Tuesday...

Tuesday night was one of those nights that restores your sanity. When you read a lot of books, listen to a bunch of sermons, and interact with college students, you get the feeling that all the world is just a bunch of big ideas. You fret over whether you are a part of those big ideas or if you have found the right big idea. When that happens, I begin to get frantic. The pace of my life speeds up, and all the sudden I have less time than I can manage. The world begins to blur because you can't focus fast enough from thing to thing.

Tuesday night reminded me there's more to life than being successful. Life is: a run and dinner with your girlfriend, a haircut from a friend, a time to relax watching a baseball game, reading a book until you are too tired to keep your mind on the page.

Abbie had a wonderful talk. We neither complained nor griped about our lives, stayed mostly away from talking ministry, and focused on how each other was doing. Jim came home and inhaled a tuna melt, and I asked him for a hair cut. What followed was a mundane scene that struck me as hilarious. (Wes Anderson take note) We had a chair in the kitchen where my hair was cut. If you had walked in kitchen after that you would have seen me with no shirt, covered in my own hair clippings, trimming my goatee, Jim squatted like a frog cutting his hair, and an empty wooden chair. I don't know why, but that scene resonates in my soul as something that makes sense.

Maybe, life is not built on the big moments and ideas, but the little ones. We don't have relationships with people unless we spend time with them. We can't deal with life if don't have downtime. We can't impress others if we don't take care of ourselves. And, we will never dream if we don't sleep.

namaste

vaya con DIOS

Culture Shock

It hit me Sunday morning when the deluge from the shower head hit my back like a fire hose. It happens every time and I don't know why. It's as though I hold some self-loathing for those things that I have never had control over.

I rarely get culture shock from going to other cultures, its the coming back that gets me. In Honduras there was little to worry about. I knew I had to wake up at 6:30 in order have enough time to get ready for breakfast, morning devotional, and packing for the day. Each day was hot and filled with many challenges, among which were people yelling at me in a language I barely understood. But, I went to bed every night tired, satisfied, full of spirit.

It started when I got back into Hartsfield-Jackson. The worries I left in America hadn't disappeared, they just hadn't been able to get their passport in time. Slowly but surely, the worries of life and troubles that race through my mind returned. Sunday, I woke up heavy. Yeah, there was two-hour time difference, my bed was more comfortable, and I was dog tired, but I was worried about what would happen this week. As I walked up to the church building, a word escaped my lips that surprised me: "home."

It was strange, I've never thought of CV as home until now, but this is my family where I'm at. It changes the way I think of the members. In the Honduran church, everyone is hermano or hermana. There is a strong familial connection down there, even the gringos are hermanos. When I think of us as family it changes how I view individuals. Everyone has worth, regardless of what they can do for me. And, they have the right to challenge and change the way I think about and approach life.

Unfortunately, the culture shock is the uniqueness of this thought in America.

namaste

vaya con DIOS

The End of Things

Well, just finished the new D. Miller book and once again he has another hit that plucks the heart strings. I often find myself lamenting the end of a book. As a child, I was made fun of a lot and so I retreated to the company of books (thank God I didn't have motion sickness otherwise I would have had to sit very still on the bus, not reading). Books became my friends, they never laughed at me or ridiculed my growing girth and lack of athletic skill. So now, just a few hundred pages into a lovely friendship it ends, with a sweet note of resolution.

I could be melodramatic and say the end of a book is like the death of a friend, but I've experienced that too recently to know it isn't true. Rather, the end of books remind me of a friend I made in Blacksburg. Seth, Crystal, and I knew each other for less that 100 hours. We ate a couple of meals together, I helped them change all four tires on their car and played a little mandolin with them. They took me on a drive just to see the mountains in all their majesty. Later, we said goodbye with tears rimming our eyes and Seth remarked how it felt like we had known each other our whole lives.

Books tend to do that to me, make me want to be a better person. Even if it's about a farmer's family who loves him for being clever and imperfect. It makes me want to take risks I've never thought to do, and I grow sad wondering if I really do have the confidence, the courage to do all those things I want to do. I could start by not watching television, I guess. It gives you a story at it's pace, not allowing you to stop and reflect on the beauty of a sentence.

Eh, it's late and I'm getting sentimental. Gonna hang it up for tonight. I'm looking forward to traveling next week, maybe I'll write about that tomorrow.

Two Brim in a Pond

So, last weekend I went home to go to my great-uncle's funeral. I feel close to him even though we hadn't spoken much in our lives. This closeness is the result of the grace he showed to two young boys. When my grandfather was dying of cancer. Uncle Trin let Grandady (that's how Ralph spelled it), Ryan, and I fish at his pond. We caught two brim. Three weeks later my grandfather died. We received the mounted brim shortly after.

As we walked into the funeral home on Friday, my uncle told me I was getting into a hard business. Thinking I understood him, I responded that I was beginning to know that. I didn't. While I was thinking about the difficulties of campus ministry, and how hard my first year as an apprentice was, Uncle Bubba quickly clarified his statement. He said he didn't want to think of the number of family funerals he'd presided over. His first was my grandmother, his mom. Followed by many others, some kinfolk, some not, but never a wedding. We went to see Uncle Trin at Chirstmas, and before my uncle had crossed the threshold, Uncle Trin reminded him that Bud was to conduct his funeral...

We didn't think it would be so soon. When Grandady died, Uncle Trin and the brim were still there. When you're four you think someone who survives something like that, the world ending, you think they will live forever. And, as they age, they aren't dying, they don't even slow down, it's you that's speeding up. I guess I held onto that for the last 20 years and didn't grow out of it.

Everyone one said it was the best eulogy they had ever heard. Uncle Trin's wink and nod were recounted with best of memory. It was beautiful and poetic. It was homey and vintage without all the kitschy trendiness that pervades today's busy society that grasps for its rural roots. The age was real, not like the distressed furniture we have today, but an honest to goodness storyteller showing our favorite memories and thoughts of loved ones. Jack said it was the best eulogy because Uncle Bubba was a real storyteller with a real gift. I think that's true, but part of me wonders if he's had too much practice. Though, he did have good subject material.

Also that weekend, we saw the play 'Our Town.' The last scene shows a dead woman asking the storyteller if anyone really understands, really enjoys, really values the life they live each day. His answer was, "...the saints and the poets, maybe, some of them." The line is sad to me because it rings true. I'm not a saint, I'm not a poet. I watch people living their lives on TV, and read them in books. I think I get something out of life, but I don't get it all. I felt for her husband and motherless son. The girl who became the woman he married and mother to his child was now gone forever...

I don't want to die, not now anyway. During the eulogy, Uncle Bubba read those siblings (he had eleven brothers and sisters) who preceded Trin in death, and we realized as a family that those were the only times we had seen each other in last decade or so. I have a few really cool second cousins that I never knew about. One went to UGA, another teaches art, another is a Biology teacher, and another is going to be a doctor. There was talk of a family reunion that afternoon. It's hard to keep the Wootens down. There was a somber spirit about the place, but there was laughter about getting lost on the way to the cemetery, and how Trin always played jokes. One by one we left that day, Aunt Polly ultimately sleeping alone, missing her husband of 59 years who wrote such a great story.

I hope mine can be just as good

namaste

vaya con DIOS