Papers in College

I smell like the giant fryer I've spent too long near tonight. I take a quick shower, just enough to knock the smell down, before I go to bed. Aunt Nancy is already in bed, which would make now an ideal time to write, but it is after two and I have been running since early in the morning. I can tell I am not as sharp as I need to be to do a good job.

I grab the book on poetry, a collection from dozens of dead poets, and go into my bedroom and close the door. The Second Coming, that is an interesting name. It is by Yeats, which is not great, but not as bad as Keats or Tennyson. I read it slowly as the darkness of sleep begins to wash over me.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I force myself to make it to the end. I need to know this poem if my night is going to be productive. I force my eyes to stay on the page. I won't be lulled into the sound of the ticking clock.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I close my eyes and in the dark ask the questions? What is it about? What are the key words? Images? A beast in Bethlehem, the sphinx, blood drowning the innocent. Perhaps the use of gyre is... Then I'm in.

I'm standing back in the living room, it is similar to the one I passed through, but it is ever so slightly off. The picture of George Bush and the Pope are missing. There is no clutter or distracting things. This is my dream version of this place, the place I know I am dreaming, but won't awaken. I sit the the chair, the poem on my left and a yellow pad on the right. I scribble ideas about all this great imagery and war about the church of life and how war both reminds you of history and how it seems to knock the cosmos into disarray.

I take those ideas and write an outline and then a paper. I fill page after page with writing, I read it, then retread it. I need to make sure it is good because I don't want to have to do much editing in the morning. I find ways to make who ever is reading this think, ways to make the poem shine.

I write until the alarm in my room goes off. The book of poetry is still beside me where I left it, where I fell asleep. I get up quickly, still chewing on the paragraphs I wrote in my sleep and make coffee. I fire up by Brother word processor and type they paper from beginning to end, with nearly no changes. I worry just briefly they my thought was foggy in my sleep, by When I print it and read it, there is nothing I would change. I wouldn't have time anyway.

By seven I am in the parking lot of Western Michigan University and on my way to class. There us another long day ahead, but one less paper to write.

Old and New

The drum beat filled the air, the sound of a snare with a two hundred year old design. It is a snare meant to sound like the one which would be used to relay orders from General Washington's lips. The drum kept playing when even the wind was silent.

The parade had gone well, the Plymouth Fife and Drum Corp even split and came together with a little flourish at the median which divined the route through Tecumseh. More importantly, the heat, which accumulates in their red and blue wool uniforms, did not cause any of them to fall out. Now it was just the wreath laying ceremony, which I'm told was were we lost four last year and seven the year before. I start my time focused more on the kids, especially mine, and less on the wreaths.

That attention, though, shifted when it is clear the kids are ok and they are involved in something important.

The PFDC dresses as George Washington's personal lifeguards, his personal detachment. They look like some of the very first Americans who fought to become Americans. Some of the very first who died trying to become Americans. In uniform, the hat and coat, vest and breeches, neck stock and old man shoes, as Savannah calls them, they are not to smile. The emulate the stern expression you associate with the commander himself. As much as this might mean to them, it means more to the servicemen who are there. They see a connection the kids do not.

I watch from behind a light grey headstone in the cemetery marked Vietnam, 1959-1975. The speaking has stopped but the drum marks time for the soldiers laying wreaths. The crowd parts and I see the ones who will honor those who died in this war. On one side is a man, who the speaker has just told us served and received medals of honor in Vietnam. He places this wreath for the friends he lost there. He is an old man honoring a new war. Beside him is a girl from the Corp, she is probably 15 or 16, a drummer, which I only know because her harness shows white on her blue jacket. It is hard for her to honor the men who died in Vietnam because she doesn't know much about it, but she honors the man beside her.

Friendship of Giants

Fredrick, who was not normally prone to tears, with watery vision made his way to the mantel to stop the clock, marking the time of his father's death. His mother was broken, which broke him, too. It was 8:08 In the morning on the 23rd day of July, 1885. The last few years had been a whirl of activity, like a play. A tragedy.

The man sat heavily in the chair and looked at the hands of the clock he had just stopped. This sadness began in 1879 when his father sought a third run for the white house. To the public he, as always, had remained quiet about, but the family knew how much he wanted the job. He had even structured a trip around the world to coincide with his nomination. Unfortunately, it was James Garfield who won the nomination and the trip had been so costly. In spite of his financial suffering, the man's father campaigned for Garfield with a smile, as always. His smile covered the dread of what had happened to his wealth. Would the American people let their hero, General Grant, and his wife Julia, who lay over the body of her husband, become destitute?

At first, it seemed they wouldn't, at least not Ferdinand Ward. He presented an investment opportunity, which using the name of the man's famous father gained quick momentum. The Grant's returned to the wealth they had, had before the trip. It seemed they were saved.

1884 was the worst years of Fredrick's life. It was the year the grant's learned that Ward had swindled them, the whole investment business had been a scheme. He had used the name of the former president to gather additional investors, then he fled. The Grant's were very nearly broke. Additionally, the General's long habit of cigar smoking had caught up with him. He was diagnosed, without ceremony, with throat cancer, a disease which would kill him. Had killed him.

For the last few years Ulysses had built what might be one of the strangest friendships of all time. This tall, thin, Connecticut writer had served two weeks in the Confederate army, before resigning and moving to Nevada, where he didn't need to see the hardships of war. Grant on the other hand had become perhaps the most famous war hero in the states. The writer, Samuel, enjoyed talk as much as the general enjoyed quiet. While one was humble, the other boasted. When Grant would set back and observe, Samuel jumped in. Grant was not prone to hero worship, but he genuinely liked this man, he seemed to wear his fame so well.

It had not been that long ago when it had been Samuel who had been in a financially tight situation and Grant, with his influence, had helped him out. So, when things started to look bleak for the former president, Samuel told him to do, what he knew would be easy income, write his memoirs. At first, this suggestion was dismissed, but now, with so little time left, what choice did he have?

Fredrick remembered sessions when his dad had given 9000 words to the stenographer, never correcting or repeating. Showing strength in the shadow of death, while the clock was ticking. Samuel had been away most of this time, his new book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, releasing first in England then, in 1885 in the United States. It was a good read, but coarse. In fact, there had been news that several libraries had opted not to pick it up, one even called it trash. Fredrick, though, couldn't help but like the book because he knew the man behind it.

Samuel Clemens reviewed and made notes on one, and only one, other author's work. That author was Ulysses S. Grant. He cared so much for this man, he was willing to do for him, what he would not for any others. Truth be told, though, he didn't make many comments. He stated that his writing, even from his deathbed, was so straight forward and clear it was very nearly perfect.

His heroism did not end as an editor though. When the book was very nearly done, Grant sought a contract and when to a publishing house he felt some loyalty to and the offered him a standard 10%. Fredrick remembered Samuel coming for one of his personal visits and how he had argued with his blanket covered father. With his usual thoughtful, but ragged voice, his father had explained that his company had help him, so he thought he owed them. Samuel, arms flapping and pacing back and forth yelled, "If you owe any one for their help, you owe me. I gave you the idea in the first place."

With his persuasive style Samuel won and struck an agreement to publish the two volume set himself. Instead of 10% he wrote a contract to pay 75% of the profit to the author, his friend. 300,000 copies of the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant sold and, as a result of Samuel's debate with the dying Grant, Julia Grant received a check for $450,000.

Work in Progress

It was ninth or tenth grade. I know because I walked home from the bus, which dropped me off from High School alone, because Justin was still in middle school, which got out nearly an hour later. For the first block of the walk, I talked to Scott and Tim, but they turned down their street and I continued on.

It was a beautiful day. The sun lit the sidewalk in front of me, the cut lawns and new flower boxes. I could see the park, which was a house and a small creek over, but I could hear people listening to a radio there. The temperature of the air was right at that point where the breeze cools you from the sun, refreshing and revitalizing, then the sun heats you from the chill the the breeze. You could enjoy every movement of the air, every patch of shade. That rare sweet spot.

I walked quickly, though, not enjoying these things in the way I should. My tennis shoes patted the pavement in the rhythm of a power walk. In a habit I still have today, my key was already in my hand, my mind thinking about its use.

I took a right by the green house, where just a couple years ago I babysat for a boy and a girl, and began down my street. I was disappointed by what I say. My grandfather's truck was in front of our house.

I loved my grandfather, but he was never the same after my grandmother died. She must have tempered him. With her gone, I remember him as unhappy, even cranky and always a little disappointed. I remember complaints and criticisms. It is hard for me to equate that man, with the man who let Justin and I ride the lawnmower around his backyard.

These things take over the thoughts I had, had just moments before. Thoughts about what I would do with the run of the house to myself. My mom and dad were both at work and Justin wouldn't be home for a half hour. I imagined myself watching TV, which normally didn't come on until seven or eight or playing a computer game. I had homework, of course, but if I did it at all, it wouldn't be during this prime time. That dream, though, was washed away by that truck. He'd ask me for a cup of coffee, then once I was out there he'd want to talk and my time would drain away.

Maybe, just maybe, though, I could sneak into the house. When I rounded the corner I stayed close to the wall, playing the angle between the back of our house and the half of our garage which had become his workshop. If he didn't wonder out too far, and I didn't stray into the driveway, I might just make it. When I got to the door, I opened it slowly. Quietly. I didn't let the door slam behind me. I was in.

I had the place to myself for an hour. I don't know what all I did, but it was exactly what I wanted to do.

My brother was the first one home. When I heard him, I knew my time was up. So, feeling a little bad for dodging my grandfather, I opened the sliding door and walked in the backyard. I didn't see my grandfather at first,but I could hear him, very lightly, strangely calling. I looked out back, then in the shop, then down.

He was in a semi-fetal position clutching the leg of table saw with one hand and making a fist with the other. He had tried to right himself, but he didn't have the strength. I asked if he was OK, if he needed help. I fumbled with my words, while my stomach became a painful pit. I hid, while he lay on the concrete floor needing me.

My brother called 911 while I stayed with him. I wasn't going to leave him now. I think my mom arrived before the ambulance. During that time I learned he had been there for five hours, he had only been there a few minutes before he lost control of some of his muscles and he hadn't been trying to right himself, but hide the cigarettes, which were in that clinched fist, before anyone found him with them. As far as we knew, he had quit smoking. This was his dirty secret. The stroke, though, kept him from getting far enough back to drop them into the dark and he couldn't let go of crumbled red and white package. Broken and exposed.

When he had gone to the hospital, I told my mom and dad I didn't know he was there. That I just came into the house, but hadn't heard him. I excused and rationalized with my mouth, trying to find that thing which would cover the conviction I felt. I wanted someone to lift the weight of my selfishness from my neck. Everyone told me that I wasn't to blame, things happened, he had been there for a long time, but I had robbed their comfort of value, but trying to protect myself. For everything they said, I thought about how I had snuck into the house, intentionally avoided him. At the same time his stroke exposed his shame to the world, I hid mine, and suffered alone.

Prayer for Shelly on her Birthday

Almighty God, it is impossible for me to adequately express your greatness, goodness and love. In your sovereignty, from your throne in heaven, you crafted every aspect of my life. You made it so when the time was right I would need to find employment, a time when Arby's was hiring, and you in your foresight placed me their. You didn't leave me to flounder, you placed me working side by side with my future wife. So, many things I could not fathom then, but you did, Lord. You were blessing me in ways I wasn't asking, before I could see it, at a time when I couldn't even thank you. You loved me in ways that are unimaginable. The years to us were as a blink in your eye, as you brought your plan to fruition. You looked after me, sought my joy and peace, even as I was disobedient.

At the time when you were structuring my life, you also held your loving hand to Shelly. Looking after her even before she knew you. In the same way you drew me, you drew her, draped her with your mercy. You called her to Kalamazoo where, just as you planned, she would not only find me, but she would find you. The gift of the Holy Spirit was greater than we were capable of understand. An intimate bond with each other, and you. The promise of a cord of three.

Yet, in the light of your righteousness, with knowledge of the blessings you have poured out on me, I fail so often. You have instructed me to love my wife in the way Christ loved the church, but he was selfless, while I am selfish. He sacrificed his very life, while I begrudge minutes I don't deem as useful. He had unneeded humility, while I have unmerited pride. Have mercy on me. When you inspired Paul to write that love is patient and kind, you knew how hard this would be for me. Forgive me for trampling on the opportunities you give me love, by replacing it with annoyance. I feel like a spoiled child. These thing intrude on the relationship I have with you, my wife, my family and friends.

You haven't, though, lifted you hand from me, even in my sin, and I am thankful. My wife continues to be the greatest gift you have given me, teaching me love and insight and, in your humor, humility. I see her love for you grow everyday, and I am inspired. I recognize the way you draw us, both separately and together, to you and I stand amazed. You have blessed us with four healthy children, who are learning to love you and a home to keep them in and a job to pay for the home. You gave drawn Shelly's father to you late in life, giving them a relationship which would be impossible without you. You give in such great abundance. The relationships which nestle us and keep us may be human hands, but it is your heart we see. Our friends and family who love you. The church family, which we miss when we are gone and desire to spend time with. The work you have for us is hard God, but I am so thankful for those you gave us to do that work with.

You have provided so much, it is hard for me to think of anything to request of you for me. If it be your will, allow my wife to enjoy her birthday, let her see your love in everything around her and protect her. If it be your will, begin to work on those family members who either don't believe in you, or have no time for you. Allow us to be used by you. Shape me to be a better husband and father, let me get better at love. You have given my wife the desire for me to be a Godly man, give me the wisdom and strength to continually live up to that desire.

I call to you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Fistulated

I started long before we got to the island, asking the other passengers in the Flex, as we drove between the bridge and Whitefish Point, if they knew what a fistula was. It was the consensus that it sounded dirty, but they didn't, as most people don't, know what it was. A fistula, is an abnormal hole in the body. The most common place you might have seen this is with the fistulated cows on Dirty Jobs. It is hard to get the image of Mike Rowe making faces as he feels around the stomach of a cow, out of your mind. Gross, but cool.

The reason I ask my car though, outside of the fun of trivia combined with the gross, is because one of my favorite medical stories is of a fistula on Mackinac Island, where we will go after we are done at the shipwreck museum. A hole in the stomach of a man.

In 1822, Alexis St. Martin has an accident while he is working as a fur trader on Mackinac Island, long before fudge was the island's claim to fame. This was an island of Native Americans, John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and a military fort, which had been returned to the Americans at the end of the War of 1812, This accident was a gunshot to the abdomen and ribs, which they expected to kill him. It would have, if not for the skilled Military Surgeon, William Beaumont. His healing, though, was unusual and left a hole between his stomach and the outside world, covered by a flap of skin.

For the next eleven years, Beaumont ran experiments on St. Martin, who became progressively more unhappy with being a guinea pig. It was hard for this young man to lay still as the doctor pushed beef, eggs and other food into his stomach on strings, so he could withdraw them seeing how long they took to digest. At times St. Martin would go missing, but he always returned. Sometimes the things dropped into him made him nauseous or get a fever.

The whole world gained from this knowledge, producing a foundation of most of what we know about digestion, but St. Martin and his family paid the price. Their was a price for this miracle, he was saved, but then enslaved to medicine. When he died, at 81 years old, his family let him decomposed before burying him, for fear a medicine man would resurrect him.

I remember building on the island, which had a famous painting on these experiments, plaques giving details and a host to answer questions, but we didn't find it. A few notes at the fort was all, but it didn't have the punch I remembered. Nothing to give you thoughts about the complex relationship between the brilliant doctor, who sometimes hurt his patient and the reluctant patient, who took eleven years to get away. An odd partnership.

Guest Post: My Hands by Justin Smith

If you did take the failings from my hands
Perhaps a good man I could claim to be
But no, that would not be nearly enough
My failings gone, I’ve nothing left for thee

No offering but failure do I have
No other gift to give but sin and shame
No good to call my own to you I bring
Nothing of mine to give you but my blame

And so if righteous I am meant to be
That righteousness must come from you alone
My heart alone will ne’er chase what it ought
My hands can work no good thing of their own

So cause my mind to ever hold your word
To know that you are God and to be still
And cause my heart to only seek your ways
And cause my hands to only serve your will

5 minute break

The day before a long weekend and I'm wedging everything in I can. Reclaimed five minutes by canceling an hour meeting. Five minute to write this. It is a good day, only a couple unanswered e-mails, thing I'll handle before I go. The boss stopped by before her meeting with her boss. She's happy, which means I'm happy. We are getting recognition for our improvement for data quality, being asked to do process improvements to three partner areas, running at three day, work that last year was at eleven days. My staff is pressed, but successful. Successful and they know it.

Only now, with less than two hours of my day left, has my mind started to wonder to Mackinaw, where I will spend the weekend with friends. I am satisfied that even if I take the work with me, in my mind, it won't be a burden.

Why I log

On my walk with Reuben today, we enjoyed great weather and good conversation. The temperature is just below sixty, with sun and breeze. The kind of walking environment where you don't comeback sweaty and you don't need a coat. Perfect for a brisk pace out of the lot and along Evergreen. Today we talked about one of my favorite things, getting things done and specifically about logging.

This is one of those things people don't understand. Many people don't know that I log and many of those that know I do, don't know why. They conceive of doing it themselves and conclude it is a waste of time, or frustrating, or silly. Some might think it is too OCD for them, but figure that explains why I would do it.

Reuben and I have talked about logging before, but he is struggling with the time it takes to document what it is you are doing and when you do it. Putting the start time down and the activity before he starts doing it is draining to him. Too much time. It seems like waste.

So, we talk about blood pressure cuffs, and invention which proceeded all the preventions we have for high blood pressure. In the breeze of the day, we talk about how the cuff doesn't cause or prevent high blood pressure, but it let's you see, in the moment, what is going on. We talk about how log is part blood pressure cuff, it doesn't have to make you more or less efficient, but it will show you the time you are wasting in your day. It highlights what you are actually prioritizing with your time.

If you log after your activities the usefulness of a log ends there, but it doesn't have to. Simply having a record of your distractions is not going to make you a better employee, father or husband. It might show why you didn't get your bible reading done, but won't do anything to help.

We talk, Reuben and I, about shifting from catching problems after the fact to preventing them before they happen. Better than rework is doing it right the first time. We talk about logging each item before you start, how it becomes like staking out that time for specific purpose. Controlling the day, rather than letting the day control you.

This is why I log. If left to my own devices I will wonder from thing to thing, but not get the things done I need to get done. Before I started logging I was a good,hard working, but inefficient employee. I wasn't completing things, my email was a struggle to keep on top of, or it would swallow a whole day. The items on my to do list, a tool I used before logging, kept getting pushed back. Something happens though, when you write 8:00 Morning Reports. You devote that time to the reports you need to get done. Off the to do list. 9:00 inbox Zero. You work until you gave no e-mail unaddressed. I could see the success. I could do more in the same amount of time.

Admittedly, I am probably the odd one. I have a couple accountability partners who both recognize the value of logging, but struggle to keep with it. Can't quite form the habit. Reuben will be on his forth attempt at it tomorrow. I have logged every workday, and a good number of weekends, for more than a year and I love it, or rather love what it produces.

Church Family

I suddenly realize, I don't hear the women talking upstairs anymore. I lower the headphones just to be sure, and they have in fact left. The Thirty One party was over long ago, but my wife and Karen and Kim, stayed upstairs and talked, and talked and talked. My headphones are loud enough I am accused of shouting when I where them, but they have not been loud enough to drown out their laughter. Laughter which, in it's absence means my wife will be down shortly, asking if I am ready for bed.

Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes pass and there is no call to bed. I tell Steve, who I have been playing Minecraft and talking about Orcs in the Boardroom with, to hold on, while I go investigate.

I climb the stairs listening. I hear muffled voices from the front of the house. I walk to the front and look with a face that questions why they would get up from the kitchen to keep talking in the front yard. They wave, not understanding or caring about my quandary. I playfully close the door, but I get it. This is family you don't want to say good bye to.

Shana and Anthony's wedding was great, but not in the way you might be thinking. It was hilarious the way Ryan crossed the reception hall, in the first few notes of YMCA, then proceeded to give his whole body over to the music, every beat giving him a new convulsion or arm posture, but this is not what made it great. The ham cooked in pineapple and cherries, beside the perfectly boasted chicken, was fantastic and only helped a meal I started with chocolate truffles and ended in cake, but this was not what made the wedding great.

At my table was my wife and kids and my mom, all my family of course, but my family didn't stop there. At the next table over are Jeff, Jim and Josh with their wives. The bride and groom have grown up with us, Their parents, Jim and Sheila and Ralph I can see at the table beside the head table. At a table behind me are Tim and Drew and their parents, Rose and Les. In the corner are the Noble girls and Josh T and Nathan. His mom, Eileen, will drag him, begrudgingly to the photo booth later on in the night. All of them and more, are family.

When I look table to table, I don't just see people I know, but people I love, people I will spend eternity with, people who are, like me, children of God. These, all of them, are my brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. This is the reason I tease, but understand my wife and Kim not wanting to end the conversation. This is the reason the wedding was great. It wasn't just a celebration for the bride and groom, but a celebration of God and good of an extended family he gives us.

Making

My grandfathers, both of them, were men of hands. They made and fixed things on their own. Sure, they had specialties, but their default position was trying to do it themselves.

My mom's dad kept a huge garden, seeming endless rows of had planted and watered vegetables. Corn, green peppers, tomatoes and squash. Even as he got older and the work become more difficult, this craft he tried to hold onto. When he wasn't in the garden, he was in the wood shop, using bandsaws and routers, scroll saws and sanders to make wooden toys and shelves, letter candlesticks and cabinets. He was always making something.

His counterpart, my Dad's dad, in all the ways he was different, was also a maker. He didn't have the same amount of space, but he made incredible use of his yard, causing it to produce the vegetables he loved. He did all the car work himself, in the days before every car had a computer. He even helped me buy and replace the engine of my first car. Additionally, he built most of his house, taking the small house he purchased and expanding it for his family. I think he could do electrical, plumbing, construction and finishing. If it could be done with your hands, I'm pretty sure he could do it.

Something changed across my Dad's generation. I don't know if it was money, or specialists or interest or what, but the time of the maker is waned. My dad kept a workshop and did a good amount of the repairs in our house growing up, but it was different. He was capable of doing many of the same things, but his interests were spent elsewhere. He read and played with computers, collected knives and records, watched TV and called professionals, when needed. Of course, he had pride the the work he did, his tools, his skills as an electrician, but it was different.

I have never kept a garden in my back yards, in fact, I'm not even very good at keeping the grass cut. The only garden's I have kept are in FarmVille or Minecraft. This is kind of the symbol for the kind of maker I gave become. I've made electronic fish and decryption algorithms, I've done a little bit of writing, but rarely on paper anymore. The homes and chairs and shelves I've built exist can't hold a real book because they are made of 1s and 0s.

My tools may be pathetic and my creations virtual, because I am not a maker. But, I understand why my ancestors were. Of course there is the function of the things they were making, but that is only a part. You don't make little wooden toys for the function, you make them for the joy of the child who received them, for the parent that is impressed you made it, for the artistry.

I could learn how to do many of the things which can be done around the house, or in a woodshop or garden, but this is not where my friends are. Most of them, like me are I virtual space, I know them face to face, but we are not in each others houses. We are, though, in each others games, blogs, Facebook pages. So, I craft a power plant out of obsidian and glass in Minecraft, I create challenges and story for my Saturday night gaming group and I type a few words on this blog. When someone admires my work, it is like tasting sugar in the air, not the pure confections of my grandfathers, but sweet with maker-nostalgia.

Plumber's Blue

The short, swarthy plumber was exhausted. He sat heavily on the curb beside the street, he hadn't eaten anything but mushrooms all day and his long sleeve red shirt was much too hot for the afternoon sun. Hot, hungry, tired and heart sore.

He half moved, half dropped his left hand to the hammer beside him. Closing his hand around the hammer while he closed his eyes, lest some hoodlum try to steal it. He placed his other hand over his dark mustache and then to his cheek, so he could rest the weight of his head on it.

At first he just listened to his breath, long and deep. Then his mind wondered, to the Ghost Hunters, why couldn't he have it like than, plumbers by day and TV celebrity, ghost hunters at night. That would be a dream. A big black van, instead of a super-up go kart to go place to place. Sure, it would have been fine when all he had to worry about was being the referee for a Heavyweight match, something he did when he was younger, but where do you put pipe dope and wrenches in a one seat, kiddie car.

He supposed this wasn't the worst he had it, but it sure seemed close. Peach? Why had she given him the wrong address?

He wiped his face before anyone saw the tears and opened his eyes. Looking for something to take his mind off of her. A construction truck spewed exhaust and wobbled left and right down the street until turning into the site a block down. He could see the girders and scaffolding, but he thought about the girl of his dreams. It he been at a site, not much different than that one when he had fully committed himself to her.

No one really explained how the ape got loose from the zoo, or why he acted like King Kong, grabbing a woman in a dress and dragging her to the top of the building, but he did. Luigi, the plumber's brother wanted to leave the site. "We're here to get the pluming between the studs before the construction is complete, not tangle with some pissed off monkey.". He had said. It was like he knew about the barrels of nails, or the fire, or worse the aloof attitude of the girl. Peach. He knew better but he couldn't get her out if his mind.

The plumber picked a little piece of turtle goo out of the tread of his shoe. Why had he bothered? It was not like she called him. But... She was perfect. Her dress and gloves, the little crown that had everyone calling her Princess.

When the call came he came running, leaving the job site and going the castle he had been told she was in. He could lose his job for that, but she was worth it, wasn't she. He risked everything. Then, at the end, when he imagined an embrace and a kiss, when he would be the hero the proved himself, become the night in shining armor, a servant wondered in, like she had he instructed him to. He had looked up at the plumber, who thought he gad won, and said, "Your Princess is in another castle."

If this was love, he wanted nothing to do with it.

Rescuing Sylvester

The black and white cat, our cat, looked down on us from the roof of our house. She paced from the old green shingles at the front of the house to the newer black shingles, the ones that came with the addition, at the back of the house. When we pulled into the driveway, she looked down at us and gave a weak meow.

We looked up at her for just a moment before walking into the house. My dad said something along the line of, if she got up there she can get down. At face value, this seemed to make sense, but I thought about the things I broke and couldn't fix and crossing the point of no return. What if Sylvester jumped down there from a branch she couldn't get back up to?

I looked out the sliding glass door in the back of the house, letting the thoughts build, until I needed to move. I stepped into the back yard and called up to her. In a few moments, she came to the edge, nearly twenty feet above me. She was missing the crazy energy she had as I chased her through the house and then let her chase me. Running in circles until her eyes looked crazed. Above me, I imagined she was loosing strength. How long had she been out? Would she try to jump down from there? Would she get hurt? Die?

I couldn't let my cat die while I played Frogger.

Beside the house lay the long ladder, which years ago I had used to climb up there to help with the shingling. The ladder, which I imagined, a fireman could use to carry a child from smoke clogged air, or more appropriately rescue a cat from a tree. Meow. The cat was watching me, telling me she was unhappy and knew I was coming to her rescue.

I lay the ladder flat, and extended it with the clank, clank, clank of the hook catching the rungs. Once I get it to nearly its full length, I positioned it beside the house. It was my one and only piece of equipment. I tried it, made sure it didn't wobble, tried wiggling on it, and built my confidence.

I didn't need a big jacket or leather gloves like a fireman. My tee shirt and jeans would do.

In just a few moments I was eye level with the bottom level of shingles. The cat had wondered elsewhere. For a moment, I imagined she had found her way down but then she crested the peak of the house. I could see unhappiness in everything about the way she carried herself. I held out my arms to her and she stayed just out of reach. Cats.

I climbed one more step on the ladder and at first she moved back, I was not going to chase her around the roof. I even hated the thought of leaving the ladder to get on the roof, it was the one part of roof work that made me nervous. Fortunately, I didn't have to.

She moved close enough and I grabbed her tightly, holding her to me chest with my left hand. There are a few facts, which suddenly became very relevant. My shirt was thin and Sylvester was not declawed. She, as a rule did not like to be held anyway, and holding her tight, caused her to tense. Also, as she could now see the drop below us, she was painfully doing her part to hold on.

It hurt, but I considered the pain for a moment and decided I could go down with her anyway. It took my one step to change my mind. As unhappy as I imagined her stranded on the roof, it was no where near as unhappy as she was when she thought we were falling because I took the first step. She tried to climb my body like a tree. Digging and pushing, willing to use my face, if she needed to, to get back to the safety of the roof. Her claws made it to my throat.

I climbed down, bloody and defeated. Having returned the cat to the roof, before descending alone from the height if the ladder. An hour later, the cat was at the door ready to come in. As it turned out, she could find her way down, just not before testing my loyalty.

Praying

One friend closes his eyes, but as he runs through the list of thing he planned to pray for, they don't feel like they get very far. The sound swims around him in the empty room, but he can't tell if they escape up to God. He feels so distant, if he is there at all he thinks. He wishes he desired to pray, but it is a sense of obligation that has him here. He feels like he is fighting for his faith, but it is a fight he doesn't know how to make. A war he can't wage. The doubts he can't shed seem to hold God at a distance.

Miles away, a second friend shares his prayer list with me. We pray for people from lives, our churches, our struggles. It is a powerful exercise, but it reveals our weaknesses. He wants his prayer life to flourish, the failings nag him. It isn't doubt, but desire and distraction which holds him back. He wants to more greatly want spiritual things, be committed when no one is watching. Learn to pray in earnest. His prayer request is so earnest, so relatable it is hard not to downplay it as common.

My prayer life sometimes seems so weak, it is dangerously close to well wishing, I read the list and consider the items. I spend long enough to let them filter into my mind before I move to the next item. I hope God is in there somewhere, but it doesn't feel like I am laying these things at this feet. It feels more expedient, than faithful. No real consideration of God. You can't do this for long without arriving in a desert.

The prayer life I love, the prayer life I need, though, is quite a bit different. I close my eyes and let my mind consider the awesomeness of God. Being at the feet of the creator of the universe. Unlimited power combined with a sacrificial love for me. The personal relationship I have with the overseer of everything, the Sovereign of the universe. It is hard not just to devote the time in his presence to adoration.

Just when you have fully embraced and acknowledge the amazing nature of it all, you consider the blessings you have been given. The wife and children, granted by God. The house and job. Even living in a country of so much privilege. The thankfulness for blessings which have been crafted through my grandparents and their grandparents. The truth I received because decades ago someone told the pastor, who would tell me, about Jesus. There is no end to the number of things to be thankful for. Thankfulness offered in the throne room of God, the Holy of Holies.

When it comes to the requests they seem so small. Asking for health to God, who gives all life. Asking for financial stability, to one who can speak into existence streets of gold. Patience from one who has dealt with the foolishness of mankind. Wisdom, for a people whose brightest minds, are intellectual twinkles by comparison. These requests are requests for drops of water from an ocean of abundance. I don't dare limit God with my own stipulation.

I ask the God's will be done and enjoy the lush bounty he provides.

Notes of History

Yesterday, sometime after walking into the house from work, but before Shelly and I left for dinner, I looked at the piano in the living room, an instrument not used nearly as much as it should be, out of tune, and considered the history layered upon it. The hands of friends and family, which have drawn out the music there. If it was the anchor of the world, the memories which would be moored there.

I was brought back to the smell of coffee, before I liked coffee, sharp and hot. I can see the thin stoneware cups, with their muted colors. The air is green-blue and hazy. Lit through translucent curtains, draped before the dining room window.

It is too wet to play in the backyard, which tended to be swampy even on dry days. Justin and I had been chasing each other around, from the hallway to to the kitchen to the dining room back into the hallway. We had run in circles, trying to get enough distance we could veer off into one of the bedrooms or bathroom, so we could jump out and scare each other. To be fair, this was me scaring Justin, a tradition I share with my kids today. We ran until my parents patients had wore then and we had been threatened with bodily harm if we didn't select some other activity.

Back in the hazy light of the dining room, a Scrabble board sat in the center of the dark wood table. It was the center of my parent's and grandparent's attention, they placed small wooden pieces and scratched out points. My brother and I wore too young to play, but we knew, even then, it would be my Dad or Grandmother who would win. One of them always won.

In the living room sat the piano. It seems so consistent now, the static item around which time passes, the clear item in a blur. The focus.

On the keys of this piano, near what I now know is middle C, are dots of color. My grandmother carefully drew them on, making little circles with the crayons which always seemed to be in the living room. Six clear colors gave these keys an identity, a purpose. Above these keys, around eye level for my five year old self, sat a white piece of paper she had also marked. Little circles of the same colors, but in pattern. Yellow, orange, red, orange, red, red, red. When you pressed the colors in the order of the keys, simple magic happened. I knew how to play piano.

My grandmother not only didn't need colorful dots, but she didn't need music. She played by ear. As I think back, I wonder if was strange for her, to color code the magic she took for granted. I try to draw her from the blur to ask, but I can't. The keys of the piano are now black and white, and it has been a long time since I have used colored dots to capture my grandmother's magic.

Present every member

In my Sunday school class on Sunday, I got through about one third of the lesson I prepared. This was for the best possible reason, which is the class conversation took off and we learned from one another asked questions, considered how we could apply the challenges. It should really come as no surprise, given the passages we are in.

Romans chapter six is this powerful portion of the letter Paul wrote to the believers in Rome. He has spent the first five chapters explaining who they are and what God had done for them. He has told them about the importance, value and necessity of the death and resurrection. Lovely, complex, uplifting and thoughtful insights. We have seen the power of his intellect, felt the full strength of his exhortation. But this chapter is a threshold. Here, Paul builds on the foundation and begins laying out the work to be done.

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. Romans 6:19

My class dwelled for a long time on this verse. Think about it, what does it mean to present a part of you body as a slave to righteousness? It is so easy to mess this up. We look at our eyes and think, if my eyes are a slave to righteousness, I will not look at sinful thing, I will not see controversies for me to jump in, I will not see.... Wrong. Paul already addressed this as a past tense. "once presented your members as slaves to impurity". His charge goes way beyond what we will not do.

The weak view of this is to think righteousness is the simple opposite of impurity, but it is not. It is greater than that. I learned from my class that committed eyes are looking for opportunities to serve, looking to the path God has laid out, looking for patches of ground to lay seeds in. If you are looking with those kind of eyes, impurity is not even on the same spectrum. Let the righteousness you are called to push out the natural impurity, rather than hoping it will fill the vacuum left behind when you try to stop.

What does it mean if you present your mind?

What does it mean if you present your tongue?

What does it mean if you present your hands and feet?

Fiction Friday: The Find (part 2 of 2)

The man carried the twitching, warm paint can, tightly in both hands up stairs. He needed to get it into the light. He couldn't see a hole or even a crack where the creature could have gotten in the dim basement. Part of him knew there was no hole, so he imagined what it could be as he walked. Perhaps a little machine or battery overheating. His son must know. Maybe a joke.

He sat the can on the table. The small circle of mint colored paint on the lid, the color which had been used on the walls of the living room, shown in the sun coming from the sky light. The man's hands were calloused from work and sweating from the heat of the can. He walked around the can, looking for the imperfection he hoped to find. It was solid. Someone must have intentionally put some moving, heated thing in the can.

Young people are crazy, the old man thought thinking about how this generation was surly going to be the death of the world. All their friends seem to be in a computer or a phone. They would be distracted from a person right in front of them for a beeping machine in their pocket. They fight for owls and throw away babies. They didn't care for human contact. They destroyed their own education, language and each other. The old man never saw his an that way, but putting a machine in a bucket certainly showed an equal level of craziness.

He tried the lid, but it was on too tight. So, he lifted the bucket by the handle and took it over to the sink, so the bumping wouldn't knock the can off the table. As he stepped into the garage, he heard the can and steel sink bumping together. The sound started to sound familiar.

The screwdriver was not hard to find, hanging on the wall. Clearly not used very much, the man thought. He grabbed a nice wide, flat head and moved back into the kitchen.

He left the can in the sink, a little concerned the something alive would be inside. He though the sink would help catch what ever it was. He placed his left hand on the top of the can, just as warm as it was before, and placed the end of the screwdriver beside the lid. Slowly, he pried.

The lid loosened and the man used his hand to lift it. Strings of red, mucus, stretched beside the inside of the can and the lid. It made a soft liquid sound as it was removed. The man leaned over and looked down into the can, it took him a long time to figure out what he was seeing.

It was fist sized and pink. No machine or batteries. It was a strong muscle contracting every second or so. The man dropped the screwdriver in the sink. It was a heart. A human heart.

The man was lost in the dark of the can. In his mind he tried to form the questions, but he couldn't. He was stuck. This wasn't trash, this was a heart. He couldn't keep it. He couldn't through it away. If it was dead, he could bury it, but it defiantly beat. It beat his confidence out of him.

He sat heavily on the kitchen footstool. The heart rattled the can against the inside of the sink. Bump, bump. The old man cried.

Orcs in the Boardroom

This game has been floating around in my head for sometime. The idea of combining all that business jargon with images from Tolkien makes me smile. The thought of a group of face painted, heaving orcs struggling with a PowerPoint presentation, laugh out loud. Can you imagine Severance Package? Or an Instillation Wizard? Downsizing?

While these ideas have been swimming into my mind for sometime, the game, as a project, has been on the back burner. All this changed for me this week when at lunch James brought a game he designed for a class project. Then, over the next few days, we talked about tweaks and improvements. It got the game creating juices flowing again. Suddenly, while I'm in the shower, I'm thinking about game mechanics and how to strike that balance between strategy and luck.

So, because I'd love to hear your feed back and maybe one card ideas, here it is.

Orcs in the Boardroom has three decks of cards and uses tokens to mark favor. The first deck of cards is Personnel. You start by getting one of these, this is the person you are trying to make CEO. Each personnel has ranks of Aggressiveness, Diplomacy, Magic, Technology and Thievery. The second deck has Tasks, these are the things you do to gain favor, these change over the course of the game and a certain number of them are always available. The third deck, is the Work deck. The cards in the work deck allow you to hire and fire, do side projects, sabotage your opponents and strengthen yourself. Some of these cost favor, while other can earn you favor. The game is won by either having 50 favor, or 8 staff.

You start a round by drawing a Task from the task deck. If this causes the number of shown Tasks to exceed five, discard one. This is your choice. Next, you can complete tasks or play Work cards, these can be done in any order. An interesting element of this phase is you can make arrangements with other players for them to help you complete tasks, they set the cost, though. So, if you are a little short of the Agressiveness required to complete Corporate Jungle, you might offer to split the favor with the player controlling Bloodspitter the Orc. Once you are done, you allow the other players to complete tasks if they have the resources. They also can wheel and deal with other players to combine forces to complete tasks. At the end of you turn you draw back up to five Work cards.

Synergies, Market Segments, Corporate Audits, win-win and Incent, here we come.

Core Values

In front of me, just the other side of my iPad and covered a little by my lunch box is a paper, a grid of words, with some of the words highlights. Others have a star by them. People walk into my office, but don't glance more than once at this. They don't know what this is, I imagine if they did, they would spend a little more time looking at it.

This grid is a modified version of one I found on-line. A grid I looked up when I became aware of how much time was being spent on unimportant things. I don't mean unimportant to me, I mean unimportant even to the person doing them. Think about thus, many people carve out time for things they don't really believe are valuable, they don't even think it adds value to them, because either they always have or they have let life happen or some other non-reason. Then, a aware, they keep doing them. Why? People haven't connected their activities to their core values.

I know what a couple of you might be thinking, Core values? isn't that sort of psychobabble? It can be, certainly, but you all have core values, those things that you determine your worth by. Faith or family, money or honesty, teamwork or wisdom. These concepts get a value and drives, should drive us, to greater things. Even those generally aware of their core values, can be helped by doing a serious evaluation of them. This grid is a tool to do just that.

It has 172 broad terms for things people commonly identify as core values. Too many to prioritize thoroughly, so when I do it, I start by highlighting in green those items which I thing are my core values. I select 19 of them, most of them not a surprise, sincerity, accomplishment and loyalty are a few. From there I review these 19 and limit it down to a top five or six. Accountability, Faith, Family, Honesty and Satisfying Others.

I use this tool with James, one of my accountability partners, show him my results and we talk about the things I am doing. He asks where I am doing well and where I have dropped the ball, or could use improvement. It becomes a medium for serious evaluation.

When I used this with Reuben, who I walk with, he committed to becoming consistent with his Bible study. When I went through this with Steve, another accountability partner, he got back to running and introduced a weekly bible study to his home, After my review with James, I have started introducing prayer time for Shelly and I, so we can pray as a couple before God.

Feeding Gators

The beast sat on top of a long wooden cabinet. It sat in the middle of the large central room of the welcome center. In a way, this is what we were here for. It was 15 feet long or so. Huge. It had dark green armor, like I imagined a dinosaur would have, it's head was lifted slightly, with it's jaws parted. Justin and I looked at the rows of teeth until Mom and Dad were ready to go.

We walked out of the air conditioned center and into the heat of the day. Instantly oppressive. As we walked back to the car, we learned that there would be a wait before we could take the boat ride, down one if the many waterways through Okefenokee swamp. Som it was decided we would find some place to go have lunch.

After we piled back into the overstuffed car, we drove just long enough to let the hot air inside turn cool, then we pulled up to an area with a couple picnic tables. We were the only family there. We ate the sandwiches out of sandwich bags and drank our juice boxes. This was a treat for the five or six year old, I was. While, we finished off our lunch, Cheez-it's, my brother and I wondered.

Beside the area we ate lunch in there was a hill sloped down, surrounded by bushes and things. Its long graded slope rolled down to the green, muddy water. In the water, peering at the two of us, was a gator.

Now, this gator was no were near as big as the monster in the visitor center, but it was very much alive. It blinked slowly, and pulled its body a little more out of the water. Fascinating. We watched for just a moment, then decided to feed it.

I through a little orange cracker through the air, in the direction of the alligator, but it dropped to the grass half way down the hill. Justin followed suit, his not going quite as far. We took a few steps forward and tried again. It watched us, but had become vary still. I tried to land a cracker on its nose, but I would need to be closer.

A few steps forward. Throw and a miss. A few steps forward. Little by little we approached the alligator. It was fun. Probably not as scary as it should have been.

I landed a cracker right in front of the alligator, but it didn't move. I guess gators don't eat cheesy crackers. It was moments later, telling came from behind us. Apparently, Mom had been looking for us and was really unhappy to find us feed large reptilian wildlife with only our poor sense of danger to protect us. We were not aloud to leave the table for the rest of lunch.