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Or: "Life Inside My Head"

A few years ago in the office of doctor M. Jones - San Antonio

“It’s a simple test, really. It’s the one we often give to children and adolescents. It measures your ability to stay focused and on task.”

I nodded and he went on.

“It’s pretty gosh-awful boring, but that’s the point, right? Okay, you will either see or hear a number 1 or a number 2. You’ll either see it on the computer screen or hear it. When you see or hear the number 1, push the number one on the keyboard. If you see or hear 2, hit the 2 key. Got it?”

“Yep, easy enough.”

“You need to concentrate hard and don’t wait to hit the key. Hit it as fast as you can because the program is measuring, among other things, how long it takes you to respond. It’s not just about hitting the right key.”

“Okay.”

The program started and a number one appeared on the screen. I hit number one on the keyboard. Then another one appeared and I hit it again. Then I heard a voice say, “two.” I punched number two on the keyboard.

One, One, Two, One, Two, One, Two Two Two…

This really isn’t fair because [One] I’m an adult and I can simply override whatever impulse [Two] I have to daydream or let my mind drift. I mean, it's not like I'm a kid anymore or anything. [Two] It’s only like what, 20 minutes? I can [One] just force myself to pay attention.

At this point I had not missed a single number and was pretty proud of myself.

One, Two, Two, One, Two, One, One…

This isn’t going to do any good. I’m hitting them [Two] perfectly. Bam, bam, bam. What good is this? I need [Two] a test for adults. I’m going to look like a person with a perfect [One] attention span and I’m not that. [Two] Oh, this is boring as hell. [One] I mean, I can do it no problem, but damn. I think I’m getting a headache. [One] Yeah, there it is, that little pain. I wonder if [One] concentrating like this is going to make it worse. [Two] Hmm, so far there has never been more than three of the same in a row. [One] I bet they won’t do four in a row, but if it was really random [Two] there would eventually be four in a row, right?

I rolled my head around and felt a little clicking in my neck. I tend to think that will help headaches but it never does.

Two, Two, One, One, One, Two, One…

What a completely boring and awful voice. They [2] should have gotten a computer voice [2] like Stephen Hawking or something. [1] But whatever. Fine. Oh, my head is killing me and this [2] chair hurts. Stop it! Pay attention! You haven’t missed any yet, but [1] you will if you aren’t careful. Totally concentrate. Let’s knock the hell out of this test.

One, One, Two, Two, One, Two, One, One…

Try repeating each one out loud in your head when you [Two] hit the key. That will work. That will keep you focused. Have to be focused to [One] do that.

2 – “Two!”

1 – “One!”

1 – “One!”

R-A-M-A-D-A-I-N-N  (boom boom), Ramada Inn. [2] Oh man, I haven’t thought of that [1] in years. That flashing neon sign when I was a kid [1] in the car coming home from church on Sunday nights. [2] I used to spell it out as many [1] times as I could before the light changed.

R-A-M-A-D-A-I-N-N  (boom boom), Ramada Inn - say it again now [2] R-A-M-A-D-A-I-N-N  (boom boom), Ramada Inn.

Oh crap I think I missed one. You stupid idiot. This [2] is a kid’s test. Ah, one won’t matter [1] or anything. People always miss one [2] or two. [1]. Just stay focused. You're fine. How long has it been? Why [2] doesn’t he have the clock showing [2] on the computer? How hard would that be just so I could know how much longer? I wonder if I’m halfway done yet.

***

After twenty minutes I finished and sank back into the chair, exhausted.

“You okay?"

“Yeah, I started getting a headache or something. I mean, I stayed with it but the headache might have slowed me down a little. But it’s nothing. Never mind.”

The printer spit out my results, and he looked closely at the paper. I sat forward. I always want to do well on a test, no matter what kind of test it is. I watched his eyes going back and forth like the head on the old dot matrix printers. Back and forth.

He looked up at me.

“So, how did I do? What does it say about me?”

He shook his head and blew air out of his mouth.

I knew it. I’m so good at this that I’m going to have to explain to him that I really really do think I have a concentration problem. It’s just that I’m an adult, and I can make myself do things. So whatever high score I got shouldn’t count because shouldn’t we do this in a normal life situation?

“Okay, how can I say this? If you were a seven-year-old boy, I would be trying to think of a nice way to tell your parents that you will probably never learn to read.”

rlp

Note: This is much longer than I normally write. Don’t read it unless you think you might be interested in what a day in my life looks like. Anyway, here it is.

6:45 am

Wake and make breakfast for the two younger sisters. Endure the normal morning chaos. Shelby only has one uniform skirt, and it has paint on it. Lillian needs something signed and they both need lunch money. The dog needs to go out, and I have to remember to wake Reiley in time to leave with me. Jeanene has to leave at 7:00 for some chaplain thing downtown, so she’s pretty much out of the morning madness for this day.

Shelby is supposed to take some medicine, but I’m not sure what or how much. I give her what’s on the counter, and she seems to think it’s the right stuff. Both girls have rides to school this morning.

8:00

Our second car is in the shop, so Reiley and I have to catch the bus. I’ve been in San Antonio since 1989, and this is the first time I’ve ever used public transportation. Not because I’m some kind of snob or anything; I just never think about it. Texas is car country, and your average Joe assumes having a car is a necessary part of life. And if your life and schedule are full, it is a necessity. Things are spread out here, and the bus only comes by the stop once an hour.

I’m excited about taking the bus and keeping looking down the street to see if it’s coming. My daughter is less so, possibly because the bus will be full of stone-faced, high school students, and she’ll be boarding with her grinning, experience-loving father. The bus goes insanely fast down O’Conner, and we give each other a “Holy shit!” look. A few minutes later, she puts on her game face and shuffles off the bus at the high school with the rest of the walking dead.

8:30

After the high school kids leave, it’s just me and the bus driver. I’m chatty and so is he. I pepper him with questions about the rates, the string you pull when you want to get off, his route, pretty much all things bus related. I want to make some notes, but there’s no time. I jump off the bus with a wave and walk over to Mike’s service station, one of the few full-service stations left in the world. Mike is originally from Brooklyn, and you can still tell. He’s been working on my cars since 1990, and we are on a first name basis. He is mopping the bay floor when I arrive and we chat about our oldest daughters. Both of them are seventeen and want cars.

My car won’t be ready for an hour or so. There is a McDonalds next door, and I give in to temptation and go for breakfast. McDonald’s pancakes and sausage - how long has it been since I had that? I also buy a $1 breakfast taco just to see how crappy it will be. It’s awful. I pour on some of their “picante sauce”, but that only makes it worse. How can you be in Texas and not know the difference between salsa and taco sauce?

9:00

Breakfast is over, and I have a little time to do some writing. I pop open my computer and start a diary of this day. I have no idea why I’m doing this. Maybe because without a car, I feel disconnected from my normal life. Somehow less responsible. Somehow more connected to the people moving around on the street. For some reason, I decide that I want to remember this day. All of it.

9:30

Mike calls my mobile phone. “Hey Buddy, you’re all set.”

He always says that when he calls.

9:40

Only 150 bucks; not bad. Could have been worse. I get in my car and pull out of the station, heading for the church. I suddenly remember that this is what my life is like. I don't ride buses or subways around the city, chatting with colorful characters and ending up in romantic places. I have a car, and I ate at McDonalds this morning. I have a hundred things to do, but I won’t get them done. Not today or tomorrow or any day. Ever. I will never be done.

Speaking of things needing to be done, it’s Thursday, and I need to get moving on the sermon.

I pull into the church parking lot and the magic of the morning is gone. I don’t feel bad, but I feel…just the way I always do on these days. Driven and aware of the deadlines, but wistful and dreaming anyway.

9:45

Okay, the sermon is from Luke chapter 3. John has announced the coming of Christ and the crowds shout, “What are WE supposed to do about it?”

A very good question and one that I’ve asked many times myself. I think it will be the focus of the sermon. “What the hell are we supposed to do anyway?” That would make a great title, but I’ll be a good boy. How about "What are we supposed to do about it?"

I’ll just say this about sermons. I never spend one single moment thinking about what I want to say or what I might have to say. Who the hell cares what I have to say? I only think about two things: First, what exactly is the text saying? Second, is there a way I can break this story open on Sunday morning so that my dearest friends, my brothers and sisters, cannot help but listen? All the action you need is right there in the text. You just have to shine a light on it. Who knows, maybe someone’s life will be broken open this Sunday.

It could happen.

11:00

I feel the writing thing. It’s a strong pull on my heart. I can’t think about anything else. I want to write. Right now. I want everything and everyone to go away and let me be alone with my words. The “day in the life” thing has engaged me. I think I’ll go back and change everything to the present tense. That will give it some juice, bring it to life maybe.

Something else is clamoring for my attention. This new thing I want to write. It’s another dramatized scripture story. I’ve been thinking about it off and on for a couple of months, and it’s about to be born. I’m itching to get started and I’m a littler shivery with anticipation. I’m fidgeting, bouncing my knee up and down. Forget the sermon for now. I’ve engaged the text enough to get lost in it. It’s in my head. Let it percolate now, and tomorrow pull it together.

I get to write now. Yes, yes. I’m like a kid. I can’t stop smiling.

2:00

A phone call from Reiley jerks me out of my writing. I worked right through lunch because I’m so full from that big McDonalds breakfast. She’s out of school early. The afternoon driving is beginning.

I pick her up about 20 minutes later. She sheepishly admits that she liked riding the bus. I knew she did. We make a quick stop at the house, and then I drop her off at the Optician’s office where she works after school. Back home to check on Lillian, who arrived about the same time I did. Okay, time to try to fix the clutter in the house. I make our bed and put things away in the bathroom, take dirty clothes to the laundry, etc. Then I head out to get Shelby, whose school day ends at 3:30pm. Then back home and hit the kitchen. Dammit, I did the floors the other day, and there’s already some grime down there and a noodle or two dried on the tile.

The kitchen floor is such a pain-in-the-ass.

I finish the kitchen right about the time Jeanene walks in at 4:15pm. A quick hug and a hello, then I’m out to write some more. She says maybe she’ll meet me after she gets the girls some dinner and we can do some Christmas shopping.

Cool, I have a date tonight.

4:15

I head over to Barnes and Noble. Their coffee shop is one of about 8 writing places I have stashed around the city. For some reason, I can always get good work done there. EXCELLENT, there is a seat by an outlet. Computer on; see you later.

5:45

One thing I know is when I’m done writing. I can be completely engrossed in something and in five seconds I suddenly hate writing and can’t wait to turn off the computer and do something else. I think I was ADHD before ADHD was cool. So I’m done. I got the first part of the dramatization done, but now I’m at the place where Peter and Jesus begin their dialogue, and suddenly I want out of here. I hate writing. I never want to do it again. I wonder what’s going to happen to Real Life Preacher. I guess people will eventually stop coming now that I’m no longer doing it.

Of course I don’t take any of this seriously. This happens almost every time. Tomorrow I’ll be a writer again.  

6:30

Jeanene has the girls settled down, eating dinner, doing homework, whatever, and she’s going to meet me at La Madeleine’s for dinner. I’m nuts for their potato soup. With three kids and 21 years of marriage behind us, we have to seize any opportunity to have a few minutes alone. We need that time just to remember that we are, after all, supposed to be lovers and all that.

I am dead without romance in my life. Dead and sad and so incredibly lonely. And there have been stretches of time without it. But romance takes work. And work takes time. And to have time, you have to make time, right?

7:15

Christmas shopping. I can’t post anything here because my kids read this blog, and I don’t’ want to spoil things.

9:15

Back at home and done for the day. Lillian, my youngest, is now old enough to watch the Simpsons. Yeah, we have age limitations on certain things. No Simpsons until 4^th grade. No PG-13 until you are 13. And no R until you are 17, UNLESS it is some special movie that I like and approve. For example, I let both my older girls watch The Matrix with me.

But anyway, Lillian is PUMPED about the Simpsons. I have five seasons on DVD, so she and I have been watching them whenever we can. She’s waiting for me, patting the couch where she wants me to sit.

If I’m lucky, she’ll lean into me and maybe even fall asleep. Little girl snuggles are very rare and soon to be gone. Not that big girl hugs aren’t nice, but nothing, NOTHING can ever take the place of a little girl snuggling up to you and drifting off to sleep.

10:33

A little time at RLP, reading comments and answering emails. I jump into the RLP chatroom briefly. RLP users “church nerd,” “enz,” and “spidey,” are in there. I’ve chatted with them many times and enjoy it. It’s a nice way to end my day. But I never stay long. Sometimes I feel like if I go into the RLP chatroom, it kind of spoils it. The attention goes to me, and I feel funny about that. But still, I like it.

11:30

I am done. Finished. Can’t keep my eyes open. As I lay my head on my pillow, I choose one of the things I like to think about just as I’m falling asleep. These are only for me to know - so no details. There are things you wish would happen, but they won't. And there are things that might happen, but they have not. And there are other things, things that you know but could not explain. I think about those things when I'm on the edge of sleep. It's sometimes happy and sometimes very sad.

That's it. That was a day in my life.

rlp

Like all ministers, I have my strengths and my weaknesses. To have a knowledge of both is necessary for a pastor. For many people, what I do is important. Very important. Eternally important. That can be a bit of an ego trip. It may also lead to the crazy idea that my life and work is more serious and important than someone else’s. That’s not true, and it is a dangerous way to think.

My life, my theology, my practice of devotion, my best days and my worst days are all a part of me. How they affect others is always on my mind. That’s the necessary burden of this calling. And yet, I must show grace first to myself. Otherwise I will be unable to show grace to others.

In my case, I believe I know my two most serious pastoral shortcomings.

First, I have a tendency to disappear. You look around, and I’m gone. I came out of my shell on Sunday morning, smiling and shaking hands. I seemed genuine because I was genuine. I preached, I sang, I shook hands, I loved on the children. And when it was over, I disappeared. Who knows where the pastor went?

That in itself isn’t so bad, but I’m apt to disappear at almost any time. Having dealt with my depression and anxiety attacks over the last 18 months, I now know that when I start to lose control of my feelings, I become frantic in my attempts to disconnect from what causes me anxiety. Writing, reading, movies, and solitary manual labor are the things that take away my anxiety and depression. They are my drugs of choice. And they are things that have to be done alone.

I tend to do things at the church when nobody else is around. I’m like the little elven cobblers from the fairy story. You come to church and the chairs are in place. There is a sermon, printed materials, and sometimes a table is set for communion. Then I emerge from my office, smiling. I’m on.

Once a woman in the church said, “You remind me of a little hermit crab. If anyone makes a sudden move, you dart back into your shell.”

She’s right. Sometimes I think maybe being a pastor really IS that important, and I think that I have failed miserably, and I begin thinking crazy thoughts. The anxiety is a salty tang on the edge of the depression. It keeps me jumping. Sometimes the best I can do is flinch and force myself to stay engaged, but I’m often looking for a new shell, a place to be alone.

Occasionally I become so anxious and overwhelmed that I collapse in on myself, like a dying star. When that happens, I MUST be alone. It is no longer an option. I fear those times greatly. Medication has greatly lessened them for me. It’s rare now that I fall apart inside.

The end result of this is that I am a pastor who will probably never seek you out. If anyone asks for me, I pop out of my shell and give myself away. I listen hard. I am good listener. I will engage you and be all yours for a time. But you will have to ask for me. I will probably not ask for you.

My second great weakness is organization. I am the world’s worst administrator. I have terrible trouble with calendars anyway, and I loathe organizational tasks. They tend to depress me and fill me with anxiety. And you know what happens then. (See #1 above)

I remember when our elders started paying a very organized woman to help with the administration. One of them helped me work out a plan for keeping her supplied with tasks and duties. It all sounded good until I left his office. Then I had no idea what to do.

I’m not organized enough, apparently, to tell an administrative assistant what to do.

I began to be afraid of her. I would see her coming and think, “Oh shit, I should have some things written down for Helen to do.” Then my mind would go blank. Finally we stopped paying Helen to help me. Bless her heart; I imagine she was very frustrated working with me. Currently, things somehow run on their own at our church. Seriously, it’s a miracle, but we exist. We thrive even. A bunch of people show up at this church with a crazy dreamer for a pastor, and somehow we get the bills paid and do what we need to do. Year after year.

I administrate like an alcoholic. One day at a time. What’s happening right now? How am I needed right now? As a result I’m always facing deadlines and running around trying to fix stuff at the last minute.

I’m not proud of that. I try hard to do better.

But seriously, this is Gordon Atkinson. Most of his life he has dealt with his anxiety and depression secretly, all by himself. He has some odd coping skills. If you are looking for someone with the right words to be very present with you in the right moment, he is your man. This man loves the present moment and lives there in a way that is impossible for many people. But I doubt he’ll be able to plan for that moment. And when that moment comes, you’ll probably have to go looking for him.

It's dealing with what went before and organizing what will come after each moment that give him trouble. One out of three ain't so good, but there it is.

rlp

I’m alone this morning, and I’m wondering some things.

The roles I play in the world are strong, powerful, and demanding. They require much of me. Perhaps all of me. If these roles were gone, what would be left?

What if I wasn’t Real Live Preacher? What if I wasn’t that guy who writes good and has that blog that everyone reads? If I wasn’t driven to produce, what would become of my soul? Would my mind remain without form and void and with darkness upon the face of my deep? If I hadn’t spoken Real Live Preacher into existence, what of Gordon Atkinson?

What if I wasn’t the pastor of Covenant Baptist Church? What if I never had to proclaim truth, be an example to the flock, or set my own needs aside for duty’s sake? What would be left of my Christianity, I wonder? What would happen to me without such a powerful motivation? Are fear and obligation the only things keeping my faith frosty?

What if I wasn’t father to the three sisters? What if there were no hands buried wrist-deep in my torso, clinging to my heart, seeking anything with purchase, squeezing my ribs like the bars of a cage?

“Please don’t leave us, daddy.”

And finally, what if I was not husband to Jeanene? What if I was alone? What if there was no other person whose vision and body and life I shared? What if there was no warm and soft woman to whom I did cleave and become one flesh?

Imagine if all of these things were gone and you were to stand before the shell of my body. My creativity undifferentiated, formless and weak. My neck calcified and my head forever unbowed. My breast ripped open and the little hands gone. My legs pulled up to my chest with my arms hugging them in loneliness. What if you were to stand before that body and call me forth as a demon is called, resentful and struggling, out of the darkness?

I fear you would shrink from the homunculus that would emerge, soft and wet and pale and blinking, its mouth desperately opening and closing. You would not want to lay your hands on me, but you might nudge me with the toe of your shoe.

And you would say, “There’s not much left of you, Gordon Atkinson. You really did give yourself to those things, didn’t you?”

Yes I did. For better or for worse, I gave myself away.

rlp

I spent my early childhood in El Paso, Texas. We lived in the desert, literally. If you stood on our front porch and looked across the street, there was sand and cactus and horned toads and tumbleweeds. Desert as far as you could see. Or at least as far as a small boy could see. Sometimes I would say to my mother, “I’m going to play in the desert, okay?” This seemed to me to be a perfectly normal thing for a boy to say.

This is the jumbled story of things that can happen to a small boy in the desert.

Coyotes ate my dog once. We had a little beagle named Missy. One night she heard wild yips, yelps, and howls, in the desert night. She went to investigate and never came back. I hear that coyotes like to eat dogs and cats. They’re easy prey, and wild animals do not have the luxury of being sporting.

My little brother drank desert sand in El Paso. We had glasses and were pretending that we were pouring Kool-Aid into them, only we were pouring sand. The girl from next door and I pretended to drink, but my little brother thought we really were drinking, so he tossed back a full mouthful of sand. I remember him crying and sticking his tongue out. It looked like one of those doughnuts that are rolled in cinnamon and sugar.

There was a huge canyon in the desert across the street. At least it seemed huge to me. If I stood on the edge and looked down into it, it would make my groin and stomach tingle. Later I learned that this was simply an arroyo, a dry gully or creek. The drop was probably no more than ten feet. But I spent the entire time we lived there terrified of falling into the arroyo because I heard that a boy named Chuck went over the edge in roller skates. What he was doing in the desert wearing roller skates was never made clear to me. But I remember the idea of falling with heavy boots and wheels on your feet was something so terrible that it haunted me until we finally moved.

My great-grandmother once visited from East Texas where my parents grew up. She brought grapefruit because she and my grandfather thought grapefruit was one of the greatest miracles and joys in life. They talked a lot about grapefruit and made special trips to places where you could buy it. I don’t think they had much fruit when they were kids, so it was still a wondrous thing to them. One morning I was pushing a small car around on the floor, and I went into the bathroom on my hands and knees, only to be stopped dead in my tracks by my great-grandmother’s toenails. I ran to my room, utterly horrified by what I had seen.

Years later I could still remember her toenails. My memory was that you could lift up her big toenail and there was a secret place underneath it, like a little pillbox. The secret place was divided into two sections by a membranous wall of skin. I became convinced that we all had a space like this under our toenails, but most of our toenail lids were stuck shut for some reason. I used to daydream about what I could hide in my big toe if I could only find a way to pry open the lid without it hurting so much.

When I finally got old enough to understand that our toes aren’t hollow, I also realized that the membrane toe-space divider of my memory looked exactly like the limp membranes of a grapefruit that are left after the meat has been eaten. Obviously our childhood memories, dreams, and reflections have a way of getting a little jumbled.

In kindergarten, I fell in love with a black-haired, brown-skinned girl named Carmen. I loved her because she colored in the lines better than anyone else. When she used crayons she pressed them lightly on the paper, and all of her strokes went the same way. She didn’t push down hard with her crayons and scribble every which way. That was when I came to understand that you shouldn’t color with a crayon held tightly in your fist. You should hold it lightly and at an angle. Carmen taught me that, and I loved her for it. I used to imagine her face, smiling and confident, and her arm moving back and forth over a piece of paper.

Four years later another girl named Carmen became the first kid I ever knew who died. We came to school on Monday morning to find our teacher crying at her desk. She told us that Carmen’s family had been in a car accident and that she had died. Her empty desk sat there in our class, haunting us. I couldn’t keep from staring at it. One little boy who was always mean said, “Oh well, I guess her batteries just ran down.” It made me feel sick when he said that. He was a pretty unhappy boy, as I recall.

That afternoon I walked by Carmen’s house on the way home from school. I stood on the sidewalk staring at the front of her house until someone came out and asked what I wanted. I didn’t know what to say, so I turned and ran. After that I walked home a different way.

El Paso is the only city in Texas with mountains nearby. Sometimes my parents would take us up into the mountains to beautiful places where you saw how the desert would look if there were no people and houses. Just natural desert, brutal, stark, and beautiful.

There is an arid joy that comes when you learn to feel the beauty of the desert. It is a joy without frills or margins. An empty canteen or a cactus can take this joy away in an instant, but if you are safe and have time to look and feel, the part of your brain that is at the base of your skull can love the clarity of the desert. You can love the dry air and the way the temperature drops at night. You can love the harshness of it. You can even love the coyotes and all the hard and mysterious things that define our lives. All the things that we never, ever forget.

rlp

Images of El Paso