“Did you ever used to go to church? Like a long time ago, Dad?” The neighboring Williams family took turns with the van Veen family, picking me up Sunday mornings for the drive into town and services.

“Yeah, we went. Your grandmother had us go every Sunday, after milking was done. That was important to her.”

I kept my eyes on his dark strands of hair running through my fingers.

“But it’s not important to you now?” The words, barely whispered, hung.

He pushed up his plaid sleeves, shifted his head, his eyes still closed. “Oh….”

I waited, hands combing, waiting for him to find the words for those feelings that don’t fit neatly into the stiff ties, the starched collars, of sentences.

“No, I guess not anymore. The day Aimee died, I was done with all of that.”...

And even long after I personally said yes to God, I still lived no, developing macular holes on the retina of my soul. Blind spots, missing God present and giving.

This is one of the best things I've read this year. Such a gutsy and honest look at a family history and the spiritual/emotional scars of loss. RLP

Read the rest: Ann Voskamp at Holy Experience.

NOTE: Ann doesn't have comments enabled. I've encouraged her to consider that. But perhaps she is shy in this way. She's a writer first. If you want to leave her a comment, feel free to leave one here.

Okay so this company in Singapore is claiming that they own the patent to the "technology" that allows you to link an image from your website to a URL on another website. They feel that everyone who has a website with an image that links to another site should have to pay them a licensing fee.

So they own the patent to a snippet of a commonly used markup language? They own "a href" if you put that in front of an image?

Apparently they have been sending out invoices to people who have images on their websites that link to some other site. Oh, I DO wish they would send me one. They now have a FAQ on their website, explaining why you should pay them to have links on your website.

It is worth noting that the only service Vuestar provides is the questionable "service" of invoicing people for using html.

Thousands of us should gather in their parking lot some morning. Just stand there silently. Then, on signal, we would all point at them and laugh.

I love their tagline: "Good ideas with vision."

rlp

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12 second Iron Giant clip. Play first.

I received an interesting email a couple of months ago from a woman named Sarah Nagel, who reads Real Live Preacher. She was going to be in San Antonio and wondered if we might get together and chat.

Every sort of life has its own hardships and blessings. One of the hardships and blessings of being a minister/writer is accumulating too many relationships to keep up with. As I’m in a mode of simplifying my life where possible, I thought perhaps I should pass on this conversation. But then I noticed the domain attached to her email address. Rice.edu. That was curious to me, so I googled her name and found that she is a Ph.D. graduate of Rice University in the department of physics and astronomy and is currently lecturing there.

Ooh, that changes things. Astronomers and physicists are like rock stars to me. I don’t understand the mathematical language with which they express their understanding of reality, but I’m thrilled with even the simplified explanations they offer to lay persons. And I think that I can sense the grandeur of these truths even in that diluted form.

I wrote back and we set a date. I arranged to have the entire afternoon free on a Friday.

“Wow, my own personal physicist,” I said to myself with glee. “I am now the luckiest man in America!”

She came with her boyfriend, a computer programmer and linguistic philosopher who seemed to know something about, well, everything. I lured the two of them into my office and peppered her with questions for a couple of hours. Then Jeanene and I went out to dinner with them and continued the conversation. It was an absolutely wonderful day.

There was so much I wanted to know.

"I understand particle reality. And I know how waves move, of course. But what ARE waves? Are they ways that particles move, or are they their own kind of reality? And if they are their own kind of reality, could you describe that to me somehow?"

"What is dark matter? Is it true that it makes up 96% of reality? And do we call it dark because we haven’t figured out how to perceive it, or is it a kind of reality that is so completely different from us that we will never be able to interact with it at all?"

"I understand that you fire a single photon of light from some sort of gun or whatever in that classic quantum experiment with the slits in the paper. What I want to know is: who made that gun? I mean, how do you design a machine to fire a single sub-atomic particle? And how do you know if you really ARE just firing one photon?"

I suppose you’ll be wanting to know how she answered those questions. That could be a problem. If you consider how simplified her answers must have been for me, and if you further consider how I’ve lost the edges of those memories in the weeks that have passed, I’m certain I cannot do justice to her answers.

Briefly:

1. Particles seem easy to understand. They have their own energy and fly around colliding with each other. It’s the sort of thing we see every day in life. Waves are strange. They involve movement. And that movement transfers energy through a medium in some mysterious way. Like when you see wind waves moving across a wheat field. The stalks of wheat and the individual air particles don’t move all that far, but the motion itself moves great distances. Electromagnetic waves, like light, do not require a medium for their energy to move. That seems very strange. And now, far from feeling more enlightened in these matters, I’m not sure I understand anything about matter, whether in particle form, in motion, or in any state at all.

2. Yes. Dark matter makes up about 96% of all that is, which is a little sobering, considering we make a lot of broad statements about reality for creatures that can only perceive about 4% of it. But no one knows if we simply cannot see dark matter or if it exists in some way that is outside of our ability to perceive it at all. That’s the thing about dark matter. We can’t perceive it, so we can’t even know if we will ever have the ability to perceive it.

3. They do indeed have such a gun. Light is directed through a tube and exposed to elements of very low temperature such that collisions are caused. Somehow, by the process of elimination and by repeated actions, they are able to be quite certain that only one photon is emerging from the end of the tube, thus enabling some rather astonishing experiments.

To be honest, she lost me with that last one. I just don’t have the requisite knowledge to comprehend how they make this photon gun thingy. But here’s the deal: If you spend more than a few minutes with Sarah Nagel - or any serious physicist - you will realize that these are not the sort of people who take this kind of thing lightly. They aren’t going to take someone’s word for it if he says he just fired a single photon out of a tube. The makeup of that gun and all of the physics behind it are worked out ahead of time in a completely other set of disciplines.

If you, like me, are not a physicist and have taken a different path in life, you will never have enough knowledge to understand a lot of what goes on behind their experiments, even if you can understand the experiments themselves.

It comes down to trust. I trust Sarah.

Sarah tells me that the people who design these “photon guns” are certain that only one photon is fired from them. So I accept that respectfully and we can move on to what happens when you shoot a single photon of light at a point between two slits in a sheet of paper, which is where things really get interesting.

I suppose you’d like to know a bit more about that experiment. Well, I’m definitely in over my head now, so you’ll have to find your own personal physicist and talk to her yourself. Sarah Nagel is mine, so she’s taken. But I’m sure you’ll find someone. Try the Yellow Pages.

This is an interesting twist to the story: Sarah came to San Antonio to see ME. She has read Real Live Preacher, and clearly my writing has meant something to her. Maybe that is because I am called to drink from many different wells and draw them all together with the art of writing. And she has been called to drink very deeply from the well of physics. I don’t really know what she was hoping to get from me, but for one afternoon a physicist and a theologian/writer sat together in peace, talking and laughing and each valuing the other. I love her passionate search for truth in the Cosmos, and she loves my quirky, artistic ramblings about life or God or whatever you want to call whatever it is I think I’m writing about.

And now everything I’ve told you leads me to this truth that I believe, though I must confess that I have no proof for it save my own experience. But it seems right to me.

We all matter. All of us. And there is no way that any one kind of human search for truth, much less any one human, will ever be able to find all the answers to the most fascinating truths about life and existence. You will have to trust someone. People have given their entire lives to creating single photon shooting machines. Will you trust them, or will you spend two or three decades gathering the knowledge you will need to check the validity of their answers?

I find that trusting people is its own kind of spiritual exercise. I am deeply impressed by the strong and unwavering commitment of scientists to their method. It takes that kind of commitment to empirical data to discover their kinds of truths. Brother and sister scientist must take that path. And I love them for it. I am not ashamed that I cannot follow them. I don’t even speak the language. My path was set in another way long ago. But my ignorance is no shame for me with Sarah. So I can come to her with joy, like a child, and drink in an afternoon’s worth of her knowledge and her journey.

And I think I saw in her eyes a certain trust she has in me. “Here’s a man,” she might have said, “who has given his life to unraveling and understanding the oldest story/poems of humanity. He and thousands like him testify that there is still meaning to be found in these scriptures. They seek communion with deep forces of creation through ancient spiritual disciplines. And I trust this man. At least I trust him enough to respect him and sit and talk with him for a couple of hours.”

Back of everything is a love for truth and a desire for knowledge and wholeness and happiness. That we all share. Why would we be so drawn to God unless we have a love and desire for truth somehow embedded deeply into our humanity? Pilate, a proto-scientist, rightly asked, “What is truth?” And Jesus, the son of man, did not tell him. But he did once say that the truth would set us free.

And why would brother and sister scientist seek truth with such vigor if they had no spiritual connection to it? Why, if there were no desire in their souls, no emotional drive to know and conquer and to find joy in the discovery of what is?

I tell you this: If I had the time I would hear all of your stories. You could drag whatever expertise you claim and whatever experience is yours to San Antonio, and I would sit with you and love you and marvel at what you bring to the greater human search for knowledge. We are not all equal in this journey. Some are more equipped with intelligence, some with emotion, others with experiences that burned truth into them with a painful fire.

But we all matter. We all play our part. I cannot gather every precious bit of knowledge to myself and drink it, though I would love to. But I can love everyone who carries a part of our journey forward. And I can hear their stories with whatever time and energy is given me.

This is a goodness because this is a human communion that is a sacrament we all may share together.

rlp

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The retreats have come together in ways that I could never have imagined. A number of people in the church have stepped up to organize things. We're learning to function like a retreat center. We currently have about 10 people signed up for each of the three retreats. I anticipate additional people coming to the last two retreats. We can take a maximum of 20, but 10 to 15 is a very nice number for this kind of thing. There will be 5 to 7 people from our church attending as well.

But even if we had 20 people come, it would still be an intimate gathering where we can get to know each other and enjoy lots of good conversations. We're really not interested in doing anything on a larger scale than that.

Paul Soupiset has put together a booklet that we will be giving to everyone who attends. There will be more in it, but you can see the schedule and read more about the retreat. Click the cover to download the .pdf file. Note: This is just a demo version. There will be more information in the final version, and the example Franciscan rule will be changed slightly.

A few things have changed:

1. You can spend the night at our church as our guest on Saturday night if you want to stay over for church on Sunday. Those who do will all go to the Riverwalk on Saturday night for authentic Tex-Mex food.

2. We're providing towels so that you don't have to carry wet ones back home. For this first retreat, you'll need to bring your own sheets and pillows, etc. Hopefully we'll have those for people soon. We'd like this to be as easy for you as possible. Drop everything and come without worrying about food, lodging, etc.

3. Here is our updated schedule for the weekend:

Friday afternoon/evening:

12:00 - Arrivals begin. Feel free to explore.
6:00 - Sanctuary: Reception & Sign-in
7:00 - Vespers Prayer Service
7:30 - St. Francis and his life before God
8:30 - Snack Supper
9:00 - Making a Rule of Life I
10:00 - Compline Prayer Service
11:00 - Free Time: Conversation / Sleep / Rule of Life / Late Night Yoga / Labyrinth

Saturday

4:50 - A Bell will be rung to announce Lauds
5:00 - Lauds Prayer Service
5:30 - Free Time: Sleep / Prayer / Sunrise Labyrinth
7:00 - Free Time Options: Yoga
8:00 - A South Texas Breakfast
9:00 - Terce Prayer Service
9:30 - Making a Rule of Life II
10:30 - Free Time: Rest / Work / Art / Meditation
12:00 - Sext Prayer Service
12:30 - Lunch, Free Time
1:30 - Free Time (Some will pack for departure)
2:00 - Making a Rule of Life III
3:00 - None Prayer and Communion Service
3:30 - Benediction / Group Photo
4:00 - Vans leave for Airport & Downtown
6:00 - Dinner on San Antonio Riverwalk
±11:00 - Vans return to Covenant

Sunday

8:00 - Stow all luggage in Gordon’s office by 8
9:30 - Optional devotional with Paul
10:15 - Coffee & Doughnuts
10:30 - Covenant Worship Service
12:00 - Vans leave for Airports

Full details (contact information, etc.) are on the retreat page.

I preached a sermon this morning — one in a long line of sermons stretching back to 1992. I've preached so many sermons by now that I find it almost impossible to remember any particular one. Right now, on a Sunday night, I don't want to remember any of them. The discipline of Sunday night is forgetting.

It's strange, but while I can't remember my sermons, I do remember preaching them. And if I close my eyes, I can see myself laboring away at the work of it...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

rlp

Note: I began this piece in the fall, hoping to finish it before Christmas. Alas, I could not. I just couldn't stay interested in it. For some reason I remembered it last week and pulled it out. What can I say? My muse knows no seasons.

This is a facsimile of a section of the Codex Bezae, an important New Testament manuscript that dates to the 5th or 6th century. It was created using a font that approximates the original style. Photographs of Codex Bezae are not permitted.

Bezae was written on pages of vellum. Being a codex, it was bound like the books of our day, between two covers with writing on both sides of the pages. The manuscript contains the Gospels, Acts, and a small piece of 3rd John. It is the only extant Greek version of the Western family of New Testament texts, so its value to scholars is immeasurable. It has resided in the University of Cambridge library since 1581.

Imagine my stunned surprise when I checked the mail at our church and found a letter addressed to me from Kipling’s Who’s Who, an organization of “leading business professionals.”

Apparently I’ve not only been nominated, but my “candidacy” has been approved and will become official upon receipt of the enclosed R.S.V.P. card.

I love the little notice at the bottom of the card. “Please do not confuse Kipling’s Who’s Who with other Mimic Publications.” (Italics and capitalization are theirs)

Ha ha, yuk yuk, yeah, I know this is an old joke. The who’s who scam is the precursor to the modern Nigerian bank account email scam. These things bring up so many fascinating questions.

Can it really be true that there are people out there who still think this is some kind of serious honor that is going to beef up their anemic resumes? Apparently so. This is a direct mail campaign. That’s not cheap. The people who run these things aren't stupid. I doubt they would continue to pay the postage and printing if it didn’t bring some return.

And that means some form of the following conversation is taking place right now:

Dude, I got nominated for Kipling’s Who’s Who.

What’s that?

You know, it’s one of those books for leading business professionals. You get in it, you know, because you’re promising or a leading professional.

Dude, you work at Wal-Mart. I mean, that’s cool, but I’m just saying.

Yeah but I have a college degree. That shows promise. You know, potential.

Well, about every fourth person you meet has a degree of one kind or another. Those who’s who things are totally bogus.

Sure some are, but this is Kipling’s. Isn’t that the real one? I mean I know that name. Wasn’t there a guy named Kipling who was that guy who was famous?

Yeah yeah yeah, uh...Runion Kipling or something. I think I heard that in college. [Get’s a mental image of an explorer wearing a pith helmet with a bushy mustache and pipe.] Yeah, that guy was definitely famous. I think he might have been the first to discover some Oriental country or something.

So that’s what I’m saying. This is Kipling’s Who’s Who. I’m sending in the card. What can it hurt? Could help my resume.

Do you even have a resume?

Not technically, but I’m putting one together. I’m going to get my real estate license and see if I can work for Mitch’s dad.

Yeah, there’s good money in real estate.

You know, I can buy the book with my name in it. There’s all those other business people’s names in it. Could be good contacts. I could send out my resume to them. It’s only 50 bucks. I’m just going to put it on my dad’s card. He won’t know.

Go for it man. What can it hurt?

Nothing. I mean NOTHING is funnier than real life.

Never mind the haircut and fading, 80s-era Izod shirt ladies and gentlemen. This man is a leading business professional in the United States...wait for it....OF America!

rlp

Yeah yeah, I know, I'm talking about insurance again. But I got a couple of emails that interested me, and I wanted to respond to them. One of them was pretty funny, I thought. Well, mean and funny.

Oh, I tried to keep this to my traditional 6 minutes. I went over a bit. Not that much.

rlp

Oh yeah, I didn't write about this, but Humana messed up AGAIN. This time canceling only Shelby's insurance. Another "show up at the pharmacy and be embarrassed when they announce that your insurance has been cancelled" episode followed by angry phone calls, etc. We pay one premium as a family, so you'd think it would be all or nothing. No, just Shelby was cancelled. Another round of phone calls got her reinstated.

Do you think they just hope to wear people down?

It seemed to Foy like people treated him differently in the weeks after the wedding prank. It seemed like people were quieter around him now that they knew he used to be a priest. More respectful but also more distant.

It’s probably just me. I always think people are paying more attention to me than they are. I always think people are looking at me and they aren’t. People don’t care about you or think about you nearly as much as you think. It’s probably just me.

At least once a week a group from the office would go to a local bar after work. Mostly the single people. During happy hour they smoked and drank and got bawdy and laughed a lot. They cut loose. Happy hour was like a miniature weekend that surprised everyone when it appeared in the middle of the week. Foy had been on one of these outings. He was uncomfortable, not because he had a problem with the booze and cigarettes and loose talk, but he never learned to do any of that stuff. He noticed that he hadn’t been invited again.

Yeah, but I never got invited that much anyway. Only the once and I didn’t really like it. It’s just me.

But it still bothered him.

Chuck called him “Father Foy” now, which he hated. But he instinctively knew that if he reacted to this, it might become a general nickname that everyone used. So he just smiled and ignored it. Chuck caught him in the break room one afternoon.

“Father Foy! Just the guy. I got something I wanna ask you.”

“Okay.”

“If God is supposed to be good and loving and all that. And powerful, you know, he can do whatever. If he’s all love and everything - loves the little children of the world, red and black and yellow and white…”

Chuck paused, as if he felt that Foy might need a moment to digest these deep thoughts.

“If that’s the case, then why is there so much evil and suffering in the world? Why doesn’t God do anything about it?”

He looked at Foy, waiting for a response, looking like the captain of the debate team who had just dropped a bombshell and was waiting for a rebuttal.

How many times have I had this conversation? 1000 times?

Foy exhaled loudly. “Man, I don’t know. I’m not a minister anymore. I don’t…nobody knows the answer to that. If you can figure that out you can write a book and make millions.”

Chuck looked triumphant. “See, that’s what I’m saying. That’s why I don’t go to church. It just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t figure. It’s just bullshit and people wanting money. Those preachers. That’s all they want.”

He paused. “Present company excluded of course.”

Foy was a master at manufacturing a smile, but his attempt to force a smile onto his face was an abysmal failure. There was no hiding his disgust.

“Yeah, I gotta go.”

He left the break room. He looked back in case Chuck was worried about whether or not his feelings were hurt, what with that smile and leaving quickly. But Chuck had already turned to someone else and was talking.

How can people not see how people feel? Why do I have to see it? Everything. I see every twitch on their faces. Every move that means anything.

One afternoon he got an email from someone named Paul. He couldn’t remember meeting him, but it came from within the office. It was in all caps, which made him wince.

MY COUSIN CLAUDE IS WONDERING ABOUT GETTING AN ANNULMENT. HE MARRIED THIS WOMAN THAT HE WAS GOING OUT WITH, BUT SHE’S TURNED OUT TO BE A TOTAL PSYCHO. THEY MADE THE MARRIAGE OFFICIAL, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING, BUT THEY WERE ALREADY SO IT’S NOT LIKE ANYTHING IS REALLY DIFFERENT. HE WANTS TO KNOW IF HE SHOULD JUST GO STRAIGHT TO HIS PRIEST AND ASK ABOUT IT, OR IS THERE SOME CHURCH OFFICIAL HE SHOULD TALK TO.

Foy punched the caps lock on his keyboard.

I DON’T KNOW. I’M NOT CATHOLIC AND I’M NOT A PRIEST. I HAVE NO IDEA.

The reply came back in seconds.

YEAH, BUT WHAT ARE THE GENERAL CHURCH RULES ON THIS? IS IT NOT HAVING SEX OR MORE A MATTER OF TIME. BECAUSE THEY WERE HARDLY MARRIED. JUST A COUPLE OF MONTHS.

Foy looked around. His cubicle was set away from the busiest part of the office, and no one was near. He put his head down near his keyboard. Rage filled him and he whispered with an angry hiss.

“I don’t fucking know, okay? If he married the bitch, then divorce her. Or go ask the mother-fucking pope.”

He straightened up and looked around, worried. No one heard him. He sighed and tapped out a response.

I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T HAVE ANY IDEA. TALK TO A PRIEST.

Foy wandered down the little hallway through the cubicles and felt emotion and desire drain out of him. When he first came to the office he was starting to feel like he might be close to becoming a regular person, someone who just goes to work and makes money and looks forward to the weekend and takes life as it comes. But now he felt like a non-person, somehow set apart from everyone. He felt emasculated. Sexless. Without desire. Sinless. Always nice. That Foy, what a nice man. So sensitive. So caring.

There were bursts of life all over the cubicle village. A woman was outraged by something. She walked quickly past Foy with short, angry steps. Her sharp complaints came popping out of her mouth. A friend walked next to her, trying to keep up, nodding in silent affirmation. A sharp laugh came from the other side of the office. Foy turned and looked in that direction, but he couldn’t tell where the laugh came from. He opened the break room door. There were several men by the coke machine. One of them was describing a fishing trip. He seemed so happy to be talking about it. The others were giving him their complete attention.

“So I said Roy, where the fuck are we? I can’t see land. And he says, You gotta trust the instruments. And I’m like BullSHIT, I don’t see land. We were drinking like motherfuckers, and all of a sudden it was like, I want to be in the ocean. I’ve never been in the ocean. So I took off my pants and jumped over the side.”

The men laughed while the one telling the story nodded, pleased with himself.

“The guys in the boat were laughing their asses off and screaming at Roy, Man overboard! And I’m like, holy shit I’m in the goddamn ocean. Then I got this horrible feeling cause who knows what’s down there and it felt like a shark or something was gonna come up and bite my balls off. So Roy starts coming in close with the boat and then zooming away. They’re all laughing, but that shark shit has really got me. Then I panic and start screaming like a little girl…”

Foy slowly closed the door and backed away.

How do they do it? How do they just let their emotions fly out in front of everyone?

A thought occurred to him. He was always going to be a minister. He had put on some kind of sterile, priestly personality, and now he couldn’t take it off. It didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing. He had lost the ability to let go and live and laugh and be with people.

And it’s me. It’s not them. They don’t care what I do. I can’t live, or at least I can’t live in front of anyone. Maybe I can’t even live with myself. I’m just floating around. Mr. nice guy. Father Foy.

He slipped into his cubicle. There was a file open on the screen, a report from marketing. He opened it and began reading it, whispering as he went. He made small changes here and there, smoothing it out. Then he froze.

Shit, even my job is making things look nice. Sound nice.

Panic and anger poured into his stomach. His skin got warm. He looked over at a coffee cup by his monitor. There were several pens in it and an X-acto knife, sitting blade upwards. The silver tip of the knife caught his eye. He looked back at the screen, typed for a few seconds, then his eyes went back to the knife.

Foy sat back in his chair, motionless for a moment. He stood up just enough for his head to rise above the top of the cubicles. He looked around, then lowered himself. He rolled up his left sleeve and looked at his forearm. The underside of his forearm, above his wrist, he didn’t like. It was too vulnerable and soft and white. But the top of his forearm, up from the back of his hand where the hair was. It was brown from the sun and tough. He took the Exacto knife and put the tip of the blade on his arm. He pulled it across his skin, leaving a little white line. He made several of these white lines in parallel rows. Then a rush of raw anger came. Anger at himself. His mouth tightened and he pushed harder. The last line turned red as the blade went along. The pain cleared his mind a bit.

He looked around and spoke in a soft voice. “I bleed like anyone.”

He reached over and jerked a tissue from a box on his desk. He wiped the blade and dropped it back into the cup. Then he pressed the tissue over the cut on his arm. After a moment he lifted it and looked under it. He folded it into a small square and fastened it to his arm with scotch tape. He pulled his sleeve back down and buttoned it neatly. He took several deep breaths and rolled his head around until his neck popped. Then he exhaled loudly and turned back to his computer screen. He worked for a few minutes more until he heard someone saying, “Foy.” It was Suzanne. She was standing in the doorway.

Foy smiled at her. “Hey, how are you doing?”

She shrugged. “I can’t complain. How about you?”

“Eh, same old same old.”

She nodded and looked around his cubicle. Foy recognized the look of someone who had something she needed to say. His general practice was to give people an immediate opening when he saw that.

“So what’s happening?”

“Well, I know it’s been awhile since we talked, but I wanted you to know I did the things you said. I got all of Jeremy’s stuff out of around my desk. Most of it I threw away, but there were a couple of things. And then, you know, a lot of his stuff at home. His blanket from when he was little and some things.

She paused, pulled her lips into her mouth where you couldn’t see them, and nodded deliberately.

“Uh, I got this cute kind of like a trunk at Pier One. It’s green, um, and it has this little key. And when I was putting some of the stuff into it, I could almost feel Jeremy saying, ‘It’s okay.’ And it was like, I own this. I can come here anytime I want and just see everything and cry or whatever. And, it just…feels so good. I wanted you to know.”

Foy stood up and walked over to the doorway. He put out his right arm as an invitation, but he didn’t square up and face her. He left a nice angle to avoid too much intimacy. Suzanne accepted and leaned into him briefly, giving him a respectful half hug. Her eyes were wet.

Foy’s smile was absolutely genuine. It came so naturally. It was real, and he felt real happiness.

“Hey, that is so great. Just, I know that was a huge step for you. I’m so glad.”

Suzanne smiled and walked down the hall. Foy watched her go. She was pretty. She had an interesting walk. It was like she might be wondering if he was watching her and had suddenly become a little self-conscious. The vulnerability of the moment was very endearing. He had quick image in his mind of the two of them eating dinner together. But now he had taken up a kind of priestly, counselor role with her. And it made everything feel wrong. He really couldn’t sort out what he felt. It was a kind of vague but impossible longing that evaporated pretty quickly. And then he was too tired even to think about how he would start thinking about how he might start something like that. Even the line of thought was too complex for him.

He sat back down and looked at the computer screen. His eyes drifted to the right, and he looked over the cup with the pens and X-acto knife to a spot on the padded wall of the cubicle. He stared at the spot with his mouth hanging open. His eyes jerked suddenly to the right and to the left and then up and back down. Like someone who is thinking. A small smile appeared on his face. He made a rumbling sound deep in his throat.

“Hmm.”

A good feeling came over him. It was the feeling of pushing everything away. It was the feeling of letting go of being a man and putting everything out of his mind. He slipped into this androgynous, oblivious state like a man closing the door to his home, dropping onto the couch, and turning on the television. It was too much. Everything was too much.

His eyes moved back to the knife in the cup for an instant, but he looked away quickly. He stopped himself from thinking about that even before he began thinking about it.

This is a good life, what I do and who I am. This is just the way things should be and are.

rlp

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Well, I lost the data from the Franciscan Retreat poll. It was my fault. I didn't understand how the poll results mechanism holds its data. You can still vote and if you vote you can see the original results. But the details about people who cast votes originally are gone.

So this is important:

Yesterday I sent out about 50 emails to people, letting them know that details and sign-up procedures are online for our 3 summer Franciscan retreats. I sent these emails to people who left comments indicating interest at various things I've written about these retreats.

BUT, the ones who took the poll were some of those most serious about coming. So I had wanted to send everyone who took the poll a personal email to alert them that people are signing up. There is only room for 20 people per retreat. The first retreat was half full a few days ago, and I think 5 people sent emails yesterday.

So if you are interested in joining us, better do so soon. Click here for dates and information.

rlp

The following essay is one that I wrote for The Christian Century in 2005 following a retreat at Laity Lodge in the Texas Hill Country. Laity Lodge is one of my most favorite places on earth.

I'm posting this as a part of a blogging exercise with High Calling Blogs. A number of us are writing about experiences we've had with spiritual retreats. Other bloggers who write about retreats will be listed here.

*****

I can't imagine absolute silence, neither can I hear it. Even when I'm in a quiet place, my mind produces its own ghostly, seashell sound. The noise in my head is a faint but high-pitched whine accompanied by a lower rumbling that sounds like an engine pulsing away in the distance. These seem to be the default sounds of my brain. It's what I hear when there is nothing else to hear.

About the closest you can come to silence is to become silent yourself and hope for the best. Close your eyes and forsake your vision. Let go of sight and your desperate need to see. Embrace hearing and you will begin to notice the many layers of the sounds around you.

I became silent on the evening of July 11, 2005, while sitting in a swing hanging from a tree at Laity Lodge, a retreat center in the hill country of Texas. I became silent and told God that I would listen to everything and hoped to hear from him.

This is the prayer that I thought that night. "I am listening, Lord. This is my only prayer tonight. I wonder, do you sometimes speak to doubtful and wayward boys like me?"

I do not know if God spoke to me that night. I only know what I heard.

The first thing I heard were the crickets, who provided a throbbing background to everything. Funny, I hadn't heard them before I got quiet, and then suddenly they were deafening. In a juniper tree nearby an insect clattered away in the darkness. He was calling for a mate, or perhaps just singing the song of himself.

My tennis shoe scraped on the hardened earth beneath the swing. With my eyes shut and my ears open, it was an offensive noise, altogether artificial and out of place. I didn't like the sound of it, so I stopped moving my feet.

The ear can focus on things near and far, like the eyes. I turned my head to the left, pointing my ear back over my shoulder and toward the river. I picked up the distant and desperate cries of coyotes on the scent of prey. It was like hearing something from another world.

Suddenly, a sound to the right, and I turned my head back, probing the darkness. I heard a murmuring, a conversation in the distance between two men. I couldn't make out the words, but the voices were masculine and the cadence seemed friendly.

This side of the conversation, I heard a mysterious insect that made a "tick, tick, tick" noise. Another made a sound like a man compulsively rolling ball bearings around in his cupped hand.

When I had heard as far away as I could, I returned to the sound of the crickets around me. Listening hard, I heard two distinct cricket noises. There was a shrill, cricket chirping, but also a deeper, bleating call. The crickets made me feel at home. Theirs was a familiar and comforting sound. I was pressed on all sides by their presence. I was not alone.

I ended my prayer time by listening to the sound of my own breathing and the gentle creaking of the swing.

Everything I heard seemed like a cry of longing and need. The insects were breathing the cool air of the night and dragging their legs and wings together, little violins calling across the darkness for companionship or comfort. The coyotes in the distance cried out in their hunger and in praise of their primitive love of the chase and the kill. The indistinct voices of the men in the distance bore the sound of reason and the timbre of friendship.

And I too was calling in the night, hoping to find the God that I have worshiped and served since I was a boy. Did I hear him that night, or did I just hear the common sounds of creation?

This is prayer. You do not have to speak. Do not let anyone tell you that you must speak. You may speak if you wish, or you may simply listen in the darkness.

Listening is good. Listening pries open the secret places in our hearts where we guard our vulnerability from the dangers of the world. Listening brings layers of sound; it allows you to journey far away and then return to yourself.

Desire is a goodness. Mystery is another. Longing is the sharp tang on the edge of joy that turns it from storybook sugar to an aged and robust wine of the soul. Thank God a part of these three always remain with us. God save us from complete consummation.

Keep your longing for answers in check. Stand trembling at the edge of discovery and hold onto that sweet moment as long as you can. This too is a kind of prayer.

When I left the swing that evening, I knew for certain that I was but one more creature of the night, longing and listening and hoping for what I need. I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not I heard from God.

I do not know, and at this season of my life, it doesn't seem to matter.

rlp

The swing I sat in that night at Laity Lodge

I'm going away for awhile, and I think it would
be best if I forgot about Real Live Preacher while I'm gone. I don't know if I
can. My whole life seems ordered around the next thing I'm writing and when I'm
going to publish it. It's a burden to be sure, but a burden that I love.

But there are big events in my life. First, my
parents are having their 50th wedding anniversary. A few years ago they
announced that they would prefer not to have a party, but instead wanted to go
on a cruise with their children and grandchildren. The event has been in the
planning for 5 or 6 years. I can't remember when they first mentioned going on a
cruise, but it was so long ago that it seemed too far in the future to even
think about it.
And yet, the day we set sail has almost
arrived. I have two siblings, a brother and a sister. He lives in Dallas and she
in Houston. They are both married, and each has one daughter. Combine that with
our three daughters and there 13 of us. We're taking a Royal Caribbean cruise
somewhere. Funny how I'm going on this cruise, but I can't tell you where it is
going. It doesn't seem to matter where it is going. To new and exotic places, I
guess. Mexico I think. One of the stops is famous - I've heard people mention it
before. A "beachy, lie around in white sand and look at the pretty blue water"
kind of place. I'll get a map when I get on board and figure out what's up.
So I'm going to be at sea for 7 days. That
should be an adventure and everything, but the main thing is that our whole
family will be together to celebrate this rare milestone. Not many people make
it to 50 years of marriage. It's a big deal to us.
When I get back, I'm going straight to our
church youth camp. Jeanene and I are taking the two oldest sisters. We'll be
there for 5 days. I'm in charge of the camp newspaper and will be bringing my
wacky and slightly irreverent sense of humor to the task.
The camp is one with a lot of tradition. It's
put on my the Southwest Baptist Youth Camping Association. Good people. These
are my kind of Baptists. 25 years ago, dismayed at the levels of manipulation
and cheesy theology being dished out at so many youth camps, a number of
moderate and progressive Baptist churches got together to do a youth camp in a
way that seemed right to them. This is our first year to go. I'm looking forward
to it.
But all of this means that you won't hear from
me for awhile. I think that's a good thing. I have something I've been writing
for the blog, but I've felt my energy draining away. I haven't wanted to work on
it. I haven't wanted to read the comments. I've been tired of blogging. I need a
break. And my family needs me to take a break.
So I'm not going to do anything with Real
Live Preacher until I get back from camp. You'll hear from me in a couple of
weeks.
see you then,

rlp
 

Just a little update. I've received very nice
emails and comments about my recent little heart glitch, and I truly appreciate
it. In fact, I'm at the place where I feel a little guilty about it. You write
something that is true about yourself, but if your blog is (for whatever reason)
one of those blogs that a lot of people read, suddenly there is this gush of
kind and sincere concern. At some point you begin to feel like you're drawing
attention to yourself, which of course you are.
Or I am. I used the vague, American-style "you
as indefinite pronoun" above because when I do that it feels like I'm
once-removed from what I write. I like using the word you in that way. Hemingway
did it, so I'm not going to apologize. I want to write like a man ripping chunks
of meat off the bone. Not like a dandy fellow, all prim and proper, dabbing his
lips with a napkin and keeping his pinky extended from his knife. "One cannot
be too careful..." - you know all that kind of stuff.
You want to write with a touch of brute
strength. Just a touch, and then be gentle as a lamb.
But back to my main point. Whatever pronoun I
choose, this blog is a personal thing. Blogs are intended to be that. They are,
we might say, a record of a person's life. An old way of thinking might lead you
to say, "What makes you think anyone wants to read your personal diary, you
self-absorbed fool?" A new way of thinking suggests that we are all adding to
the collective information network of the blogosphere. Whether or not anyone
reads your work isn't the most important question. It's the larger idea that's
important. We are reading each other's lives. We are learning about each other
and beginning to know each other across previously insurmountable geographical
and cultural barriers. I like being part of that.
I think of Real Live Preacher as my gift to the
movement. And it pays off personally too. I imagine my grandchildren could pick
through these essays and know something about me, even if I were to die too
young to know them. So I'm constantly weighing my desire for honesty and
openness against the privacy of my family and church. And I weigh the
uncomfortable sense that I'm writing too much about myself against the reality of this
new medium of expression. Sometimes saying "You" instead of "I" helps me with
that.
So enough about me; let's talk some more about
me. ;-)
My cardio stress test went well. I am,
apparently, strong as a horse. Good strong heart. Nothing physically wrong with
me that is causing a persistent arrhythmia in my heart. Jeanene and I talked
with our doctor at length about what it means to carry around too much stress.

Let's say that stress = anxiety. In that case,
are you walking around worried and anxious, never finished with your work,
always with a pressing project hanging over you? That's me. I'm never done
because the things I do for a living are things that will never be finished.
And there is also this little messy problem of
being a minister. Other people's lives are, to a certain and hopefully proper
extent, my concern. I don't want to carry that burden in an awkward, clumsy
fashion and with grandiose ideas. Grandiosity is foolish, whether you think you
can conquer the whole world or care for it. I struggle mightily with this
because I am in a helping profession. This struggle goes with the territory.
I see myself making adjustments to my
sleep, my caffeine, and my exercise. Well, the exercise that looms large in my
very near future. I quit one job and now only have two. What does this doctor
want from me anyway? Having two jobs seems reasonable, given the freedom my jobs
provide. My goal is always to be growing more healthy with both of my callings.
So thanks. I feel good to have gotten good
news. I have a good life, and I'm thankful for it. I hope I'll be a good steward
of it.

rlp
 

Keith Snyder has a comic short online called

"Sell in Hell." I'll give you a hint:
There's only one job in hell, and it's telemarketing. I love this thing. It's got the little touches
that make great comedy. Note: There is a high resolution link on
that page. It's worth the wait if you have broadband.
Keith is the writer/director of

Credo, another short film that I've written
about.
In other news, the Chick Truths
woman
had her baby. This was the first blog I
ever found. It was the one that inspired me to start Real Live Preacher. Almost
every blogger has a blog that got him or her going, and you generally remain
pretty loyal to it. If this woman posted more often, I think her blog would be a
big hit. She is a wonderful, soulful writer. Good-hearted, hopeful, very
intelligent, tender and vulnerable in her writing, but definitely a modern
woman. I never miss anything she writes. Big fan. Anyway, she really struggled
with what it would mean to become a mother. And now she's finding out.
And on the home front, I'm having my stress
test today. I've never had one. I wonder I'll look like the guys in the

Gatorade commercials - running on a
treadmill with all sorts of tubes and wires hooked up to me. Like the Gatorade
guys but not so much with the ribbed abs. Not so much. Okay fine, not at all.
This is the part where the doctor says, "Mr.
Atkinson, your heart looks fine. You just to need to sit on the couch and watch
a few more movies. You know, relax. In fact, I'm PRESCRIBING that for you."

rlp
 

I hope you can join me.
Laity Lodge
is a retreat center in the hill country north of San Antonio. It is one of my
most favorite places in the world. There are retreats there all
through the Spring and Summer. The retreats cover a wide variety of subjects,
but truly the subject doesn't even matter because this is a quiet retreat center
where guests are encouraged to wander around and set their own pace. I have
friends who have gone and only attended one session. They spent the rest of the
time wandering the property or hanging out by the river. Oh, and the food is the
best I've ever had at any retreat setting.
Click here for a map with slideshows of the
grounds.

Thank you for your kind comments and emails.
The tests results were normal. The MRI scan shows no tumor near the pituitary
gland, which was one of the things my doctor was worried about. My thyroid is
working normally as well. I have a cardio stress test on Thursday. The doctor
thinks he knows what's causing my heart's sudden arrhythmia, but he needs the
Thursday test to rule out some things.
His preliminary diagnosis: Stress. His exact
words: "Let's get the test on Thursday, then you and Jeanene and I need to have
a serious conversation."
Stress? Okay, what am I supposed to do with
that information? Admittedly, I have been rather busy over the last four or five
years, and my family has faced some hard issues that have caused Jeanene and I a
lot of worry. But what part of my life can I change and do I want to change?
You know what? I'm not going to think about
this until I finish the test on Thursday and have that conversation. I'll think
about it then. Procrastination, contrary to popular opinion, can be a fairly
nice coping mechanism. I'm just not going to worry about it until then. I'm good
at that.

rlp
 

24 hours ago, getting a magnetic resonance
image of my brain was not on my agenda. But here I am inside this tube with a
brace around my head, listening to the strangest assortment of sounds I’ve ever
heard, at least in a medical setting. I don’t know if you have any personal
experience with a MRI machine, but it is a claustrophobic nightmare. And it’s
loud.
They shoved me into a white tube where I
have to lay perfectly still for about half an hour. I’m hearing an assortment of
loud, metallic noises. The closest thing I can compare them to is a series of
jackhammers, each with a slightly different pitch. In between the jackhammers I
hear some grinding, shuddering noises as well.
There is an odd disconnect between the
reality of what’s happening to me and the sounds I’m hearing. On the one hand,
I’m inside a machine that represents the highest level of medical imaging
available in the 21st century. On the other hand, it sounds like the
thing was built by guys with hard hats and rivet guns. It’s kind of a
retro-industrial experience, you might say.
A tight, unfamiliar space. Serious looking
medical people injecting me with some kind of dye. Strange noises that don’t
seem to fit the setting. I’m out of my element, and my life is in the hands of
strangers. Yeah, this is definitely not what I had in mind for Tuesday
afternoon. Then again, I hadn’t planned on Monday either. Let me back up a bit.
I’ve been having some odd symptoms recently,
the most notable is memory loss. I’ve always been a little absent minded, a
little calendar challenged, that sort of thing. This is on beyond that. I’m not
remembering conversations and events that took place a week or so before. My
wife has noticed it. So have my daughters.
I had some tests that revealed some rather
extreme hormonal imbalances. When they were taking my blood pressure, the nurse
said, “Wow, your heart rate is very slow. Like 43 beats a minute.”
“That’s impossible,” I said, putting my finger
alongside my windpipe to feel my pulse.
Lub-dub…[long pause]…lub dub.
“Okay, that’s weird,” I thought. “I have the
heart rate of an Olympic wrestler.”
But I’m no wrestler. I’m more of a
bespectacled, doughnut-eating, writer type guy. My heart should be a LOT faster
than that.
The doctor came to take a look. He frowned and
said something to the nurse. There was a bustle of movement around the table,
and suddenly I was hooked up to an EKG machine. After looking at the readout,
the doctor told me that I had an irregular heartbeat. I would have normal
heartbeats interspersed with weak beats that you couldn’t hear. That’s why it
sounded like 43 beats a minute. Some were too slight to be easily detected.
I’ve never had even a hint of a heart problem.
My heart normally beats like a metronome. You could set your watch by it. And
then today the old ticker goes spastic on me.
You can’t count on much in this life. Many
things are erratic and unexpected, but most of us have a gut-level trust in our
hearts. They beat away, doing their job, and we pretty much leave that to them.
It’s quite unnerving to listen to your own heart hesitate, like it’s unsure of
what to do next. My confidence in my own body was seriously shaken, and I spent
the rest of Monday walking slowly and trying to take smooth, even breaths.
Occasionally I would take my own pulse, hoping that it would be normal.
Sometimes it would be normal, then I would get the long pauses again. The doc
said I didn’t need to worry about having a heart attack, but it seemed like I
could feel my heart inside my chest. I kept thinking it felt sore. Suddenly my
heart had become a fragile thing, a tired muscle getting erratic instructions
from my addled brain.
Speaking of my brain, the doctor said he wanted
a closer look at it, specifically at my pituitary gland. Hence the MRI. The
doctor says there has to be a reason for the sudden drop in hormones and onset
of an arrhythmic heartbeat. That's what the doctor says, and whatever the doctor
says immediately becomes my new reality. I have given that guy some serious
power. He can alter my worldview with a word or two and a raised eyebrow.
And that brings me to today. I’m not afraid.
Medical news has always been good for yours truly. Nothing has ever been
seriously wrong with me. So I can’t comprehend what it would mean for some part
of my body to be broken or malfunctioning. I have no frame of reference for that
sort of thing. And yet, I know that I’m nobody special. I don’t have any
guarantees or personal dispensations. I’m here on the earth, taking my chances
just like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry.
Taking my chances, listening to my heart, and
waiting for someone to tell me what is going on.

rlp
 

How to chill a can of diet coke in 2 minutes
You like Diet Coke, but you like it ice-cold,
right? Of course right. You look in the fridge, but you forgot to put the 6-pack
in there the night before. What do you do? Do you put the Coke in the freezer
and wait
for an hour or so? I used to do that, but no longer. Here's an easier way:
Fill a large mixing bowl with ice and water.
Pour in about a palm full of salt (Eh, about a tablespoon and a half). Drop a
room-temperature can of your favorite soft drink in the mix and stir for 2
minutes. You'll find that it's plenty cold enough for you.
Enjoy

rlp
Note: Doing this
without the salt works pretty well too. I think it's the stirring and aluminum
that does most of the work. But it's colder with the salt. Also, you can drop a
couple of cans in and leave them for 5 or 6 minutes without stirring.
 

United Church of Christ minister Norman Bendroth
describes depression as a "Brainstorm" in the latest online issue of

Christian Century. I've written extensively about my own
depression - so much that I'm probably going to give it a rest for a time. But I
am intrigued by his description of this condition. Remember that depression is
just a word we use to describe something that needs a label. It may be a term
that needs retiring. Perhaps it has become too loaded and narrow. Others have
suggested "depletion" as an alternative. "Irrational Despair and Uncontrollable
Thoughts" might be another possibility. Certainly Brainstorm is a term to
consider.

a

Christian Magazine 

Christian Writing

rlp
 

Have you noticed the great evil that comes from
religious exclusivity? Whenever one group of people claims that they have some
kind of special arrangement with the Creator and all previous ways of relating
to God are not to be tolerated, evil inevitably follows.
Zoroastrians gained power in Persia and
promptly threw out the pagan religion of the Magi. Christians threw out the
Pagans in Europe after stealing most of their holidays. Mayday, Christmas,
Halloween, Easter – it’s all spiritual booty.
Jews have hated Arabs and denied their right to
live in the traditional Biblical lands. Arabs returned their lack of hospitality
with as much passion. They all give as good as they get.
Christians march into places where primitive
peoples practice ancient faiths, some of them not practiced anywhere else in the
world. And we tell them to forget their traditional ways and give their hearts
to Jesus so they won’t burn in hell.
The Taliban persecutes infidels and destroys
ancient Buddhist statues by blowing them to pieces with their tanks.
Everywhere you look, the children of God wage
physical and spiritual war against each other. The blood never stops flowing,
and the rest of the world looks on in amazement. When will we learn that you can’t force people
to change their ways of expressing faith and devotion to the Creator?

At some point your spirit or your gut or your
humanity must speak to your theology. At some point you look at your holy book,
and you look at all the death and terror and ugliness that comes from fighting
people with other holy books and you say, “To hell with it. I’m not doing this
anymore.”
At some point you look at the sacred rituals of
the people you have come to save, and you fall silent. You sit quietly and
listen to their ancient songs and stories. You watch their bodies perform dances
that predate Christianity and are about to pass out of existence. And you ask
yourself, “How is it that I have eyes but did not see?”
At some point you look at the Dome of the Rock
and the Temple Mount, then you look at the bodies littering the streets and the
children living in squalor and you say, “Enough is enough! Burn every Koran and
every Bible if we must, but the lot of them are not worth the lives of these
children.”
At some point don’t you start listening to the
spiritual stories of other people and find the beauty and the common ground in
them? At some point don’t you realize that our myths are delicate, like
environments? The oldest ones are very fragile, and many have already been lost.
At some point don’t you come to understand that these things are worth saving?
HEY, RELIGIOUS GUYS!
Humanity is moving on, fellas. You can get
onboard the tolerance train or you can stay behind, but this train is leaving
the station. Humanity is going to a new place.
Your way has not worked, and anyone with an
ounce of sanity knows that. Beat your chalices and your pulpits into
ploughshares. Hell, beat your sacred books into ploughshares too, if that’s what
it takes. Beat everything into plowshares, but you better get on this train.
It may take a century. It may take several
centuries, but the Day of the Lord is coming. The year of Jubilee is at hand.
This Ramadan will last all year, and we will party like it’s 2099. The Lord God Almighty, He who created the
heavens and the earth does not need you. God can raise up children from the
stones and from the dirt beneath your feet. He’s done it before. He can find a
new Abraham, if that is His desire. There is always someone ready to hearken
unto the voice of The Lord.
So come on guys, we’d rather take you with us.
You’ve played such an important role in our history, and there is deep beauty
and ancient wisdom in your traditions. We’ll listen to you. We’ll try to see the
beauty that you speak of, if you’ll just quit yelling and shooting at us.
Hell, we’ll even pitch in and help you rebuild the sacred monuments that hatred has
torn down.
It would be sad if the children of Abraham were
to miss this train and end up nothing more than a sad footnote in the story of
humanity.

rlp
 

This will be fast. Even I am losing interest in
this little travel narrative, and I was there. The truth is, I'm working on
something that I really like and I can't bear to spend any more writing time about
the Chicago visit.

The Field Museum
So, my visit with my friends at

The Christian Century was great. I got to put faces together with
names. I met Debra B., who has been my editor there for over a year. That was
all great. Thank you, CC folks, for making me feel at home.
I unexpectedly got to go to a Cubs game at
Wrigley field with one of the executive editors, David H. Wrigley is magical. I
"got" Wrigley the minute I walked out from under the seats. So close and
intimate. Absolutely charming. I'm now an official Cubbies fan. I think I'll
even get a hat.


So what else can I say? I walked myself to
death. I saw The Chicago Art Institute. I walked along Lake Michigan. I went to
Wrigley Field. I at deep dish pizza from Giorodano's, and I had a second hot
dog.


Chicago, I could get used to you! Maybe I'll
get to come back someday.
rlp
ps - Sorry for the bad quality of the
pictures. I'm reduced to using my mobile phone these days.
 

Tuesday, May 8th. Downtown Chicago

Just to end the suspense, everything worked out yesterday just fine. I arrived in Chicago at 10:45am and took the L train downtown. It took an hour to get to my hotel. I spent the entire afternoon walking around Grant Park, looking at lake Michigan, and going through the Field Museum, which was wonderful. That evening I rode the train back to the airport, picked up my duffel bag, and all is well.

In the process of doing all of that, I must have walked about 10 miles on pavement, and my feet were feeling it. We don’t walk much I Texas. Things are too spread out. But walking is good for you, and I enjoy it, so I’ve been happy to put cars aside for a few days.

The Chicago L train seems to be exactly what you want in a mass transit system. The trains run every few minutes, and the routes are well marked. Hey, if a guy from Texas who has no experience with subways or trains can get onboard, follow the map, and even make a transfer to another line, all on the first try with a minimum of stress, you must be doing something right.

There are certainly many things about Chicago that I could write about - the beauty of the architecture (so different from Texas), the interesting streets of downtown with businesses under the L tracks, Grant and Millennium parks, and a lot of things that “feel” like Chicago.

But I want to talk about the food. I came with two modest food goals. Try a Chicago-style hot dog and try a Chicago-style pizza. I was tired last night after walking through the airport twice, all over the parks and through the museum, then up and down the streets gawking at buildings. At 9pm I stopped in a little diner that had a sign advertising their hot dogs.

“I’m from Texas,” I said. “And I want to try a Chicago hot dog. I hear they’re pretty good."

“You don’t want ketchup on it, do you?” he asked suspiciously.

“Hell no,” I responded. “I may be from Texas, but I’m not a savage.”

I got the male nod, the one that says, “You could possibly be okay. And I’ll grant you that status until you prove otherwise.”

“You want it all the way?”

I thought about this for a moment. In Texas, we mostly eat hot dogs with mustard, or with chili and cheese and maybe some jalapenos. But I’m a big fan of the “When in Rome” philosophy. I can have a Texas hot dog anytime.

“Load her up,” I said.

At first I wasn’t sure that the thing he handed me was a hot dog. I couldn’t see the dog, for one thing. Lord, these people put a lot of stuff on their hot dogs. I ate it; I didn’t dissect it, so I can’t be sure I even know what was in there, but as far as I could tell there was mustard, sweet relish, onions, tomatoes (that was new to me), two chili peppers that I could not identify, and a pickle that was about the size of the hot dog and sitting on top of everything else.

I took one bite and put the pickle aside. I can do without that, but the rest was fine. The peppers were a little disappointing – no heat. But all together it was very nice, I must say.

Tuesday I have a meeting with the folks at Christian Century. I plan to try Chicago pizza. I’ll let you know how it goes.

rlp

Monday morning, 8:30 am, at 33,000 feet on a
McDonnell Douglas SP80 jet airliner.
First, you should know something about me. I
hate being late. Really hate it. I feel like I'm late unless I'm 10
minutes early. I don't know why I'm like this; I don't want to know why. I just
want to be on time. Is that so wrong?
Because of this - I don't want to call it a
compulsion, but....okay compulsion - I plan lots of buffer time into my
schedule. I'm the guy at the airport who isn't sweating the security check
because my flight doesn't leave for 2 HOURS! Who's laughing now, Mr. "I
don't need to get to the airport early?"
My non-stop flight to Chicago was scheduled for
6:50 am. We live about 15 minutes from the airport, so I figured I'd get up at 4:15,
leave at 4:45, get to the airport by 5:00. No problems.
I'm not the sort of person who oversleeps. I
don't understand oversleeping. What does that even mean? You just kept on
sleeping even though it was going to make you late? Why would you do that? See,
I'm prepared. My watch must
have two alarms and a count-down timer. I demand it. I won't wear a wristwatch
with less. Unfortunately, that means I have to buy Casio watches. They look bad,
like 1970s technology strapped to my wrist, but I have the full array of alarms
and beeps. The FULL ARRAY. That's why I'm always on time.
Of course, when I say "always" I mean except for
the one or two times in the last decade when I was late. Three times if you
count this morning.
Imagine my distress when I opened my eyes this
morning, looked at my watch, and saw that it was 6:10 am.  For a few
seconds I refused to believe it. "My watch must be wrong," I said, shaking it.
Nope. I overslept. Okay, now I understand you oversleeping people, and I'm sorry for being scornful of you.
I get it now. It happens to everyone, even guys with Casio watches.
In the interest of time, why don't I just
describe the events that took place from 6:10 am to 7:15 am in a kind of
rapid-fire, staccato pace that would be a good reflection of how they actually
occurred.
I yell, scaring the hell out of Jeanene who
sits up in bed in a panic. I manage to shower and dress in five minutes. I'm
sorry, but I AM going to shower. That's non-negotiable. Jeanene drives and I
call American Airlines. "I think I'll be there by 6:35," I say. "Sorry, but you
have to check-in at least half an hour ahead," she says. I'm at the ticket
counter by 6:40 am. They cancel my seat on the nonstop flight and put me on
standby for an 8:30 that goes through St. Louis where I'll be on standby again
for anything going to Chicago. I check my bag. I always check my bag. No airline
has ever lost my luggage, so I don't worry about it. The man tells me the
system will track me, and my luggage will follow me on whatever flight I end up
on. I arrive
at the gate only to find that my original flight has been delayed, and they are
just begin to board! Sadly, they cancelled my reservation 15 minutes earlier. I beg and plead with the woman at the gate, who puts me
on standby for my original flight. Some soccer team didn't show up. The coach
probably overslept - the lazy slob - so I get on my original flight to Chicago
which ends up leaving about 7:30. It's all good!
Well, almost all good. The woman at the gate
tells me that there is no way to get my luggage aboard in time. So, in a strange turn of
events, I'm going straight to Chicago, but my luggage is going standby through
St. Louis, hopefully arriving in Chicago sometime later in the day or this
evening. No time to worry about that. Here's a plane to Chicago, and I might not
make the other standby anyway.
So now I'm in the air, wondering what I'm going
to do without my luggage. I hear it is in the 50s in Chicago, and I'm dressed
for San Antonio. Short sleeves. Also I'm supposed to meet someone who reads Real
Live Preacher in downtown Chicago for lunch. Here's what I think I'll do: I'll
buy a sweatshirt or something at the airport, go ahead and catch the L downtown
and see things in Chicago today, as I had planned. When it gets dark, I'll catch
the L back to the airport, see if my bag has arrived, then catch the L again and go downtown to my
hotel. Why not? We don't have subways or elevated trains in Texas, so I'll
probably enjoy the ride anyway, right?
I see you thinking. You think this is going to
be harder than I'm making it sound. You think I'll get lost or the luggage won't
arrive, or something. I mean, what could go wrong? I'm
only flying into a major city I've never been to and taking a train I've never ridden
downtown, making one transfer and trying to find my hotel. Then of course, do
the whole thing in reverse. So what do you think? Is
this going to turn out badly? It's 9:20 am and I'm an hour away from O'hare
airport.
We shall see what we shall see.

rlp
 

I'm a few pages away from finishing Deirdre Bair's amazing
biography of C.G. Jung. I was absolutely fascinated all the way through. Jung
was one of those incredible people who are somehow able to intuitively grasp
truth. Perhaps this is one way to think about the people we call geniuses. It's
really hard to understand, for example, how Einstein came up with his ideas
about the universe. I mean, how does a person even get started thinking about
relativity? Jung was like that, but what he saw was the mysterious human psyche.
I was saddened to find that Jung's insights did
not lead him to a peaceful inner life, nor did they enable him to have good
relationships. He was a terrible father and, according to the ways most people
think about marriage, an equally terrible husband. The cult-like gathering of
his disciples was rather frightening. He had a strange way of attracting rich
women who pretty much gave their lives to furthering his philosophy/psychology.
Jung's activities during WWII were surprising.
He secretly worked against Nazi Germany, but was branded a Nazi by many people
for the rest of his life. Bair certainly doesn't take a romantic view of Carl
Jung, so I trust her conclusion that Jung was innocent and misjudged in this
matter.

I've read "Memories,
Dreams, Reflections," which is said to be his autobiography. Reading that was an
important step in my own development, so I was saddened to find that Bair's research casts
serious doubt on its
validity. The publication of MDR was an unbelievable circus with numerous people
fighting over the rights to it. At the same time, it is very unclear what parts
of the "autobiography" are from Jung and what parts came from his manipulative
editors and Jung's children, who fought hard to "clean up" his language and
create an image that fit their idea of polite society. So, if you read
"Memories, Dreams, Reflections," do so with some healthy skepticism.
But the biography was a great read. Apparently Ms. Bair
had greater access to Jung's heirs and materials than anyone before. If you have
any interest in Jung, you really have to read this.
Click either image to purchase from Viva.
They keep these in stock, of course. Support independent bookstores!
rlp
 

If you like Dilbert at all, you don't want to
miss this. Scott Adams has inserted himself into his own comic strip. The first
two in the series have been created. I don't know where this is going, but it's
going to be good.

One   

Two   

These SNL Digital Shorts are incredibly funny.
Real LMAO material.
Enjoy!
Lazy Sunday

Andy Popping Into Frame

Lettuce

Business Meeting

(If only for mounted tiger head and captain
pajama shark)

rlp