Thursday, October 26, 2006

An Absurd Post ...or...Preempting Happiness

I live 860 miles away from my parents. It’s about a 14-hour drive, although Dad made it in about 12 hours once. With one young child, it takes around 16 hours. I have no idea how long it will take now that we have a very new second child.

Sometimes when we show up on my parents porch and my parents are hugging us and telling us how glad they are to see us, Mom will also mention in those first few moments how sad she is that we will be leaving in a few days or weeks. And I think, why bring that up now? This is the time to be happy because our togetherness is just beginning. It is all in front of us; it is a wealth of moments ready for the spending.

But I don’t blame her, because really I am exactly the same way. If something wonderful is happening, my first thought is just how finite the wonderfulness is. It will be over soon. Sometimes, if things are going really, really well, I think about some potential tragedy that is coming. I don’t think you can blame me, either, because it happens that way all too often. Once, my wife and I were having a spectacular weekend. I remember telling her how rich I felt even though we did not have but a few dollars in the bank—we have a big back yard in a beautiful town, the car was running well, the weather was perfect, the garage was clean, I had just installed a new mailbox with a flower box. On Monday we received a property tax bill in the mail; it was so far out of our ability to pay that I felt deep despair. It occurred to me that the tax had been mailed to us the previous week. I imagined some lackey in a fluorescent-lit office stuffing the beige envelope with the tax, affixing the address label, printing the postage, putting the envelope in the mail bin, and the mailmen picking up the mail, sorting it, and delivering it to us all while I reveled in blissful ignorance. I should have known something was coming, right?

Of course, that was before I understood what escrow was, but I was steeped in panic and dread for a full four days. (Don’t bother rolling your eyes at me…I know how pathetic and perverse that is, and I’m not defending it. I’m only attempting to explain how it is.)

It doesn't help that I see everything as very temporary. When I was remodeling my kitchen, I could almost hear the cabinets and floor decaying--it was like time-elapsed rotting. After all, I was ripping out someone else's toil; how long would it be before my hard work was undone? Not long. So, even with happiness and sadness these days, I have a this-too-will-pass mentality, which is about the exact opposite of my wife. Every day, every moment seems to be either the absolute best or the absolute worst, and I like that about her. She's interesting.

I kissed my little boy tonight. He’s 25 days old. His cheek is cool, soft, and abundant. He doesn’t like being kissed and he protests every time I do it. I do it once a day because I love it, but no more because he would prefer I did not do it at all. Today I selfishly kissed him twice, though, because I was thinking ahead to that day when he will finally tell me that he doesn’t want to be kissed goodnight anymore. And I will say, “Well, let me kiss you one more time, and then I will hardly ever do it again.” I will not be able to enjoy that kiss, though; I will probably smile and ruffle his hair and then go to my room and cry. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry, and I think, why bring that up now? This is the time to be happy because everything is just beginning.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Happiness on Aisle 3

I’m finding the things that excite me lately as odd. This occurred to me last week when I was in Bi-Lo, our grocery store because I was so happy to be there.

I’ve never been really happy about being in a grocery store before. Especially not as a kid. Going to the grocery store when Mom had a big list was so unappealing.

But, it wouldn’t be now.

So, I stepped into our brand new Bi-Lo, which is within walking distance of our house, and my first thought was, “I love it here” which was followed by “This place is beautiful” and then “I want to be here.” Seriously, the store is beautiful. It has a chicken wing bar, an olive bar, a hot food section, a coffee bar, bread from a reputable local bakery, and a restored 1922 Ford delivery truck with wooden spoke wheels in the produce section. There are tables and chairs in a windowed nook for dining. The ceilings are high with skylights. The interior lighting is perfect. I want to go to Bi-Lo everyday, with or without a list. Marcy said we should come here for dates, and I don’t think she was joking. Anyway, I wasn’t joking when I agreed.

I’m sure any Bi-Lo executives that read blogs are peeing their pants right now, but I don’t care.

Grocery stores are not the only surprising thing that piques my interests lately. When I was a kid I liked cars that could either corner well, get to 60 mph in an insanely short amount of time, produce a great deal of power or any combination thereof. Now, I am impressed with gas mileage, safety, and interior ergonomics. I have almost no regard for performance any more. When did that happen? In fact, I no longer view cars as entertainment or a pastime as I once did; now I see them as…ready for this?….transportation. My evaluation of a car’s ability to transport me from one place to another has nothing to do with power or top speed. As I drive through town in my woefully inefficient 24mpg car, I look at all the other gas guzzling, pollutant producing vehicles on the road—the thousands and thousands of them just in my city alone—and think, “Could we not do better than this over the course of 100 years? With all the technology we have gained, are we still making cars the same way we made 1922 Ford delivery trucks?”

In fact, the 1922 Ford delivery truck is more appealing to me right now than most cars on the market. Once cylinder, 22 horsepower (pretty close to my riding lawn mower) used to be enough to haul two people and a truckload of vegetables across town. When did we start needing 200 horsepower livingrooms on wheels?

Well, anyway, how and when did I change from craving speed and amusement parks to efficiency and gorgeous grocery stores with pumpkin donuts? The slightly haughty side of me likes to think that it happened because I chose to leave childish things behind me, but I doubt it. I think I used to like fast or powerful cars and amusement parks because they made life seem more fun. Now, enticing grocery stores within walking distance and a car that doesn’t suck my wallet dry would add more to my quality of life than any other peripheral right now.

Kudos to Bi-Lo. Now if the auto executives will just get their heads out of their tailpipes and start making desirable cars.

You know what would be even better? A really good public transportation system in Chattanooga. That could be exciting!

Monday, October 09, 2006

Thoughts Without Words

Our second child, Everett, was born this week. It’s intriguing to watch him think, and I do think he’s thinking. For two days after he was born, he spent his few waking moments looking around the hospital room, at Marcy and me, and at his hands. I’m not sure how profound his thoughts were, but he did seem to be studying everything. Clara Grace was that way, too, and people more objective than I told me the same sentiments.

Now, I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but when we left the hospital room I imagined him thinking, “You mean there’s more?!” Except that, I don’t think he was thinking that. At this point in life, everything is novel. The trick for infants, I believe, is finding a baseline normal.

Not only do I not want to put words in his mouth, but I’m not sure I want to put words in his head either. I have always reveled in thinking without words, and I don’t mean that in a transcendental-mindless-meditative sort of way. Wordless ponderings can be completely valid—just because the words are absent does not mean that emotions, instincts, images, memories, or nothingness necessarily fill the void. Sometimes words just aren’t enough.

Do thoughts consist entirely of words? Are words the actual substance of thinking? Or are words simply an expression of those thoughts—even if only expressed internally? And is that even syntactically possible—to express something internally? Wouldn’t that be an inpression? (See what happens when words muddle thinking?) Or are words just some sort of acknowledgement of the thoughts?

On an entirely basic level, consider an animal. We had a very clever dog for a while; she could escape from anything, and she did not always employ her sheer strength or chewing abilities to do so. Sometimes she studied a situation and simply figured it out. She could open latches, climb chain link fences, and foil me. I would watch her study a situation and then act. I don’t think she was barking thoughts to herself in her head, since a dog language is different than human language. I do think she was able to analyze and evaluate a situation, and then form a plan of action. Bloom would have been proud.

Here’s an example: Our dog, Katie—who was basically a furred debacle capped with a nose and a tail—would escape from her pen routinely. At first it was relegated to simple digging under the fence. I would come home, find Katie on the front porch (obviously pleased with herself), and put her back in the pen. Then, I would entice her to come back out. As she squeezed through her latest hole, I would retrieve tent pegs and a hammer. She would watch me seal the hole and then go in the pen and inspect the work.

Once, while performing this weekly game, I put Katie back in the pen and tried to convince her to come back out. She wouldn’t do it. I offered her all of the irresistible treats I could think of—a walk, a ball, meat. She really wanted to play with the ball and I could see she was weighing the options. Finally, she gave in and started nosing under a portion of fence. I squatted down and stared. I could not imagine how she had squeezed her 40 pounds through that hole, but I also knew she could be very determined. I pulled out the tent pegs and hammer. After I sealed the hole, I headed over to the gate to let Katie out as promised. I didn’t have to. She was sitting right behind me. She had duped me into fixing a non-hole while she sneaked out the real escape. I hate being outwitted by dogs.

There are many other Katie stories in which she demonstrated her analytical abilities, some even more than this one. And if you’ve ever read Gary Paulsen’s book, My Life in Dog Years, you know that even this level of thinking is not that impressive in the world of dogs. I only cite this as an example of thinking without words.

Don’t get me wrong; I love words. It’s just that sometimes they are inadequate.

I find myself in wordless thinking most often at night after my wife, Marcy, has gone to sleep. I can’t help it. I’ll be lying there looking at her; moonlight will filter through our seventy-year old single-pane window to end at her face. It is hard to relay here what I think during those moments, because they are deeper ideas, understandings, and emotions than I can express.

Sometimes I think I get close to understanding her, and other times I wish I could. Sometimes I want to get inside her head and just sit there, listening, because every time she has vocalized her thoughts to me, they have been fascinating. Her ideas, syntheses, calculus, and interests are uncommon and distinctive and superior. I fear losing her in some boiling tragedy, but safe in the idea that she would never choose to leave; I feel rich just to know her, let alone be married to her.

Often I meet weird, bizarre, unfortunate, complaining women of ugly character and I turn to my wife and tell her how grateful I am to be married to her. But, sometimes I meet wonderful, intelligent, clever, creative women and I am still struck by the gratitude I have for Marcy. She is so unique and remarkable as a person and so fulfilling as a wife and friend that no one else can compare with her and it makes it difficult to formulate entire syntactic thoughts about her. It seems that all the best words could only make a shell around her and still not explore the depths of her personality and character.

As Clara Grace left infancy and moved towards toddler-hood, it was interesting to watch the progression of thinking without words into the expression of those thoughts. For her, mostly, it was frustrating. To know what she wanted to express but be unable to express it was maddening for her and sometimes exasperating for us as parents. As her vocabulary grew, we would be surprised to hear what she was thinking and when. Sometimes she would wake up in the morning and tell us about the thunderstorm she heard the night before, or the about the fish painted on her wall, or a line from a story that her mommy had told her. One morning, we put her in the high chair and she began retelling the story of “When the Elephant Walks.” Out of context, it was hilarious.

But anyway, Everett has absolutely no words for his thoughts yet. He stares at his mommy for a long time and I know he’s thinking about her. I don’t know what his thoughts are; maybe he’s trying to figure out who this mommy really is, but at the very least I bet they are about safety and welcome and love.

I guess that is how I think about God sometimes. At certain times my thoughts about God are very lucid and theological and doctrinal. At other times I am certain that I will always have a very pedantic knowledge of his character, but I know that I sit in belief and wonder and love and welcome. Although, I don’t always view God as being very safe. A God who is just and is explicit about His expectations cannot be entirely safe, but a God who is love and offers infinite grace and is explicit about His expectations cannot be entirely dangerous either.

One thing I know, though, is that my mind and my vocabulary are too small to portray these thoughts adequately. All I can think of is how Everett must feel.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Religion?

“Height?”

“Five five and a half”

A nurse was asking my wife questions from a survey while we were in the hospital.

“Allergies?”

“Cats and dust.”

“Religion?”

Here my wife paused and then made a strange sound. The noise began when the breath she was holding released. It was a guttural, phlegmy “ch” that sounded a little German, maybe…or perhaps from the Hebrew alphabet.

The nurse looked up and raised her eyebrows.

I knew what Marcy was thinking: how do you answer that question in one word?

“Evangelical Christian,” Marcy said tentatively, as if she were taking a guess on Jeopardy.

The nurse looked at an implausibly long checklist of religions. “Evangelical Christian” wasn’t on it. She marked “Christian”.

I suppose for the purpose of a medical checklist, that was sufficient.

When it comes right down to it, “Christian” is the right answer, but that word is so destroyed that it holds absolutely no meaning anymore. It seems that a whole lot of people call themselves “Christian”, but not everyone knows what it means. C. S. Lewis noted this destruction of words by citing the word “gentleman” as an example. A gentleman—as the word originally meant—was a landowner. By hearing someone referenced as a gentleman, you would know something about that person. But then people started applying the word gentleman to non-landowners, implying that some people acted in a certain way even if they did not own land. This broadened and then changed the connotative definition. Now, not all landowners are gentlemen, and not all gentlemen are landowners. The word has lost its meaning.

“Christian” meant “Christ-like” and “follower of Christ”.

So on a checklist, how do you say, “I’m a Christian, but I’m the kind of Christian who believes in God who created Heaven and Earth (both of which I believe actually exist) and mankind in his image, although we fell into sin in Adam and are now sinful both by nature and choice, but I also believe in God’s only Son, Jesus, who is both true God and true man and came to pay for our sins so that if we choose Him in faith we spend eternity with Him in Heaven and not in Hell with the devil (both of which I also believe exists) and I am currently active and not passive as a follower of Christ.”

“And more than that, I know God as one who exercise kindness, love, justice, mercy, and grace on earth, for it’s in these things He delights.”

Turn to Checklist 3B-Form 2 for questions about the Holy Spirit and Checklist 5A-Form 7 for questions about baptism.