful.

Tolstoy’s writing is even humorous at times.  He strikes a tone similar to Dickens.  The biggest complaint I’ve heard of the book is that there are too many characters to keep up with, but having read The Song of Ice and Fire books (Game of Thrones to you non-readers), which also have a crazy number of characters, I feel enough at ease with it.  Besides, the book really only centers around a handful of characters.  I am listening, reading, and studying this work because there are many layers and many foreign elements including period style, French language, and historical events.  I’m using the classic Cliff’s Notes to help me stay on track with the story and characters, and Google searches for the rest.  I’m dedicated to reading this, but I’m also enjoying it immensely.

My Thing With Books

Ok, I have this thing with reading books.  I feel a sense of misplaced pride when I finish a book, as if this is some great accomplishment that someone would want to hear about.  As if I, in fact, wrote the book myself.  I realize that this is absurd.   Now, some people do enjoy discussing books with people who have read them or people who might read them, but this is different.  It’s like I want some sort of congratulations for reading a damn book.  I don’t really do this with any other form of entertainment, not movies, tv shows, or concerts.  I think it’s that people who read books tend to be very intelligent people, and being intelligent has always kind of been my thing. So it’s really the thing with intelligence.

Intelligence is like money.  We all want more of it. But most of us will not get it.  Which makes it a tricky subject to talk about.  Saying that you have money or intelligence is a big no no.  I feel terribly uncomfortable even writing about it.  It feels immodest.  We can’t help how intelligent we are, and it feels terrible to think that we are not as smart as the people around us.  I know what it’s like to be the dumbest person in the room given my career choice as a software engineer.   And when I started treatment for bipolar disorder, I noticed that the medicine dulled my brain.  I felt like I lost 15 or so IQ points.  A test confirmed that I actually had.  It was miserable.  It was an identity crisis. I felt very defeated by my work.  But with some nutritional tweaking, I’m back to normal…whatever that is.

I come from smart parents (a teacher and a physicist turned preacher) and I’m not even the smartest child of the three Burns boys.  We are the product of smart genes.  And genes really aren’t something a person can be proud of.   A problem with intelligence is that when it is shown off, it is very obnoxious and sometimes hurtful, so I’m working on it in the sense that I don’t want to make intelligence such an issue that it is a central part of my identity.  I do not want to continue being an insufferable know-it-all (as Professor Snape says to Hermione). I’d like to think I have much better traits than that. For instance, I’d much prefer to be thought of as a kind person.  One of the things that helps me gain a perspective on human intelligence is Howard Gardener’s theory of multiple intelligences which identifies seven different kinds of ways of being smart.  If you study it, you’ll see that each person you meet is highly intelligent in one way or another.  So why should anyone be even a little prideful of it?  It makes about as much sense as being prideful about reading a book.  And yet I have struggled.  I blame my mother’s constant praise.  Thanks, Mom!

This picture expands on Gardner’s theory, breaking intelligence down even further into nine.

Talent Show

This Sunday is my church’s annual Chili Cookoff and Talent Show.  My choir is responsible for organizing the event.  I confess that I’m not the best at organizing events, but I’ve learned to delegate.  I participated in the talent show last year.  I played a difficult and awesome tuba etude.  I had only played solo tuba in front of an audience one other time.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I did not hesitate to accept an offer to play a duet with a young flutist this year.  We will play The Ant and the Elephant.  It is a very idiosyncratic work that I think people will enjoy for it’s unique instrumental pairing, and it’s fun to imagine a relationship between an ant and an elephant!

But what has occupied my brain is the song I will sing.  Barry Manilow is one of my very favorite artists.  He sings so effortlessly that it’s easy to underestimate his songs.  The tessitura (median range of a song) is high for me and the phrasing requires some mastery of breath support, head voice, and evenness of tone.  There are only a few of his songs that I can actually sing.  I will be singing Weekend in New England, which is a personal favorite.  With a few modifications, I can sing it, but it will take the best of what I can do to really pull it off.  So I practice every day at the piano, in the shower, in the choir.

I don’t sing very often these days, and if I do, it is sacred music.  My church has never heard me sing a love song before.  I wonder how they will respond to watching their music minister sing the words “When will our eyes meet? When can I touch you?  When will this strong yearning end?  And when will I hold you again?”

Technology

I started a new job recently, using a technology that I’ve never used before.  It’s a technology I’ve sneered at over the ages:  Microsoft Access.  For fourteen years, I’ve programmed for the enterprise with Oracle, Java, Web, etc.  Access is really a personal database (to be used by a handful of people), as opposed to an enterprise database (to be used by many people).

When I interviewed for the job, I proposed that they move to Oracle and the web.  They indulged my ideas for the interview, but when it came down to actually maintaining the system, I learned that it actually is an appropriate technology for what they are doing.  First off, it does a lot more than I thought it did. Second off, there are fewer than twenty users, and only two or three signed on at any given moment.  Finally, if I made it an enterprise app, the Information Systems Group would want to take it over and I’d be out of a job.

I enjoy working with this technology, but I’m embarrassed when other programmers ask me what I’m working on.  I’m also concerned that having it at the top of my resume timeline could hurt my chances of getting a job in the future.  It’s an inner struggle.  I would not have even taken the job a year ago, but I’m learning to let things go and keep an open mind.  This is a good job.  It pays well.  I’m good at it.  And it is a low stress environment.  Isn’t that all that really matters?

Of course, there are a million other things on my mind most of which are either too personal or too uninteresting to mention.  So I’ll leave you here.

Quite a few years, I was reading straight through the Bible when I ran across the story of Ruth.  My wife and I chose a verse from the book of Ruth for our wedding.  I’ve been fond of the book ever since.  It is told from the point of view of Ruth.  Ruth was a Moabite woman who married one of Naomi, an Israelite’s, two sons.  When both sons died, Naomi released the daughters-in-law to return to their home countries.  Naomi was a widow and would be left alone, and so Ruth pledged to stay to care for her.  When they returned to Bethlehem during barley season, Ruth worked the fields of a man named Boaz.  When he saw that she was taking care of his cousin Naomi, he admired her.  Naomi, seeing an opportunity, sent Ruth to Boaz late at night with a plan.  This is where Boaz’s part of the story begins.  SPOILER ALERT: they later bore a son named  Obed who became the grandfather of none other than King David, and you know who came from the lineage of David in Bethlehem  (ok, it’s Jesus if you haven’t guessed).  I’ve rewritten this part of the story from the point of view of Boaz using excerpts from the English Standard Version Bible.  I’ve done my best to keep in the style of ESV’s translation while shifting to Boaz’s first person narrative.

On The Threshing Floor

It had been a long day of winnowing barley.  I was well pleased with the harvest, well-fed, and had had my fill of wine from my vineyard.  I drifted to sleep with thoughts of the woman I’d met in the fields.   What a noble woman she was, and lovely.  She had done such a kindness for my kinswoman Naomi.  Rarely had I witnessed such faithfulness, and in a Moabite woman no less!  I couldn’t help to think that she would certainly make as faithful a wife.

Deep in the night, I was awoken.  During winnowing time, I sleep on the threshing room floor along with my servants.  But this was not one of my servants.   I was awoken by a sweet fragrance, something sweeter than the barley grain.  Sleeping at my feet was a woman wrapped in my cloak.  I sat up and touched her softly and whispered, “Who are you?”

My heart raced when the woman replied, “I am Ruth, your servant.”

It was the Moabite woman.  She had come to me in my slumber to lay herself before my feet!

She continued on; her words as sweet as the honey I had supped on the evening before!

“Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.”

Though it was true, being very closely related to her mother-in-law, Naomi, but I was not the closest redeemer.  So I spoke words to honor her and let her know how I felt about her, and made also a proposition that was good and proper.

“May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich.”  Her eyes, which shown in the harvest moonlight, met mine for just a moment, but being a modest woman she bowed them quickly.  “And now, my daughter,” I continued, “do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman.  And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I.   Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.”

This astonishing woman nodded her consent and lay back down at my feet.  And I, taken with love and compassion for her, could hardly sleep,  for she had redeemed our dear Naomi.  She, a Moabite, chose to live here in Bethlehem to care for an Israelite out of no legal obligation.  She must truly be a good woman, a woman of God.   And I prayed to the Lord until morning that my cousin, the closest possible redeemer, would pass her to me, if it be the Lord’s will.

Oh my sweet Ruth!  Let it be that I would redeem you and your husband’s line.  It is certain to be a noble one!

I used to attend an early morning all men’s Bible study.  It’s humbling to study the Bible with men of such wide-ranging age and experience.  There was one man in particular who captured my interest.  He had just turned ninety, but he was so spry and mentally sharp.  He was also an active aviator.  Imagine that.  A man who had flown in WWII who was still flying!  After the study, we munched donuts and sipped a second cup of coffee.  I asked him if he had flown on his birthday as he had planned to do.  This is what he said.

People have asked me what it’s like to turn ninety, and all I can say is that it just doesn’t seem like it.  In my mind, I’m not really any particular age at all.  I’ve been a lot of ages, ya know? I guess I’m still all of those ages.  The only time I realize that I’m ninety is in the morning when I shave.  And there it is:  ninety, looking back at me.

Oh, I’ve been flying planes since World War II and it’s not really that big of a deal, ya know?  People ask me what it’s like to be a ninety-year-old flying a plane.   And I just laugh.  It’s not any different than it ever was.  You take off.  You fly around.  You land.  It’s flying.   I don’t do it as often, I guess.  Yes, I did fly on my ninetieth birthday.  I suppose it’s something you can raise a glass to if you like, but it’s just something I enjoy.

Someone made a joke about lust and women and aging the other day.  He said, “Sure, Joe has lustful feelings about women, he just can’t remember what to do with them!”  I suppose it was pretty funny, but I just wish I had thought of something to say in response.  I wish I would have said, “Ya know?  You think you young guys have a struggle with lust?  But see, to a ninety-year-old, ALL women are beautiful and sexy!  All the way from eighteen to ninety-five!  Talk about a struggle!”  But, I’m not as quick as I used be, so I didn’t say anything.

We’re really fortunate, ya know?  My wife and I.  Oh, in four or five years, I suppose one of us will become incapacitated.  That’s just life.  But today, we’re not.  We’re doing just fine.  We really don’t have any worries…or I should say we shouldn’t have any worries.  We wake up and look at each other in the morning, and although we may not always say it, I know that she and I are both thinking the same thing.  Well!  We pulled it off again!  We woke up to another day! And so we live it.

We all have our gifts, and I and everyone in my family have always had a natural knack for getting along with folks who many people find difficult to get along with.  Every work environment has a person who is difficult to work with.  It’s interesting that when you arrive at a new job, folks usually give you fair warning about who that person is, but even if they don’t, it will become very apparent very quickly.

But I’ve always found a way to work well with my coworkers, and I’ve made very good friends with many of these sorts of people over the years.  Recently, I began reflecting on how I do this, and I’ve come to a conclusion: it comes down to respect.

A number of years ago, a book was published which became wildly popular:  The Five Languages of Love by Gary D. Chapman.

It outlines five ways to express and experience love that Chapman calls “love languages”: gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service (devotion), and physical touch (intimacy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages

I realized that Respect could fit a similar formula.  Just like Love, most of us need to feel respected, and we all have particular ways by which we feel respected.  What I’ve found is that people who feel frustrated at work and who may be difficult to work with, feel that they are not getting the respect they deserve.

We’ve all encountered a person who is territorial, defensive, constantly complaining about they way they are treated, or constantly trying to prove that they deserve respect.  You try to be respectful, but it just doesn’t seem to help.  My assertion is that you have not taken the time to understand that person’s language of respect.

In one particular case, a person’s language is that they wish their competence to be acknowledged.  They feel that people, for whatever reason, have not given them credit for being competent at their job.  If the person is truly incompetent, then perhaps you’ll have to take another approach in order to form an effective working relationship with them.  But if they truly are competent, then say so!  Look for opportunities to praise their excellent work.

Once a person knows that you respect them, then much of their prickly behavior may subside with you.  And if it doesn’t, because the relationship is built on respect, then a word or two about the behavior can be given without a meltdown.

Other “languages” which come to mind are:

• Territory.  Acknowledge the parameters of someone’s assigned duties.
• Opinions being valued and heard.  Some people need to be sincerely listened to and acknowledged that their opinions are valued.
• Humor being appreciated.  It’s remarkable the effect of giving people a good laugh when they use humor.  Everybody wants to feel that they have a good sense of humor.  Never let someone’s attempt at humor go unacknowledged.
• Appreciation for service.  Some folks are particularly in need of being appreciated.  Most of us do not enjoy being taken for granted.  Say thank you and say how much you appreciate their service.

These languages can apply to nearly everyone, not just difficult to get along with folks.  Getting along with people you work with or members of your family and social groups is an important life skill.  You may take the attitude that “people are going to like me or they aren’t. it’s not my problem.”  And there’s some truth to that.  I’m not saying that you should change who you are in order to get along with them.  Or suck up to people in an ingenuous way.  I’m saying that respect is a cornerstone of relationships and everybody has a way by which they feel respected.

Then, of course, there are those few people who do not need to feel respected at all in order to manage.  People who are exceptionally self-respecting to the point that they can be happy and amiable regardless of how they are treated.  I know people like this, but they are a rare breed.  But they deserve respect nonetheless!

I’ve yet to meet a person who will not come around eventually.  It may take weeks, months, or years, but in the end, respect will win!

POST SCRIPT:  In looking for an image to head this post, I found a lot of pictures which assert that Respect is something earned, not something given.  Perhaps this is the natural order, but so is violence and territorialism and poverty.  In a loving society (a Christian society, if you wish), respect is acknowledged as a basic human need just as love.  I don’t have to agree with you in order for you to earn my respect.  Do we really have the God given right to judge who deserves our respect?  When we respect someone whom we disagree with or someone who’s behavior is abhorrent to us, we open a door by which understanding and perhaps even change can occur.  I believe that makes the world a better place.

Every family has it’s folklore; those stories which get told over and over at family gatherings.  Cat Thermometer is told nearly every Thanksgiving, and usually from several perspectives.  My brother, Paul, has told his version in sermons.  My aunt Pat tells a version at family gatherings upon request.  My version includes a scene that no one else witnessed but me.

During my late childhood, my family had a wonderful tradition of travelling to San Antonio to stay with my Aunt Pat’s family for Thanksgiving.  I have so many vivid memories from this time in my life.  We developed traditions which I looked forward to every year, and which I now cherish in my memories.

The ride from Oklahoma is still so fresh in my mind.  For much of my childhood, we traveled in a Ford Fairmont station wagon; first a yellow, and then a powder blue.  My brothers and I rode in the back on comfy palettes of blankets.  We listened to cassette tapes on our Walkman knock offs, and played road games such as the alphabet game and the car game.  The car game was when each of us picked a color and we counted cars with our color to see who could spot the most.  It really wasn’t a great game because we knew which colors would probably win from the very beginning, but we didn’t really care.

The windows of the car were generally cold to the touch in the autumn air and it was almost always cloudy.  My dad would try to time our departure to avoid the traffic in Dallas and Austin, but there were many times when we were bumper to bumper due to accidents and construction.

Upon arrival, we could expect a chili and tamale dinner.  It’s easy to get homemade tamales in south Texas, but these were special.  I believe an Hispanic woman named Rosa made them fresh for us.  The adults drank cocktails and played cards late into the night while we slept.  There was something marvelous to me about the fact that my parents had a social life that didn’t involve me.

We watched the lights turn on at the River Parade on Friday after Thanksgiving, and ate an awesome meal at cousin Tammy’s on Saturday.  Sometimes we attended church on Sunday morning at St. George’s Episcopal before we returned home.

But, of course, Thanksgiving Day was the main event.  Parades, football, the smell of turkey drifting out of the kitchen, special family recipes being prepared.  One year, when I must have been in high school, I was sitting at the breakfast bar off the kitchen eating the traditional Goliad (Grannie Floss) sausage.  Grannie Floss, my great-grandmother, lived in Goliad, TX.  There is a store in Goliad which sells excellent, locally crafted, mesquite-smoked sausage.  My grandfather used to cook it for us, and we adopted it for Thanksgiving mornings along with cheese grits or buttery scrambled eggs.  When Grannie Floss died, I began to feel uncomfortable calling it Grannie Floss sausage because it brought to mind horrific images of cannibalism.  So I call it Goliad sausage.

My dad sauntered up to me, unshaven, in his robe and slippers.He had a very anxious energy about him, but I could see that he was trying to appear cool.

He said, ever so casually, wiggling his jaw with his hand.  “How do you know if you have lock jaw?” He said it as if he was just curious, like if he’d asked, “What’s the capital of Angola?”

I shrugged.  “Maybe your jaw locks up?  Why?”  I asked.

“Well, I stepped on a nail last night and it may have been a little rusty.”

My dad is a bit of a worrier.  There are many tales of his hypochondriac worries, all of which I loved to hear.

“Dad, I’m sure it’s nothing.  Did you have a tetanus shot?”

“Well.  It’s been a few years.”  He held his jaw with his hand again and wiggled it around.  “It feels just a little stiff.”

“Dad, it is nothing.  It’s all in your head.  I promise.”

“Hmm.  You’re probably right.  No biggie.” With that, he shuffled away.

That was the last I heard about it until after dinner.  We were all sitting in the living room visiting and eating pie when my dad walked up and casually leaned against the entry way.  He had a long thermometer in his mouth, and once again he was trying to appear calm and cool.

Then my aunt Pat noticed him.  “Jack? What’s the matter?”

“Oh, I just wanted to check my temperature.  I stepped on a nail earlier.”

“Where did you get that thermometer?” she said, her voice rising.

“I got it from the cabinet by the kitchen.”

“Jack! That’s the cat thermometer!” she exclaimed.

He shrugged, leaving it in his mouth.

“Do you know what part of the cat that goes in?”

He shrugged again.

“Jack!!  It goes in it’s… it’s…it’s…anus!”

He pulled the thermometer out so quickly that he nearly dropped it on the floor, which was a big deal then because thermometers used to contain mercury.

The room exploded with laughter.  It was classic Jack. He grinned sheepishly and let us enjoy the moment.  We loved collecting these kinds of stories about him, and we knew immediately that this one would be one of the greats.

I don’t know how he feels about being the butt of these stories.  He seems to take it all with a humble sense of humor.  We’ve told it many times over the years, perhaps even to the exclusion of other stories.  Maybe it’s because this story represents every element of the other stories in one neat package. He never did contract lock jaw.

I call it folklore, but it won’t truly be folklore until my children tell it to their children on Thanksgiving one day.  I’ve been hesitant to write this down because folklore is passed down orally, but I think the thermometer stands alone as oral enough.

I’ve read several thought-provoking articles this year about worship, all of which were from the perspective of proponents for liturgical worship.  The subtext of all of these articles is that the traditional church is dying, and that the razzmatazz of the contemporary mega churches is the reason for it.  Let me start by sharing with you my understanding of what liturgical worship is.

“Liturgy” comes from the Greek, meaning “work of the people”.  This means that in liturgical worship, the congregation, led by the liturgist, plays a prominent or even primary role.  The congregation stands to say corporate prayers (prayers which the whole body of the congregation prays in unison), statements of faith and confession, litanies, and  hymns.  There is generally no band to sing the hymns.  The worship follows an “order of worship” which varies from denomination to denomination, but they all pretty much follow the same pattern.  (e.g. Gathering (prelude), greeting, entrance of the light, call to worship,hymn of praise, call to confession, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, response, passing of the peace, prayer for illumination, scripture, anthem, sermon, etc, etc, ending with a postlude).  Liturgical worship follows a liturgical year:  Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, Ordinary, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and so on.

Liturgy has it’s roots in the Catholic church, and so many Protestant church goers have a resistance to it.  The evangelical churches reject nearly any ritual.  They have just reasons and I respect them.  But liturgical worship has been adopted by many mainline denominations including Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Disciples of Christ.  Being a Presbymethodist, this is what I’m used to.

All of the articles seek to justify the validity or perhaps even superiority of liturgical worship, while the rest of the world seems less and less interested in it.  Contemporary worship people cite meaningless ritual and outdated music at the top of the list of reasons they do not worship at a liturgical church….it’s boring, they say.

So what is contemporary worship?  I’ve attended a handful and found them very engaging on an emotional level.  It’s a free form.  A band leads songs of praise and devotion for about thirty minutes with prayers sprinkled in.  The last song of the first set might involve an offering.  Then there is a scripture/sermon followed by a high energy song of praise.  There is often a video about one of the church’s projects somewhere in there, too.  The space is not a sanctuary, generally, it’s a worship space with a stage and lights.

The idea is that worship not be encumbered by rigid ritual.  It should be free, spirited, and emotionally engaging.  I think the ideal here is that it be as close to pure surrender and praise to God as possible, and secondarily, it should make you feel good.

These aren’t the only kinds of worship.  The Pentecostals are all about outward signs of the Holy Spirit and the Baptists are traditional in the sense there that there are often still traditional hymns accompanied by an organ, but non-liturgical.  My experience ends there.

So who is right? And does God care?

Perhaps a good place to start is with a definition of worship:

Dictionary.com

worship – reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.

The first word that pops out of this definition is “reverent”.  When I think of reverence in worship, I think of heads bowed, hats off, quietude, solemnity.  That sounds a lot like what Presbyterians and Episcopalians do.

Dictionary.com

reverence – a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration

Nowhere in this definition does it say anything about solemnity or quiet.  When I saw AC/DC a few years ago, I felt a deep sense of reverence in the true sense of the word.  There was nothing quiet about it!  My sense of awe toward the gods of rock was, at times, infinite.  So the use of the word “reverence” in the definition of worship doesn’t eliminate any kind of worship as valid.

In liturgical worship, there is an order and a form that enables the congregation to speak as one.  We can worship on our own of course, but there is something powerful about corporate worship.  That is the goal of liturgical worship.  It engages the heart, spirit, and mind in the context of the whole congregation, and it covers all the bases. You get every element of worship ever time.

In contemporary worship it is both corporate and personal.  They sing and pray together, but there’s plenty of room for your personal praise and prayer.  It’s likely, because of the lighting, that you will barely see anyone else around you to interfere with your personal expression of worship, if that’s what you care about. But I confess, there is an intense shared energy in a service like that.   It’s something much less formal and defined, but there is corporate worship happening.  The emphasis is far less on intellect, and much more on the heart and spirit.  I don’t feel intellectually stimulated by these services at all.  But is that bad?  I am so highly intellectual that it is beneficial for me to be free of that for one hour a week so that my heart and spirit can reign free.

So which is better?  Our worship decisions are so often based on our own consumeristic desires.  We have to have this music, this preaching style, this sanctuary, and this vibe in order for us to feel able to worship God.   All styles of worship seek to do the same thing:  provide a platform for worship and transformation.  It’s not really fair to say one is all about entertainment and the other is boring as hell.  That one is right and one is wrong.  Because ultimately it’s not about that at all.  It’s not about our preferences, it’s about God’s desires.

So then what does God desire?  My belief is that God desires our wholeness.  So what does worship have to do with wholeness?  Isn’t it about praise and reverence and the sacred?  Yes, yes, and yes.  But do you really think that God needs these things from us?  Does God really have any needs that we can provide Him?  That seems very unlikely to me.  I would say that God has desires for us.  What I think is that God has designed us to need to worship.  In order to become whole, we must surrender all, we must live in reverent awe,  we must recognize the sacred around us and within us and within each other, and we must express our gratitude for it.   If that is what worship is, then it has far more to do with every moment of our lives than what we do for one hour on Sunday morning.  The worship service is important, no matter how we do it.  It’s important for a church family to come together as the body of Christ, but it seems like a very futile act without a week of worshipful living to fuel it.  Without that, no amount of liturgy or razzmatazz will save it from demise.

far-tle

[fahr-tl]

verb, -tled, -tling, noun

–verb (used with object)

1. to disturb or agitate suddenly as by surprise or alarm in a manner that causes the sudden release of gas (see fart)
2. to cause to fart involuntarily from a sudden shock or surprise

When you grow up with an identical twin, you are shielded from your own oddities.  The person you spend the most time with often shares your same weirdness and so you think that what you’re doing is normal.

Case in point, for as long as I can remember, in the car I played a little game in my mind.  I held an imaginary scimitar sword.  I cut down trees and telephone polls on the roadside. This was before handheld devices and even before Walkmans to keep me entertained.  At some point it went terribly wrong.  First, it became more difficult because these sticky webs started growing in my mind in the air around my desired targets.  I had to learn how to cut through the webs in time to cut down the poles.  Second, my sword started misbehaving.  I couldn’t control it it.  it would fly up and down in the wind or become floppy.  My game was ruined, and to this day I cannot play it.

Then one day, I told Paul about it.  To my surprise, he was doing the same thing AND he had the same problems.  So, it was easy to conclude that all of this was normal.  I’m sure all kids have little games like that, but this is oddly specific.  I love this about being a twin.

Enter numbers.  At some point in my early childhood, I began assigning characters to the numbers one through ten.  So, did Paul, though when I asked him about it this week, his recollection was very vague so we could not compare notes.  Perhaps we started assigning characters because of something we saw on Sesame Street.  We’ll never know.  The cast is as follows:

One – God

Two – Priest

Three – Peasant Farmer

Four – Squire to Seven

Five – Town fool (drunk)

Six – Princess

Seven – Hero Knight

Eight – Evil Henchman to Nine

Nine – Evil Adviser to the King

Ten – King

Naturally, this makes mathematics complicated for me.  I favor certain numbers, and despise others. Seven is the best number of the 10.  He’s the hero.  They all have colors as well.  Seven is blue, which also happens to be my favorite color.  In learning my multiplication tables, I never got really good at my nines and eights.  I wanted to spend as little time working with them as possible.  It’s no surprise that I’m terrible with math.

So, can you guess why 42 (which is my current age) is my favorite number?  I’ll spell it out for you.  6 x 7 = 42.  42 represents the perfect union of the Princess and the Hero Knight.  The fact that there is a 42 means that the battle was won, the princess was saved from 9 and his evil henchman 8. and the kingdom was restored. 42 is my happiest number, my favorite number.  It’s the number I aspire to be in my life.  And now here I am!  42 years old.

Just one more reason my wife says I’m complicated.

It was 10 pm San Diego time and I needed to feel a last bit of SoCal air on my face before settling down in my hotel room.  It had been an enjoyable day until I found out that my son had been in a bicycle accident back home in Oklahoma.  He made it out with a fractured jaw and wrist and other minor bumps and bruises, but I wasn’t there to comfort him. and I felt an inexpressible pang of distance from him. Then my phone broke, cutting me off.  Something about the two of those things created a loneliness in me as I stepped out onto the sidewalk of the Pacific Highway.

Next to the hotel was a pretty decent taco shop that I’d eaten at three times before.  Not the best, not the worst. They put fresh guacamole on top and I wondered if that were a typical California thing.  When I walked in, I saw the same girl behind the counter that I saw earlier when I came in to get a cold Mundet, which is an apple soda.  She was young, wide hips, push up bra, and the kind of lips that rich girls use plastic surgeons to imitate.  She had an easy manner as I ordered my usual:  soft shell taco carnitas, and to be a little adventurous, I ordered an Jarritos Tamarindo pop instead of the apple.

I took a seat next to the only other customers.  They were a couple of sorts, but of what sort I could not tell.  I never saw her face, but her hair was dyed jet black and she wore black fishnet stockings under black shorts with a long-sleeve black shirt.  I imagined that she probably also wore heavy black eyeliner and dark lipstick;  a goth girl.  The man that sat across from her had a bold but silent demeanor.  Perhaps it was just his clean shaven head that made him seem bold.  He never spoke, at least not with words.  I took a good look at his t-shirt. I’ve learned that t-shirts are like bumper stickers for bodies.  They are an expression of some part of a person’s identity.  He wore a Bettie Page shirt; a pinup legend, a goth icon.  I wondered what it said about him.

That’s when the moment happened.  The music was louder than when I’d come in earlier.  It came to the forefront of my mind.  It was a latin singer singing a ballad.  There was a yearning and a sadness in his tenor voice.  The girl behind the counter began singing along.  Her voice was clear and easy and I could tell that she had sung it many times.  She might not have even known she was singing.  The goth girl turned her head at the sound of it, but I still didn’t see her face.  Then it occurred to me that the taco girl was living a life here by the bay; a life far beyond my knowledge.

It was a perfect moment, both sweet and sad.  And when a moment like this comes a long, I see things that I never saw before.  Little details.  The sign in front of the register and been changed from “$10 minimum credit card charge” to “CASH ONLY”.  There was a sign next to the kitchen door which warned of the dangers of drinking alcohol.  I wondered why they had changed the sign. Had the machine broke?  And did California require warnings about alcohol, or was the owner just a concerned proprietor.  I felt a heart-ache.  Nothing that I could truly identify or articulate, just a feeling that seemed to change the color of everything.

When my food was ready, she pulled the pop out of the fridge and set it in front of me.

“Do you want me to open it for you?”

I said that I did and she pulled it under the counter for less than 2 seconds and handed it and the cap to me. I said, “Gracias” just as casually as I could, though I knew it was unnatural.  She half turned as she was walking to the drive thru window and uttered “Uh hum”.  She was smiling. I turned to leave and realized that I didn’t want the cap.  Awkwardly, I put it  back on the counter and left.

As I walked back to the hotel I could see a man walking my way.  The first thing I noticed was that he was barefoot.  His dark brown skin shone in the lights of the hotel drive.  I was apprehensive.  I knew that he was homeless and that he would likely pan handle me.  As I passed him, he stopped to talk to me.

His voice was worn and his speech was fast and disjointed, but friendly.

“Hey, yeah, hey man.  Do you have a cigarette?”

I said, “No man, no cigarettes on me.”

He must have noticed that I had come from the taco shop because he raised a paper bag and said, “Them people in there give me burritos.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Really good.  Say man, do you have a dollar?  I could get a little cigar with that.”

I said that I did, and I pulled out my wallet, careful not to show him what was in it, and handed a dollar to him.

He was much obliged.  As he walked away he turned to me and said in such broken, confused English, it was in such clutter that I could only just make out the gist of it, “Yeah, ok, hmmm, sure, may may maybe I’ll see you around.  Enjoy your beer!”

I wished him well and decided not to tell him it was just a Mexican soda pop.  I didn’t want to ruin his nicety.

I chatted with the staff about what to do about my phone.  The lady remembered that there was a repair shop down the street that she always passed on the way home from work.  There was something about that detail that deeply humanized her for me, her way from  work, and I thought about the girl in the taco shop and how there was life around me beyond conferences and tourists and broken phones.

As a child, I lived across the street from the Lonoke town park. It was laid out on a single city block near the center of town. In fact it was on Center Street. It had an old merry-go-round, jungle gym, swings, and a slide that contrasted with the brand new tennis court, cedar wood big toy with sand, and two new pavilions that were still under construction. But what I was most interested in were the trees. Lonoke was known for having some of the oldest oak and cedar trees in the state. The oak trees were pretty to look at, but the cedar trees had a much more inviting quality for me. They tended to have lower lying branches that made them easier for a child to climb.
There was one tree in particular that I was fond of. The tallest one in the park, it stood by the merry-go-round just ten yards from the street. It had a knot on the trunk about three feet from the ground under a branch that I could just barely reach. I would jump up and grab it with my right hand which enabled me to gain footing on the knot with my right foot. From there I could grab a higher branch with my free hand and anchor my free foot on the side of a much larger branch. Letting go of the lower branch, I could pull himself up just enough to grab on with both hands and pull myself up. From here I could climb as high as my nerve would allow.

I was not a fearless tree climber; I had a healthy respect for the dangers of a tree. I always tested out branches for stability and never ventured too far out on the limbs. I had a keen sense of what a branch could support and nearly always gave it far less. I performed little or no acrobatics, nor did I pretend to be a tree-dwelling animal such as a monkey or a squirrel. And although I did indulge an occasional fantasy of being Tarzan, I did not really climb trees to play. I had something else in mind.

There were many things about climbing the cedar that I liked. I felt proud that I, such a small creature, could navigate such a large creature. I enjoyed the feeling of invisibility I got when adults walked under or near the tree without noticing me. Kids always noticed me, but few joined me. On the rare occasion that an adult, especially my mother, did notice me, I relished the gasps of surprise, shock, or fright that I might receive for being such a young child in such a high place. These I received as precious gifts. But none of this kept me climbing the tree day after day. I had a far deeper purpose to fulfill.

As a child, I was a natural appreciator of beauty. I would climb high, find a favorite branch, and perch. I might stand, or I might straddle it, or I might just sit across it letting my bare feet dangle in the breeze. Then I would get really still a take whatever the tree had to offer me. To me, it was like a whole other world. I took time to breathe in the strong cedar fragrance. I enjoyed the unique perspective on the wind that only a tree can provide. If I stayed still long enough, I might get a visit from a bird on a nearby branch, a robin or a blue jay or maybe even a goldfinch. When I was in the tree, I was no longer a ground-dwelling stranger to birds, I was more akin. I was a fellow tree-dweller, more like a peer.

I had a vague notion that this tree had become my friend. I liked to imagine it’s life. How it must have been a sapling long before the park even existed. How it must have known many children. Some would be men and women right here in Lonoke, some would be dead. Had it ever been hurt? What did it think about this town growing around it? To me, these visits of stillness and friendship lasted hours and went on for years. To an observing adult, they might have lasted fifteen minutes and went on for two summers. To the tree, just a flicker, no different than any brief visit from a tree-dweller, except that this one didn’t have wings.

But like all nice days in the park tree, there came a time to climb down and join the ground-dwellers again. In many ways, I’ve lost the natural ability to be still and commune with nature, but I know that somewhere deep inside there still lives a tree dweller.

In my wife’s favorite film, On Golden Pond,  an elderly couple comes to their summer home on the lake.  Norman is a perpetual grouch and Ethel is a perpetual ray of sunshine.  He doesn’t know what to do with himself so he’s talking about getting a job.  He’s not serious about it, he’s just being a grump.  So Ethel sends him off to the woods to gather strawberries for a pie.

Here’s a clip

Ethel:  Take these buckets and pick us another quart of strawberries.
And I’ll fix us up a scrumptious strawberry shortcake for lunch. Go on.
Norman: You want me to pick strawberries?
Ethel:  Yep. Do I have to put an ad in the paper?
Norman:  I’m not sure I know how.
Ethel:  It’s really very simple. You bend over and pick ’em.
Norman:  Bend over? Where are they?
Ethel:  On the ground, where they belong.
Norman:  Last time we picked blueberries they were on a bush. Didn’t have to bend over at all.
Ethel:  These are strawberries, and they grow on the ground.
Norman:  Here comes what’s-his-name. He’ll have the paper. I don’t want to miss any career opportunities off lookin’ for strawberries.
Ethel:  I’ll pay you. It may be the beginning of something big.
You may become a major strawberry picker.

Jenn and I have seen it together many times, and this scene has come to represent something for us.   There is something about the absurdity of  looking for a job opportunity in something that will come of nothing.  So, when I get all intense and grandiose about something that I can’t make a job out of my wife will say, “You might become a major strawberry picker!”  Or sometimes I’ll recognize the situation and say it to myself.  We laugh about it, and I generally take the cue to chill out.

You see, this is what I do!  I find something that I’m good at, and I throw myself into it, perhaps ignoring other important things in my life!  I start making plans and having fantasies in the hopes of becoming a major singer, major cook, major tuba player, major writer; a major strawberry picker.  I go overboard!

I’m learning through this phrase to accept my limitations;  to have no illusions about my abilities.  It is true that I’m pretty good at a number of things, and i work very hard to get better.  But the truth is, if I were good enough to go pro on anything but music education and software development, I feel that I would know by now.  Someone would have noticed and encouraged me to make a move.

When you’re young, you dream about having a career in something that you love, and don’t get me wrong, I love my career, but it’s disappointing when you learn that something you love will be an avocation instead of a vocation.  My voice teacher in college tried to let me down easy on singing.

He took me to lunch on campus one day.  Where Cafe Plaid used to be, there was once a lovely shop with greeting cards in the front and a little cafe in the back.  It served great burgers and the best beef stew in town.  I felt privileged to get this kind of attention from a professor whom I loved.

As we ate, he asked “David, do you know the difference between a vocation and an avocation?”

I said that I wasn’t sure.

He said, “A vocation is when someone does something professionally for a living.  An avocation is something that you do just because you love it.  It’s not a career.  You know, most singers will never have singing as a vocation, but many sing because they love it.”

Although, I didn’t realize it at the time, he was telling me that in his estimation, I would not realize my dreams of becoming a professional singer.  It’s not the only time he tried to tell me, but I refused to accept it.  I am a good singer, it is true.  I have worked very hard to be able to do what I can do, but it will never reach the level required to be a full-time opera singer.  If I were going to be a pro, then people would have said so.  People would be urging me on.  It may sound cruel of him, but if I would have trusted him on it, it would have saved me years of misery.

So, many things I do will always be strawberry picking.  And if I don’t recognize it, I am setting myself up for disappointment and frustration.  It doesn’t mean that I quit.  It means that I do it because I love it.  It’s a tough lesson to learn and it runs counter to the American notion that you should never give up on your dreams, but I haven’t really given up any dreams. I’ve merely adjusted them for the sake of my happiness.  I’ve adjusted them to be in line with reality.  I feel lucky to have so many wonderful berries to pick in my life.  And at the end to all of this picking there may even be a delicious strawberry pie.

When I was in second grade, my parents signed me up for piano lessons with a little old lady in Lonoke, Arkansas.  I was permitted to walk from school in the middle of the day to her house.  I felt so privileged on Wednesdays to get up out of Mrs. DeRoark’s class and excuse myself to do something that I imagine only privileged children could do.  I remember very little of my piano teacher.  I don’t even remember her name.  Just a few mental snapshots of her living room and piano.  She taught me how to read music and play little songs from the John Schaum piano book.  There were songs like Snug as a Bug in a Rug and Volga Boat Song and many other simple songs that I cannot remember.  I loved the book especially because it was full of illustrations that a child could color in with crayons.

To encourage me, my parents would show me Victor Borge comedy shows on PBS.  I thought he was hilarious and an extremely good on the piano.  I still feel that way.  Borge played a lot of Chopin, and before he would begin he would shout “Chopin!” with much flair.  I didn’t know what Chopin was or why he said it in such a way, but I was very taken with it.

One evening, my parents had their friends over for dinner.   My mother really wanted me to show off what I had learned, and so after dinner everyone adjourned to the living room with their coffee.  This is a situation that most children dread, but I did not.  I was proud to show what I could do, and I generally liked this kind of attention.

I took my seat at the old standup piano and prepared myself for a grand performance.   I remembered what I believed to be an important piece of piano etiquette that I could impress everyone with,  and so right before I started “Snug as a Bug in a Rug” I shouted “Chopin!”

The room exploded with laughter.  I didn’t know what was so funny, so I just continued to play.   Afterwards, I performed a very ostentatious bow holding my little arm across my midsection which they received with as much applause as four adults could possibly make.  The laughter was a mystery to me, but I didn’t take it hard.  I was well aware of how adorable I was.

I only took piano lessons for my 2nd grade year, and didn’t resume it until I studied music in college.  I’d nearly forgot about my performance completely until well into adulthood.   I saw a video of Victor Borge doing his bit.  When he shouted “Chopin!” then I knew that I must have been the most adorable pianist in the world that night.