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

.

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 met Sarah McManus when she was in 8th grade. This would have 1990 or 91. I was invited by THE David Gentiles, to whom “Blue Like Jazz” was dedicated, to come to the church where he was the youth minister and participate in a weekend Bible study. I was the leader for the 8th graders.

Sarah was tall, with thick, beautiful, red hair. She was so peppy and full of energy. She ran around the house in her socks that weekend, as often as not on her tip-toes. Here is how I interpret her walking on her toes: There was so much energy and excitement wanting to burst out of this child that she couldn’t keep her heels on the floor. She was the perfect Anne of Green Gables, and I told her so. If L.M. Montgomery’s work hadn’t come first, I would have sworn she modeled the character on Sarah.

The next year I came back for the Bible study weekend and was assigned the 9th graders, so I had a second weekend with Sarah and her friends. Then our churches went to the same youth camp a couple of years, so I saw her during the summers. After that we loosely kept up with each other. By the time she was in college, email had come into its own, and we exchanged them now and again. I was always charmed by her intelligence, her passion for life, and by her sincere desire that her Christianity be a serious life journey and not just a cultural label.

Sarah met Scott in college. They married and she became Sarah Bickle. As I got to know Scott I could see that he was the right man for her. They lived here and there, ending up in Dallas. Sometimes Sarah and Scott would spend the night at our house if they were in town. We had children, and they would watch us put them to bed and do various parenting things. I imagine they were wondering what it would be like when they had children of their own.

Sarah sent me an email when she got pregnant. I rejoiced along with all of her friends and waited during the pregnancy.

His name is Thomas, and he is the first-born child of Sarah and Scott. It looked like things were working out just as I hoped they would. Sarah and Scott were young and happy. They were throwing themselves into life and parenting.

And then came the news that Thomas had a brain tumor. The news was a terrible shock to all of us that know and love Sarah and Scott and Thomas. What followed was two years of treatment and hopes and disappointments and financial struggle and pain. They take turns. One works and the other stays home with Thomas. They have lived on prayers and desperation and the unexplainable energy that mothers and fathers have when their child is sick. Nothing matters but doing everything for Thomas that can be done. All else has been put on hold.

They have tried everything, but in the end it appears that cancer will end Thomas’ life just as it was getting started. They have stopped treating his illness and are seeking to give Thomas the best life possible while there is time.

Life knows nothing of fairness. I don’t mean that life understands fairness and rejects it. I mean that fairness has no part in life unless you or I are imposing it. Humans want fairness and sometimes work for it, but it is no part of the natural order. That’s one of the reasons why believing in a just and loving God is so hard for many of us.

Because God had not forced fairness on life and nature, there will always be families like the Bickles who endure unthinkable tragedy and hardship. Parents who are losing a child live in a world that is unknown to those of us who have not. No one knows this terrible journey but those who have taken it. There have been times when I was talking to Sarah on the phone and my inability to say anything was painful to me. What can you say to this mother? To this father?

Sarah sent me something that she wrote. I asked her if I could post it here because her words are important. No one dares write about such things except someone who has lived them. I’ve had a few people stand in for me as guest bloggers. Maybe two or three. Sarah was the first one back in 2005. I looked at what she wrote here in 2005 and realized that she was pregnant with Thomas at that time.

Tomorrow Sarah will be a guest blogger here. I will offer no comment or addition to her words. I only wish that Sarah be heard.

rlp

Visit the Thomas Bickle blog.

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post. Due to a clerical error, I was without my depression medication for a time. I tried to pay attention to what was happening to me so that I could describe it clearly.

Calling it depression was a mistake from the beginning. What does that mean, exactly? Depression. My grandfather didn’t call it anything. He was just moody and lost his temper sometimes. When he was in “one of his moods” you stayed away from him. And when he got one of his “sick headaches,” he just endured it.

My mother never called it anything either. She had sick headaches too, and would go to bed with them. Sometimes her face would be slack and show no emotion. You sometimes saw that in photographs. Then she started slowly pulling away from everyone. At holidays you would see her in another room sitting quietly on the couch. If you went in there she would try her best to engage you and be a good mother. She would ask questions and talk to you, but you could tell she wanted to be alone so badly that it made her jittery.

Then there were phone calls where she would talk so fast you couldn’t keep up. And dad told us of nights where she stayed up cleaning the house, happy as a lark, laughing, thrilled to be alive. She would hardly sleep.

And then one of those highs caused her to have a psychotic break from reality. She didn’t know any of us or who she was. She went to a hospital, and they named it. They gave this demon a name. Bipolar Disorder, the doctor said. My mother started taking medicine, and it was like she had been born again.

In my case it was the sick headaches - the migraines - that got my attention. There were other physical symptoms. And I had become withdrawn and uninterested in life. My family noticed that part; I didn’t. It happens gradually. The doctor gave me medication, and it was like being born again. I remember thinking, “Oh yeah, I remember that this is how I used to feel and think.”

It was absolutely wonderful to be living again. And it’s been great all along. I’ve never stopped taking the medication.

So what do you want to call this thing? Depression? Depletion? Mental and emotional dysfunction sounds like it fits my experience. People who suffer from the many emotional disorders that we put in the category of depression often have a hard time describing what is happening to them. What follows will be my attempt to describe my emotional and mental state when I’m not being aided by medication. This is fresh on my mind, having spent some days without any medication recently because of a problem with insurance. This was actually good for me. I had been wondering if I really needed to be taking the medication.

Last week, as my Wellbutrin dwindled, I waited to see if I would feel a sudden mood drop. I did not. What happened was a gradual loss of interest and emotion. As I think about it now, I wonder if what I experience with depression is something like the experience of a psychopath. I can’t love anyone. I can’t feel any love for another person. It’s like someone removed that part of my brain.

This is a marker for me: When my depression has gotten me into a bad place, I don’t want to be around my children. I don’t want them touching me. I don’t want anyone touching me. I don’t want to look people in the eyes. Any kind of social interaction causes levels of discomfort you might expect if you were asked to walk into a ballroom in your underwear and start talking to people. You don’t want to be there. If forced to go into the ballroom in your underwear and talk to people, you can do it. But you hate it, and you can’t wait for it to end so you can just go home.

It’s kind of like that, only there is no good reason for me to isolate myself. I’m not being asked to go to a ballroom in my underwear. My daughter just wants to hug me and sit close to me on the couch. The people at church just want to talk. Normal stuff.

All of my desire goes away. Everything inside me that I identify with Gordon seems to wither. I have a good sense of humor, and I like to laugh. Nothing is funny. I’m passionate and curious and want to know about everything. All of that is gone. I adore my children and love to hug them and talk with them and be with them. They become like someone else’s children who have been in my house too long.

I can’t feel any familiar emotions. I force myself to go on living. I do all the things I need to do. But eventually the emotional stress of it causes me to despair. I start to panic and feel what I can only describe as a deep, hopeless despair.

You see, you need the emotions and feelings that you are accustomed to. Whatever yours are, you need them. You must have them. We are emotional, relational beings. To rip away a person’s ability to feel and interact is a violent thing.

When I’m down, my wife is the only person I can be with and feel no aversion. But I don’t feel love for her. I know intellectually that I love her, but I can’t feel it. The piece I wrote recently called “If Only” was an essay that got away from me. I wrote it as the Wellbutrin was coming to an end. I started with one thing, and I ended up writing about what it is to feel love for my wife. I couldn’t feel love, so I tried to write love. When I was done I knew the piece had started out as one thing and turned into something else. I could have torn it apart and made two things. But some instinct in me said to leave it alone. So I did.

In the worst of times, I could feel something when writing. That may be why I was so driven to write in the first two years of this blog. I suppose that’s why so much of what I write has a kind of sad, longing, emotional feel. My writing voice has always seemed to connect to people emotionally. Maybe you can feel the hunger and desire in me as I try to write emotions into existence.

So there it is. What can I do about it? That’s how I was feeling by Tuesday night. Empty and dead. Lillian came in to hug me goodnight. I put my arms around her and stared over her shoulder, gritting my teeth. I couldn't wait for it to be over. Now see, that's just not right. That is not me. Lillian is our last little girl. I've been treasuring her hugs, knowing that little girl hugs are just about gone. But Tuesday, I could hardly stand being near her.

I got my Wellbutrin back on Wednesday. It is now Thursday afternoon. I feel my interest in life returning. I’m at the church alone today, and I still want very much to be alone. But I can feel things again. Ironically, one of the first feelings to come rushing back is fear and anxiety. I’m very jittery. I feel like you might feel if you’ve done something wrong.

So I guess I’ll keep taking Wellbutrin. I hope very much not to have to take it for a long time. I don’t know how you stop taking something like this. I take three white pills every morning. Whatever that is doing to me is being done. Whatever that says about me is true. Whatever will happen to me because of this medication is going to happen. Because I don’t know what to do but take the pills.

I like being Gordon very much. And my wife and children love Gordon and want him to be around.

So okay. Give me the pills. I don’t care. I’ll do anything.

rlp

When a person dies, there is a sudden collapse of all that they knew. The complex and fragile framework of their worldview, which is a unique thing in all the universe, drops to the ground like the contents of a pricked water balloon. The depth of that loss is incomprehensible.

What is left after death are ghost-like shreds of your personality that live in the memories of those who knew you. Some warped version of you exists in the stories and the sorrow. And then those stories fade. The last to go are the memories of the one who loved you the most. Those memories are twisted and contorted into comforting shapes that he or she clings to for comfort. And then your beloved dies, and you are lost along with everything else that disappears in that terrible event.

After that is only what the children remember. It’s not much when compared to the fullness of a life. And when those children die, there is only a name or maybe a faint memory on someone’s family tree.

On a day and in a moment that no one knows, the last memory of you winks out of existence with the death of the last person who knew your name. And then it is as if you never lived. You join the ranks of the billions of humans who have walked this planet, living and loving and dying. Some were saints who lived and loved and died well. Others not so much. Some were scoundrels. All are forgotten.

It seems to me that the whole world would collapse if I were to die. How could things go on? How could the world continue without my worldview propping it up, explaining it, and giving it a purpose?

I look at the people around me, my friends and acquaintances. I cannot know them. They are walking mysteries. What they flash on their billboard faces or what words are released from their inner pravda is all that I can know. For a brief moment I want to know everyone. I want to see the world with everyone’s eyes. For one, brief, god-wish moment. And then I settle back into reality. After all, I’ve come to love your billboard and your pravda. You take what you can get, right?

But there is one desire I have that cannot be sated. It cannot be satisfied, and it will not go away. It is a terrible loneliness to look into the eyes of the one you love and understand that you will never truly know her. You may know her better than anyone ever will, but you cannot know her. Her eyes are the windows of a strange, two-legged vessel that walks this earth for its alloted time. You stumble alongside her for years, but you may do nothing more than look into those eyes and hear again her best attempts to explain what goes on in her heart.

My wife’s chocolate brown eyes look like they were transplanted from her father’s face. She honors him by carrying those eyes for one more generation. The pure singleness of their color and the way she looks at you with no shame makes you know that you can trust her. You think she must be a gentle soul. These are things that anyone can know.

When I look into her eyes I bring something more to the experience. I know her life and her history and her ways. I remember her young heart, the one she had when we met at college. I remember her bouncing ponytail and purple pants. I remember her fears and joys as a young woman in seminary. I have seen her give birth three times and watched those children nurse at her breasts. I know her fierce integrity and her unwillingness to give up her innocence, which she holds just as fiercely. I know that she is what we call, “a good person.” She wants goodness in the world. Truly wants it for herself and others. I know these things about her. I know more about Jeanene Atkinson than anyone else in the world ever will.

I have watched her age slowly over the years, softening, the skin around her eyes sagging a bit. The eyes themselves have not changed at all. Eyes are timeless in that way.

And now, God help me, she has a small pair of reading glasses that she shakes open sometimes and perches upon her nose. If I pull up a chair beside her I can watch her eyes darting back and forth, missing nothing in the fine print. Nothing but the truth will do for her, no matter how hard that truth may be. No skimming the words and wishing. Then she turns and her chin drops and her brown eyes look at me over the tops of those glasses. In that moment all the things I know about her press themselves together and try to force their way into my heart all at once. The cuteness of it. Adorable. Precious. Beyond words. It hurts.

I want to stand at attention, draw my sword, and say, “I would die for you, my lady.” I want to run circles around the couch with my arms out like airplane wings, shouting “Look at me. I love you more than anyone ever did.” I want to pull those eyes close, and everyone go away. Go away! How dare you be here. How dare the earth and time hold anything but this moment. And I think this moment is owed to us, that the world should stop and there be nothing for as long as we need there to be nothing. And if time moves on and those eyes return to that paper, I feel that I’ve lost something which, in truth, I never had. And it’s the saddest, loneliest thing to know it.

God, I wish I could get behind those eyes. Settle into the driver’s seat and connect the wires to little electrode pads all over my body. I want to feel her woman heart. I want to know what it means to be her. What does this woman feel and think? More importantly, how does she feel and think? Could I take the knowledge all at once? Would I shiver, hold the sides of my head, and burst into tears? Does it take a long time to learn how to live with a woman’s heart?

I can only imagine.

For now, there will be nothing but those eyes lifting above her glasses and the coy smile she has because she knows what those glasses do to me. For now, only her face with its thousands of movements that I parse and struggle to translate. For now, only language, which is such a crude instrument. Words are rusty, jagged, pig-iron tongs fumbling for purchase in the liquid silk of her soul.

For now, what love I have to give. Faith and hope will tear you apart with the rawness of their desire. But for now remains love, which is the greatest and only-est thing we have.

rlp

For J9, only mine

We have a good number of snakes in Texas, though I’ve only had run-ins with a few of them. Luckily, I know just enough about snakes to keep myself reasonably safe.

There are four poisonous snakes in Texas: The Copperhead, the Cotton Mouth (Water Moccasin), the Rattlesnake, and the Coral Snake. The first three are easy to spot because they have the classic, triangular head common to many venomous snakes. You don’t really have to know any more than that here in Texas. If you see a snake with a head that in any way resembles a triangle, run like hell, dumbass!

Now the Coral Snake is a little more difficult to spot. It does not have a triangular head. It has red, black, and yellow stripes. The harmless King Snake also has red, black and yellow stripes, but they are in a different order. Luckily there is another handy little poem to help you keep this straight.

Red touches yellow, kill a fellow.
Red touches black, venom lack.

In my case I’m afraid that in the heat of the moment I might get the poem wrong and say something like:

Red touches black, step back Jack.
Red touches yellow, step up and say hello.

To avoid a potential problem, I simplified the poem to a haiku.

If you see a snake
With stripes red, yellow, and black.
Run like hell, dumbass!

Some years ago, when there were only two sisters and they were both in elementary school, I stepped out the front door and found a full-grown, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake right there on my front porch. I didn’t see him at first. I stretched and yawned, then looked to the side and saw him coiled up about two feet from me.

I’m sorry, were you using this porch?

I leapt inside, spooking both girls. “What’s wrong?” they shouted.

“There’s a Rattlesnake on the front porch.”

Let’s agree that these symbols represent the sound of two girls shrieking and running around in a mad panic:

&*%$#@!*$!

It took a few minutes to get them calmed down. “What are you gonna do, daddy?”

“I’m gonna go out there and hack him to pieces with a shovel, I guess.”

&*%$#@!*$!
&*%$#@!*$!
&*%$#@!*$!

With two little girls around, I wasn’t feeling much in a “Peta mood,” if you know what I mean. So I killed the snake with my shovel and went back inside. “It’s okay girls, he’s dead. I’m just going to throw him in the trash can." I put on a pair of work gloves and went back outside.

The girls stared out the window while I picked up the pieces of rattlesnake. Then one of the pieces started jerking in my hand.

&*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$!
&*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$!
&*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$! &*%$#@!*$!

What is it about snakes that spooks us so deeply? I know some of you adore snakes and feel they are misunderstood. You have perhaps a pet snake which you hug and play with and insist has a personality all its own. Hey, I get that. Yes, snakes have been misunderstood. There aren't many reasons to kill them, though I will make the case that a Rattlesnake on your front porch is one of them.

But for many people, snakes are just creepy.

Sucks to be a snake, I guess.

I’ve always been rather interested in animal reputations. Squirrels are cute and lovable, while rats cause people to shiver with disgust. The only difference is the tail, though I will admit, having touched a rat’s tail, that’s a big difference.

Crickets are cute and get shooed out the door, while roaches call for chemical warfare.

Certain animals seem to have charisma. Something about their faces. Dolphins, Koalas, Horses. We love them. Goats with their weird eyes seem diabolical. Sharks look like pure evil. If you want to dream up a face for Satan, don’t make it a red one with little horns. Give him the face of a Great White Shark. Now that will scare anyone into the arms of Jesus.

Animals seem to be the subject of many conversations at Casa Atkinson these days. My oldest two daughters are vegetarians. Passionately so. And they make very good arguments. It’s hard to talk to them because they’re making good sense. They don’t eat things with faces, and we do. So we’re having those discussions.

And if that weren’t enough, our dog is going blind along with all of her other ailments. We adopted this dog from the shelter because that seemed like the responsible thing to do. We’ve all fallen in love with her, which is unfortunate because about everything that could be wrong with a dog is wrong with her. She has bad teeth, degrading eyes, and a collapsing trachea that causes her to honk like a goose. As if that weren’t enough, something is wrong with her hind legs. She walks with them bowed and her bottom almost touching the ground. To me she looks like a bat hobbling around.

So the question is, “How much will you spend on a pet?” So far we could have bought a dog bred in the Queen of England’s bed for the money we’ve spent keeping this limping, hacking, lovable little creature alive. And now my daughter’s parakeet has a liver problem.

A liver problem. It causes her to pluck out her own feathers. The vet says an overnight stay and a round of antibiotics might help.

[Deep, even breaths, Gordon. Deep and even]

Animals. Lord help us. If they’re not coiled on our porches and keeping us glued to the Discovery Channel, they're breaking our hearts and our bank accounts.

I can tell you this. Lucy and the bird are the last two pets we’re going to have for awhile. We just can’t afford it, financially or emotionally.

rlp

I've begun a writing project for The High Calling for which I'm going to write about every job I've ever had. Well, I'm starting with my first job and working my way from there. Who knows how far I will ultimately get. The High Calling Blog Network is seeking stories of lessons learned in odd jobs. You can read about that here.

I grew up in a working family, and I began working in 6th grade. Along the way I've done everything from bagging groceries to driving forklifts.

The professional writing I do for The High Calling is a little different from the free-wheeling style of rlp. For one thing, I'm searching for the lessons in the stories.

Here is the first. The second is done, submitted, and will be online soon.

My First Job

In the summer of 1974, just after I completed the sixth grade, my father came home with a box of business cards for me. They read:

Gordon Atkinson
Lawn Care
497-2862

I thought it was pretty cool to be 12-years-old and have my own business cards. But when he told me that I had to walk around the neighborhood passing them out, I must admit that my excitement lessened considerably. Click here to read more.