The Beginning of the Fade

We trim the coffee filter, my daughters and I, making long strips out of the round, folded and thin paper. The paper of this filter, and the strips we produce from it are perfect for out experiment. The are foldable, bleached white and the paper is so permeable a single drop of water will sink I to it and expand, moistening a large portions of the filter. Following the instructions from Mr. wizards Supermarket Science, each girl takes a marker and colors a dark dot on one end of the filter strip. Then, I take one of our Mickey saucers, fill it as best as I can with water and place it on the table before us. One by one we dip the unmarked portion of the marked strips in water and lay the marked end on the dry portion of the saucer. Now, we wait.

Over the last few days it seems many people with varying levels of closeness to me have ended their wait. They have, for what ever reason, been removed from the Earth. First was my employees Mother, a woman who, in some ways, she lost twice. Second, came my wife's Aunt Judy, a loss which has been particularly hard on my Father-in-Law. Most recently, one of the women of our church, who I am the deacon for, lost her father. All unrelated, but each a cog in the machine of my thoughts.

First, the water crawls up the strip of paper until it reaches the colored dot. Then it looks like nothing at all happens. Nothing. But, this doesn't last. In a minute or two the dot looks blurry. We step away for a while, because as experiments go, it is not hugely rewarding to sit here an stare. Blurry dots don't make great tales. Anyway, in perhaps a half hour, we return and the scene has completely changed. The markers have all reacted a little differently, but similar in some ways. The dots have become strips of color. One starts true to its color, but then fade to a yellow before disappearing all together. Another stays true to the tint, but fade quickly. Yet another fade across the long strip and finally the color mingles with the water, impacting all the other strips. You have to look hard to determine where the fading ends, living only the color of the filter. it is also hard to make out where the dot originally was, where was the beginning of the fade.

My employee made a comment when she returned to work how she told her son, out of routine, to call his grandmother. He looked at her, not sure what to say. It broke her. It revealed the truth she couldn't accept. In a hospital room, this is that moment when the breathing stops, but it has been so shallow for so long you mind creates phantom breaths. It is the conversation opt the funeral which uses he is, instead of he was. It is seeing you loved one in a crowd, even though they can not be there. You would think this line would me much clearer, but it is as hard as seeing the beginning of the fade.

Not all of this fading line that exists after life is just confusion, some of it is filling the void the vibrant colors of their life. I think of my grandmother and how much she still, so many years later, becomes a topic of conversation when we talk about small churches or play scrabble or see any of her siblings, who still miss and love her. I think of my cousin, who died so young and left such a hole I became friends with people who were her friends just to feel like she is still a part of our lives. These odd bonds are valuable because they are a reminder of that colorful life lost.

What are you going to do with your dash? I have heard at least a few pastors and people quoting pastors excess these sentiment. The idea is a good one, that you had no control over your birth, your stopping point on earth is your death. So, if you are looking on a tombstone, you are somewhere in your own dash. What are you doing with that little time you are allotted? This I think is too limited. The truth is, you don't only get your dash, you also get, to some degree, the fade which follows. You, when you go, will leave a fading trail behind you.

When the experiment was done, we got to talk a little bit about osmoses and why it works. We talked about why the make up of the marked would sometimes cause it to fade a different color. We talked about why some markers seemed to set in where they were, but didn't leave much of a trail. We got rid of the strips and washed the saucer. This was a few years ago now and I wonder if someday they will do this experiment with their own children.

The Pious Few: investigation

Dear Mary,

I admit I have dragged my feet in writing this letter. It is not because I haven't thought of you, for there are times I wonder if my mind can think of anything else. Instead, your face has loomed over everything we have done, found or been charged with. I can't get a new tidbit of information and not immediately wonder what I can tell you without either burdening you or participating in gossip. I feel as a canteen with the stitches stretched to their last.

As I have already revealed, we met the man, the healer or heretic, we were sent here to investigate, although we did not know it at the time. I would tell you, although we shouldn't let is shade us, I liked him quite a bit. In fact, just minutes after making introductions, we witnessed Father Gonsalvas seeming heal the boy we brought.

Mary, I know that this is a wonderful thing, and I am happy for the salvaged life of this boy, but my hopes for a short and simple investigation walked out on the legs of that boy. See, the miracle, if it was a miracle, was not church sanctioned, which puts this otherwise seemingly good man in opposition to the crown. On the other hand, I too have had my problems with the state sanctioned religious regulations and I have not known the one true God to breathe miracles through the mouths of the unfaithful. So, there is a very real possibility, I will be asked to arrest a faithful man doing what the one true God is asking him to do. If it comes to that, I don't know what I will do. I am certain you, who have alway excelled at rightly eloquating, would offer me the council I need.

We spent that day and the next getting settled in and investigating those that had been healed and those that had not. The divide in the community here, is hot and obvious. It is a powder keg caused by what should be celebrated events. The more we look the more the more my mind is muddled, the more I think we are missing something, which we may not find before bloodshed erupts. People of course have been interested in what we are doing and then we watch them flit from door to door, telling people not to talk to us. Our presence, I'm afraid, may have lit a fuse.

One of the items we have found, which I can't believe I am resting my hopes in, is a root extract. Admittedly, when I saw it I was reminded of Dr. Nash's Snake Drawn Nectar, but Doc seemed to take it a bit more seriously. It was found at the site of several of those healed, we know it was used in his anointing rituals and we even found it near the place the boy was healed. Medicine. Perhaps he just has access to a powerful tonic.

Remember during the service for Isaiah's father how I opened my Bible and you said you knew immediately something was wrong. Afterwards, I angrily opened to the page and showed you what I had seen. A child had taken a quill and drawn over the words of the one true God. I shouted something like, you can't use the divine for the common. You don't interrupt the one true God. This was not school parchment. You calmed me. You told me you understood. You told me the One True God gave me grace and I needed to do the same.

Whenever I smell the odor of this Root Extract, I am reminded of that moment and I wonder, when we are done with Weston, if the One True God will still have grace for me.

Your Struggling Husband,
Piermont

Upper Merion High School

We pulled into what would be our home for the next three days, Upper Merion High School in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. It was nice enough, but a bit of a step down from the school we had spent the night before in. The air was not working and the fans they had were not enough to effectively circulate the air. There was a bit of a hike between where we slept and where we ate, which was a nuisance, but not a big deal. Lastly, the gym we slept in had a light, the beacon of despair, which stayed on all night. None of this would keep us from sleeping, or eating well, or just being thankful for what we had.

If there was anything to keep us up, it would be the janitor. Not every janitor, many of them were quite nice and they protected our things and were always quick to let us in. But, there was one who easily could have haunted our thoughts.

In my mind I can see the creases on his face, which swallow the air and darken the room. I can see his fly away hair, which didn't show a general carelessness, but that the burden he carried made such small things as taking care of your hair beneath him. I can see the dark pools of his eyes which looked not at you, but too some faraway place, as he rested his weight on a still mop. A daydream, a nightmare, a truth.

In the evening, in the hallway, as he looked across the lot of us, he said to a few of us, but as if to no one, you know there was a murder here.

When we talked about we laughed. It was a little too much like Mr. Withers in Scooby-Doo telling us he would have got away with it too. Given all that was going on, it seemed unreal. He didn't belong here, and yet here he was, and with a little research we found out he wasn't kidding.

It turned out in the 70's one of the English teachers convinced another, who he was having an affair with, to take out a huge insurance policy and name him the beneficiary. She was found dead and the kids were never found, that is until someone thought to check the school incinerator.

We opted to to tell the kids until we were long gone.

Valley Forge

The trip between the school in Shanksville and Valley Forge was fairly uneventful. Well, it should have been uneventful. We were scheduled to brake down our beds, pack the truck and our cars, loaded ourselves and kids up and with just a few Pee and Flees and a lunch, we would be there there, This all went fine until a little before lunch when Brian made it clear on the CB there was something wrong with the truck.

We pulled over into a shopping mall parking lot and all the men who wanted to seem useful stood looking at the side of the truck with their arms crossed. Quiet contemplation. Brain, the one who drove the truck, who was less contemplative, but decidedly more useful, got under the truck and could see one of the inside tires had blown and the second tire beside it was stressed, So, he hopped on the phone seeing what the nearby tire places could do and the Corp, lead by Gayl, did one of the things it seems to do best, adjusted.

It was going to take a couple hours to fix the tire, which would mean missing the first performance at Valley Forge. So, we called them and let them know. The kids hated that, but it couldn't be helped. Second, rather then timing a later lunch, we divided to do an early lunch, right here while the truck was being worked out. This was great for timing, but a little rough because of the circumstance. We were in a nearly shadeless environment in triple digit heat.

Radu and Steve pulled bungee cords and Kelly had tarps. It thing there was someone's long extension cord in the mix. Anyway, between the truck and a small tree and bush, beside the lot, we made what could barely be called a structure. It did provide some shade, but it likely would be ignored by protesters and homeless people alike. Certainly not pretty, but we made it work.

Those people wi lunch duty were not even that lucky. There was no shade over the lunch or the servers of lunch. They got it out, they served the sixty some of us, they did good, but it was rough. I should mention, one of those servers was my wife. For those of you who don't know my wife is pale. Ok, not just pale, so pale that when I see a radiant white ghost in a video game, which is intended to seem supernatural, I think to myself, relative? She is not, in any way, meant to be out in the sun. She will explode in a ball of fire. This work, which she did nearly to the end, practically killed her. It left her at first on the back of the food trailer guzzling Gatorade, then finally in our car with the air on.

When we made it to Valley Forge, we were a little worse for the wear, but the kids were ready to perform and I was ready to look around. The staff was incredibly nice to us, as well, We performed In a small park on the grounds across from the visitor center. The audience and rangers stood and applauded, took pictures, commented on the music and history. It was another of those moments where you get it, really get why you are there. Dressed as George Washington's lifeguard, walking distance from his headquarters on the very ground where his troops trained in the third winter of the war.

We were there right up until the park was closing, even the lights went off in a visitor center while we were there, but one of the rangers agreed to stay and really explain the importance of Valley Forge and that moment in history. It was perhaps the most fascinating telling of that moment in time and how it was dependent on all the things that were happening I have ever heard. It was a half hour history lesson in which, outside of answering his questions, we all sat quiet and amazed. He talked about the legwork Franklin had done in France, the military leaders and troops from Germany, the disease, rather than the cold, which ravaged the troops, the shift in the tide of war which happened immediately filling that famous harsh winter and all the players which came together to make that happen.

By the time we left the heat and the truck tires and the shifting day seemed far behind us. We were both ready to move on and not wanting to be separated too far from that history.

Busy

I don't remember who said it to me, but it was years ago and the thought stuck. Busy means burdened under Satan's yoke, they said and at the time, I could see the truth in this. I should never be "busy", I thought. Years have past since then and while I think that phrase will still preach, I no longer think it is true

In fact, I think at many points in my life busyness and faithfulness have gone hand in hand. It is being idle which has been the problem. Yes, we can worship God by being still an knowing that he is God as it says in Psalms 46:10. But, usually that stillness is the catalyst we need to listen and when you listen to God, when I listen to God, he has things for me to do. This isn't an anxiety causing, peace robbing endeavor. That would be taking something which God intended and twisting it. Instead, it is finding how you, how I am to busy about the Lord's work.

The Proverbs are full of advice and commands to work, the benefits of work and the vice of laziness. Proverbs 18:9 talks us that being lazy is akin to being a destroyer of things. Proverbs 21:25 tells the sluggardly he is unhappy because his hands refuse to work. Proverbs 10:4-5 says if you work you will have money and pride, but if you sleep instead you will be poor and bring shame.

Not only do the proverbs warn us from being idle, but other verses in Bible do to. We see a parable in a few of the gospels about using the talents God (the master) gives us, not to be lazy with them. Colossians 3:23 tells us to work as though we are working for God, instead of men. Even from the beginning, God established that man should work the earth. We were crafted to work, be busy, if you will.

As you might have guessed, I write all this because today is a day of being busy for me. I got up and started with my head down because I had a bunch of meetings and when the work day was done, I had another meeting at church. The truth is, this is my job or my call, who Am I to be unhappy with the things God has entrusted me with? I'm not, as I might have let myself feel, burdened under Satan's yoke, instead I'm blessed until ... Stewardship... Salvation... How about I'm just blessed.