Arcadia

Did I ever tell you I saw Ladysmith Black Mambazo perform live? You would’ve liked it, I think, or at least I hope. It was in Los Angeles, the downtown part, which your mother and I did not really frequent that often. We stayed mostly in the Pasadena area. Except every once in a while, we would take off and go really far away – sometimes as far away as Northern California. Or we would go to San Diego or maybe just over to the west side of that great city. I wish you could see it, like we saw it. No doubt you’ll make it back out there again. I figure that will be a quest you’ll always sense you need to make – especially when you start to hear people’s reactions when you tell them you were born in Arcadia, California.

It really is quite amazing to think you were born there. Arcadia, I think, holds special worth in the subconscious of humanity – a certain ideal city even back to the great philosophers of the early civilized world. Where did I just read that, in a commentary on the Gospel of John if I’m not mistaken? This is what I found in the dictionary:

Ar·ca·di·a
1 A region of ancient Greece in the Peloponnesus. Its inhabitants, relatively isolated from the rest of the known civilized world, proverbially lived a simple, pastoral life.
2 A city of southern California, a residential suburb of Los Angeles at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. Population: 48,290

There really are treasures in history; it’s sad we’ve become so concerned about present matters. I guess we’re not much different than any age. There’s probably only a remnant every generation that keeps the treasures – the richest things in life. Thank God they do.

You’d do well to unearth those treasures. I hope to teach you about those things even if I only do so by my own peculiar behaviors. Maybe you’ll see some strange books sitting on my shelf, and you’ll wonder why I’ve got a book and not a magazine. Actually, you’ll probably just wonder why I don’t use the internet for everything. But maybe you’ll get past that and actually take one of my books down from the shelf and read it; maybe it will become something like a wardrobe leading to Narnia. Even that probably doesn’t make sense; but, again, I hope it does.

There’s a lot of history that isn’t beautiful. You should know that too. In fact, it just makes history all the more important. Even now, while you sleep tonight, there is a battle going on in the Middle East – a war as old as our oldest stories. It’s sad. Many things have changed: weapons, boundaries, languages, cities, religions. Still, the warring keeps going. But to me the wars are even more senseless when people dismiss their history. Wisdom says we should learn from our mistakes, but there are many who cannot even remember twenty-five years. Perhaps it is too much to ask of humanity. We are so very limited.

I have been wondering to myself this week if a great many of our sins are not the product of limits. That’s stating the obvious. I’m aware of that, but, still, it has a certain profundity in my life right now. Clearly there are evil forces at play in the world, and all you have to do is pick up the paper to know what terrible atrocities we are capable of committing. I shudder even now as I recall a story I read today: ghastly. Perhaps by this time you’re old enough to realize the world is so full of such shocking cruelty that I don’t even have to give details; you’re mind might be able to imagine the severity of it all. I hope not. I hope innocence persists in you somehow. Indeed, I am sorry I’ve even gone on this tangent.

I only meant to make a point. I was going to say how much our media and world is consumed with evil. Evil makes money, I suppose. But, what I was thinking about was the underside of evil – the stuff that lingers deep beneath the surface of news stories, stuff like brokenness and abuse and tragedy. These three things seem to me like the great mass of ice resting beneath a iceberg you may also someday see. Just like our curious gawking at icebergs, we do spend much time looking at evil. Perhaps we are drawn to its presence in sorrowful admission that all of us are marked with brokenness and abuse and tragedy.

Now I’ve depressed myself. But, at the same time, I’ve reminded myself why I began this letter to you. I wanted to tell you about Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I bought their cd tonight on iTunes – a compilation of their greatest hits. They are a South African a cappella group, and their sounds are rich with peace and deep with comfort. I first heard them sing on a Paul Simon cd – your father’s favorite musician. They seemed like a great nation of prophets and peacemakers (even though they are only a handful of men), and it didn’t take much for me to envision them singing round a fire on an African plain. This was when I wanted very much to travel to Africa, to experience a land I believed was heaven on earth. I never knew what tragedies are bound in its soil, what struggles it knows even today.

That’s the history of Africa, though. But, like I said, even the sad parts of history enrich our present somehow. Right now, remembering the sadness of that land just adds to my appreciation of hearing Ladysmith Black Mambazo. They are caressing my ears in this prolonged night without sleep. They are carving out some space to hear the world again in innocence. I am thankful to God for their songs. Their last song on this album is a prayer, and I also give thanks to God for that; I find it much easier to pray a song than force the words on my own.

That’s how I felt that night in Los Angeles when I saw the group live – like I was praying or at least part of a spiritual congregation. It was beautiful. It was a summer evening in August or something like that. It could be hot in the summer there, and it had been that day. But, when you get to the heart of that city – unlike other cities – the weather could actually become pleasant in the evening with cool breezes running from the Pacific over city streets all the way to the skyscrapers. We arrived early with our friends Todd and Danielle, ate some bread and drank some wine. It was a public square of sorts in the middle of some executive buildings. In the middle of these rising monuments of modernity there was a stage down by a fountain. Perhaps I should call it a modern amphitheater – hard to explain really. I wish I could tell you more so you could track it down somehow.

Anyhow, they came out after some minor performances. I was thrilled to see them, a sort of life-long dream for me. The best part was I didn’t have to work very hard to see it. Before I knew it, there they were: Ladysmith Black Mambazo – a group of eight or so African men, dressed brilliantly with white shoes. I cannot forget the absolute whiteness of their shoes. Their dancing was crisp like that too.

I don’t know if you’ve seen someone sing live yet, but if you have perhaps you’ll notice that they’re nervous or that they really have to strain to make their voices work. This group didn’t seem to suffer any of these normal limitations. They just seemed to sing out of their gladness, as if they were just singing us a story their family had memorized ages ago. It was like how I imagine the nomads sang in biblical times – especially when they sang in their native tongue since it was so tribal and sure. Their song was their culture. I’m speaking now of Ladysmith Black Mambazo again, but I guess I could say the same for the Hittites. What are our cultural songs? I hope these have not been completely lost upon you and your peers. I fear they may already have been for me.

I guess we’ll both just have to listen very closely to the songs of the whole earth. There may yet be a few songs worth remembering and singing. I hope we might be like the remnant that has carried forth the treasures of fine literature and great thought. It is so rich to live close to those rivers; it is so hard to discern where they have disappeared beneath the surface.

[This piece was heavily – and I mean heavily – influenced by the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I highly commend the book to you, and I hope my own stream of consciousness has not insulted her gift. Perhaps I should place a brief excerpt from Gilead on this page?]

Naive

Yes, I was ignorant of the subtleties -
not aware of how much lay in each day.

It was only a few days, you know.
A short span in an ageless sea of time.

But, that's not what it seems to me.
Now all reversed, seeing eternity in today.

That eternity is the time without you,
the endless minutes I have to pass through.

These songs we casually listened to as one
now cut through my heart like jagged memories.

Your clothes are all too readily available,
your presence all around me in this space.

We've been building a world around each other!
We just didn't know it is built so unknowingly.

It's made of small gestures, mannerisms and flaws.
It's your warmth in an otherwise cold bed.

It's your silent smile to greet me in the morning.
It's the thoughts, the laughs, the glances - the sum.

How I made it to church was a minor miracle.
So I forgot how valuable is your mere presence!

There was a couple in front of me at church.
They innocently slid their hands together.

A simple gesture of mutual affection.
It broke me, right there . . . instantly.

Where does my hand go without you?
Where does my life go without you?

These too are emptied into this sea of eternity.
Realizations are building an ocean out of their worth.

How naive I was not to see it before as I see now.
All of you, every moment with you, is joy and gift.

God's Country

Adding Up

They say it’s my birthday. Well, happy birthday to me.

Gee-wiz, I gotta admit: the last few birthdays have been let downs. I’m starting to see why large parties on your fiftieth birthday might feel like a horrible exercise in social graces and personal hells. The luster and novelty of the whole birthday thing has worn off – partly because I can’t find any toy or experience to make this day stand out from the rest of the year. Use to be, I’d get all fired up and excited about the prospect of scoring some great new video game or dinner out. Unfortunately, by this time in my life I’ve had enough birthdays to realize they’re just one of many … nothing to get too hurried and bothered about. Besides, I’ve also moved beyond any of the birthdays that have any social value or benefits such as driving, gambling, being drafted or getting lower rates on insurance. I guess the next one to shoot for is AARP.

Part of the thrill of childhood birthdays is all your friends and family are there on your big day. Everybody has the chance to gather with you and see you blow out the candles and open gifts. Well, quite frankly, when you grow up that just isn’t a reality anymore. All those friends and family get going in their own paths, and so birthdays have this incredible power to remind you of community and your growing separation from the nostalgia that was. Call it the Wonder Years affect; I can almost hear some narrator in my head lamenting my fifteenth birthday as the kids filed out of my house and into the dark suburban night. He is saying something like, “I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last birthday where we were all together. That next year, my sister would go off to college, my stepfather would lose his life, and friends I had since elementary would start running with different crowds. From that point on, it was more like blowing candles out one by one, and each year it took a little more breath to get through the next.”

Anna asked me what I hoped I would get for my birthday, and I deadpanned back, “something I’ve probably already lost like ignorance.” Thankfully, though, she had the sense to get me something I like. She got me an IU sweatshirt so come November I can efficiently eliminate the hospitality and care this community has shown me. I’ve danced delicately around a few inquiries about my basketball partisanship, but I think it will be too difficult to hide when the associate pastor is seen wearing Cream and Crimson come hardwood time.

Anna also got me the latest cd in Paul Simon’s varied and rich music career. Over time, I’ve all but accumulated his life’s work. I like him because he’s a storyteller, not just a musician, but whereas he use to do works representing whole lands or cultures (like Rhythm of the Saints or Graceland) he now seems to be focusing on domestic affairs and personal/existential struggles. His last cd was something of a mid-life, over-the-hill-and-looking-back compilation. Consequently, his lyrics have lost some of their beauty or luster – being replaced by frankness. He seems to me a poet trying to hit the mark of life’s beauty even in the mundane and ordinary, but he’s also started to embrace the absurd as part of his art – like Marlon Brando walking around in The Godfather with an orange in his mouth just before he dies as if to say sometimes life is silly or unexplainable …

Or maybe Brando and Simon tried to show that sometimes the most complicated of things exists in unison with the most simple. If that’s the case, then that makes me feel better about my birthday because it seems that isn’t so much about big days and little days anymore, nor about good days and bad days. When life gathers enough history, days are days – not much worse than others and not much better either. That’s something Paul Simon has likely sung about, and, in fact, I can hear in my mind one of his recent ballads …

“Man, you’re old … getting old … getting old.” So it goes. Well, happy birthday to me.

Wes

Plunges

Wyatt is incredibly adorable. That is certain. Especially now that he’s begun laughing a whole body laugh – eyes squint, limbs tremble, mouth opens and out comes crackles and the sounds a happy asthmatic might make. Plus, whenever something new grabs his attention or a new face enters his periphery, he still raises his eyebrows somewhere past his forehead and his eyes seem to be witnessing the second coming of Christ (as demonstrated in the picture above). I can’t stress enough how cute he is, and how much joy there is every new day resulting from his presence.

Yet (and I know this will probably need to be stricken from Wyatt’s psychological makeup as soon as I say it), I can’t help but think he is starting to look like Darth Vader did when Luke took off his helmet at the end of “The Return of the Jedi.” Stick with me here.

First of all, Wyatt’s hair is beginning to fall out, and although we can’t find any large clumps at the bottom of his crib we wouldn’t be surprised if some hair fairy were descending upon Wyatt in his sleep and extracting handfuls. Secondly, his head now appears quite large (like Vader’s) in relation to his overall body. And when you look at him from certain angles he appears to be 95% cheeks and forehead and 5% eyes, nose, mouth and chin, which is about how I remember Vader looking. Finally, he has delivered his first self-inflicted wound to his face via his fingernails. Although his last disfiguration is certainly to be blamed on poor parenting I plead ignorance. Whoever knew babies’ fingernails grew so fast! I have horrible visions of Wyatt ending up in some Guiness Book of World Records with his nails curling like seasoned French fries from his fingertips.

There, I’ve said it. I’m a terrible, awful, downright insensitive father. But, again, and I cannot stress this enough: Wyatt is incredibly adorable.

He – the little stinker – had a darn good time during his first church service at First Presbyterian Church of Owensboro. It began during the call to worship when he proceeded to empty his bowels and proclaim with his own toots and horns that the Lord’s Day was upon us. I didn’t hear it since I was up front as the liturgist, but Anna (who was holding Wyatt in the back pew) said many heads turned in shock and awe. He then followed his triumphant blast by speaking in tongues (and shrieks) during the sermon, which forced Anna out into the narthex of the church much to her dismay and our shared embarrassment.

Nonetheless, the church was more than glad to welcome and receive Anna, Wyatt and I, and we enjoyed a reception in our honor after the service this past Sunday. As Anna said later that day, it feels tremendous to be a part of a church family again, even if it has taken us a while to find ourselves located. For the past two weeks, members of the church have been bringing us dinner every evening, which has been a huge demonstration of their care for us. It has also provided a great opportunity to sample fourteen different varieties of green beans as that is the vegetable of choice come summer in Kentucky.

I began working at the church this past week – mostly setting up my office and conversing with the head pastor where the church has been and where it is going. A lot of my energy has been spent learning all the activities of the congregation while trying to remember names and programs and properly locate them on my mental map. It is surprisingly exhausting and difficult – especially since Sunday is really the only day to see the whole congregation in action. I keep telling myself to maintain a steady pace. It will come.

As evidenced by the lapse in blogs, our family life is just now returning to places where we can breathe again. I have found myself bouncing an image or reflection around in my mind that is appropriate for these last few months. I will share it as a way to briefly sum up many things: our move, learning to live with Wyatt, starting a new job.

The image derives itself from my time on lakes growing up. At some point I recall being out on a lake, swimming by the side of a boat. As a dare or as an act of stupidity, I was challenged to take a deep breath, submerge myself into the dark lake water, and swim under the boat - from one side to the other. (It is similar to the scene from “The Abyss” where Ed Harris is forced to travel from air pocket to air pocket to save a life.) Submersing myself beneath the boat was an act full of desperation – desperation fueled by the cost and risk. And while those above the water could not see me struggle or strain, the pressures and terror were very real. The journey from one “breathable” region to another was brief yet seemingly forever, and the angst produced from what could go wrong was what also led to such great relief at finally making it to the other side, which I thankfully always did.

In many ways, these last couple months have felt like “plunge” experiences - leaving comfortable, hospitable confines only to disappear beneath the surface of relationships and communities and then appear anew on the other side.

Thankfully, we’ve made it to the other side … or at least are well on our way to making it to the other side. The more we emerge, the more we shall breathe and exult over our safety in travels. And, hopefully, the more we shall blog …

Blessings,

Wes