Category: Writing

Or I Could Stay

March 12, 2017

I’ll be the first to admit I was driving a little bit fast. And the road was icy. But my sister didn’t have to keep complaining, asking me to please slow down. I’m a safe driver. Experienced.

That’s when a light blue Ford Tempo cut into our lane. His brake lights flashed. I couldn’t stop. Swerved to the right but clipped his bumper. And we were spinning.

Whatever it was, it would work out. I’ve been in so many accidents, and I’ve always walked away.

This time, I was walking along a driveway. Didn’t know where I’d left the car. Knew that my sister was fine. A man, standing in front of the garage, told me I had died. He seemed to sense my shock. Let down his guard and admitted that there might be a chance to go back. But there would be brain damage, memory loss, incoherent speech, no way that I’d ever live independently.

Or I could stay.

I couldn’t imagine staying. Missed so many people. Was willing to go back no matter the cost. Needed to go back. There were still so many things I had to do in life. Things I’d done before and wanted to do again.

So I went back, and I did them.

I went on all the slides. And had pillow fights. Ran in the park. Dug huge holes. Buried my legs in the dirt on a sunny day. And laughed. So much laughter.

There was joy in my innocence. And there was pain.

I saw people I knew. Recognized their faces. Sometimes remembered their names. But most didn’t know me. Didn’t say much. Smiled like they couldn’t think of anything else to do. Didn’t seem to like me. Some just never came. And I couldn’t understand where they were. No one would tell me.

It was just past 4 in the morning. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t keep my face dry. Kept on reminding myself that it had just been a dream.

I saw people I knew. Recognized their faces. Sometimes remembered their names. But most didn’t know me.

Accident

December 4, 2012

I was in an accident the Saturday before last. And it was bad.

A flash of water over the road, and we were spinning backwards and sideways. Crossed two lanes of traffic. Jumped the ditch. Plowed up a steep bank of grass, gravel, and dirt. The back end caught, whipping us back toward the interstate, where we flattened two aluminum reflectors before slowly settling to a rest on the road’s shoulder.

My sister and I – both wearing seatbelts – were rattled but healthy and whole. Her Kindle was under my feet. My camera was in her lap.

She let go of the door, handed me my camera and took back the proffered e-reader.

“Mom would have been mad if you’d let anything happen to me.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help feeling elated.

The engine was still running. The gauges looked good. I jumped out and checked the tires. A family in a Ford Explorer had stopped on the side of the road up ahead. A man ran toward us. Wanted to know if we were OK. Seemed surprised. No blood. No bruises. No broken glass. I shook his hand. Thanked him for his concern. Promised to stop at the next exit and take a look underneath. Then I climbed back in the car.

And I wanted to shout, “We’re alive!” But I used my inside voice.

We both could have died. But we didn’t. And I was overcome with gratitude. With relief. With adrenaline. With joy. We survived!

Then, almost two hours later, after dropping off my sister, I realized that I’d been going through all the what-ifs and that I couldn’t remember exactly how long I’d been stuck in that loop. Or when I’d started crying.

I was sad. Ashamed. Afraid. Angry. Exhausted. Tense. And I still wasn’t home because I was driving so slow.

On Monday. Roughly 48 hours after the accident. Some high school kids gathered at my house to read a chapter in Psalms and to pray for each other. I had lunch over at Friendsview with Charles and Jean Hanson, and Jean’s brother, Clynton. That night, Geraldine Willcuts invited me to speak to Friends Women about our upcoming mission to Mexico. And I wrote this essay.

I don’t understand the emotions I traveled on the day of the accident, let alone what I’m feeling right now. But I needed someone to know. And I trust you. And I hope – more than anything – that we can figure out each day how to face whatever happens together. Because it’s just too much for anyone to go through alone.

I don’t understand the emotions I traveled on the day of the accident, let alone what I’m feeling right now. But I needed someone to know. And I trust you.

Myth

October 23, 2012

Back when I taught introductory high school courses in literature, every year started with a lesson in myth. American literature classes read Columbus’s 1493 Letter to King Ferdinand of Spain Describing the First Voyage. World literature classes considered the Yoruba story of The Golden Chain. In freshman classes, we looked at the first two chapters of Genesis.

I taught at a Christian school. And by their junior year, most students had been through this unit two or three times. They knew in a general way where I was headed. But in my other classes, things didn’t go so well.

I persisted.

In the first weeks of school, students still have good intentions, so for the most part they listen with intent. As I ran through the initial outline, smiles would inevitably spread as it became clear that I was probably going to hell. (There’s nothing like a teaching train wreck to lighten the day of your average high school student, and every kid knows a certifiably crazy teacher will ruin the year for some and provide limitless conversational fodder for the rest.) But by the end of the first few minutes, those smiles would be fading. Fast.

That’s when I could count on some volume.

Interruptions, urgent questions, waves of murmuring. Students shouting. Students covering their ears. There were always tears.

I persisted.

Myth, I proposed, is any story of origin. If it’s a story – and if it tells of a beginning – it’s a myth. Myths answer questions of identity, purpose and morality. Myths are how a culture – all cultures – encode the answers to life’s most important questions for the shaping of future generations. A culture’s best literature, then, is always built on myth.

Other literature may be commercial or educational or transactional or technical.

But good literature – the stuff that lasts, the stuff that gets passed from generation to generation, the stuff that we’re expected to have read and to know – it all contains myth or is built on myth or is myth. Together, that body of literature contributes to a culture’s mythos, its best answers to life’s big questions.

Romeo & Juliet is built on myth. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn challenges myth. The Bible contains myth. It also comments on myth, questions myth, compares myths, challenges some competing myths and provides space for the acceptance of others. Genesis 1 and 2, for instance, are separate myths, and in some important ways, they disagree. Theologians would probably argue that they’re not so much in competition as they are in conversation. Which seems – considering that the two accounts have been placed side by side at the start of the Bible, not to mention the fact that they both lay a foundation for the same culture – a pretty strong point.

I recognize that for some readers, this conversation might be covering new ground. Or creating a bit of cognitive dissonance.

Yet I persist.

Here’s the problem: many of my students were raised in a religious culture that is anti-myth. A culture that doesn’t know how to value the Bible (let alone the myths it contains).

It’s a culture that thinks Genesis is an incomplete history. It’s a culture that thinks Exodus is an unfinished travelogue. It’s a culture that thinks Leviticus is an obsolete legal code. It’s a culture that thinks Numbers is a sloppy census. It’s a culture that thinks Deuteronomy is an abbreviated repetition of all those other Bible bits. It’s a culture that reads all the gospels as a conflated Jesus story – one with wise men and shepherds; Anna, Simeon, and the Egyptians; 8-day-old Jesus, 12-year-old Jesus, a metaphysical Word-and-Light show, and the real Jesus.

It’s a culture that fervently wants for the Bible to be commercial or educational or transactional or technical.

And this, too, is my culture. I was raised in it. I live and work in it. More times than I can count, I’ve felt suffocated in it. Frustrated by it. Angry with it.

But I persist.

And I find that my people mostly know that the Bible – if it’s going to mean anything at all – must be something more than a commercial. It must be something more than a primer. It must be something more than a medium of truth exchange. It must be more than a collection of basic instructions before leaving earth.

And I find that my people – especially those that are spiritual but not religious – need the kind of mythos the Bible already offers.

And I find my people wondering whether the myths in other cultures might teach us something about our own.

In the meantime, I expect the volume to rise. I expect shouted interruptions, urgent questions, waves of murmuring. And tears.

In my life as a teacher, discomfort almost always led to growth.

So I persist.

Here’s the problem: many of my students were raised in a religious culture that is anti-myth. A culture that doesn’t know how to value the Bible (let alone the myths it contains).

Broken

October 2, 2012

I like words. Words are miniature symbols – portable, transferrable, memorable – freighted with meaning. Take a word like “fired,” for instance, as in “He was fired from his job.”

He lost his job.

But it was a trial by fire.

Like being burned at the stake. Or sacrificed in a pagan ritual.

The kind of crisis that changes a life. Or ends it.

I like words a lot.

I also believe that words should be egalitarian and democratic. Words are the currency of social exchange. We all have them. We all use them. We teach one another, and we learn from one another – which words go where, which words work best – as we stretch every little symbol (sometimes far past its breaking point) in our attempts to know and be known. There is give and take, intent and effect, stimulus and response.

Words shape our connections. Words also shape our culture. And our world.

If you want to know a people, it pays to pay attention to their words.

But we are mostly desensitized to the language we use. We don’t hear our words. Or feel them. And it is possible to become enslaved by old ideas enshrined in contemporary clichés.

At a recent gathering of evangelical Christians, we sang a song in which one verse focused on God’s desire that we be broken. I say, “We sang,” but I didn’t sing that line. It didn’t make sense. Doesn’t make sense. Why would God want me to be broken?

Am I broken? The lyricist probably intended something like humility. But broken goes farther than that. It’s not just the wrong metaphor. It’s also harmful. It suggests that there’s something wrong with the human condition. And by association, it suggests that there’s something wrong with God. An illustration:

I’ve never broken a bone in my body. I’ve crashed bicycles, tumbled down a set of stairs, fallen from a roof. One time, driving too fast on a mountain road, I couldn’t make a corner and slid right off a cliff’s edge. I landed in a tree. It was embarrassing and frightening, but I walked away whole.

Nothing broken.

And I was grateful.

Words matter. And this particular word – broken – at least the way we use it, suggests that God is 1) a bumbling fool, 2) malicious, 3) or weak.

Here’s what I mean: a God who desires that creation be broken is 1) a God who didn’t make things right. 2) Unless God did it on purpose. 3) Or didn’t have a choice.

If my arm’s perfectly good, breaking it doesn’t make it better. People created in the image of God don’t get more godly by being broken down.

What’s it mean that people need to be broken? It means there’s something wrong with the work God did the first time around. Sure. God gives second chances. But why would God need one?

God made me in God’s image. God made me whole.

The truth is that sometimes, I slander others. Sometimes, I play politics to improve my position. Sometimes, I undercount Monopoly spaces and land on Free Parking instead of Kentucky Avenue. Sometimes, I tumble down a set of stairs or fall off a roof, or drive too fast on a mountain road.

If I’m broken, then, it’s not because I’m missing something important that God forgot to give me. It’s because I think that what I have or who I am just isn’t enough.

Broken’s not the word for that. At least it’s not God’s word. A sense of brokenness is what motivates us to seek out bigger and better and more. God’s desire for us isn’t that we would be broken. Instead, God wants us to open our eyes and see that all our bones are still there. We’re still alive and breathing. We may be stuck in a tree on the side of a mountain. But we’re going to be all right.

There’s a light breeze. Tree branches brush up against the window. The sky’s on fire.

And the view is breathtaking.

There’s a light breeze. Tree branches brush up against the window. The sky’s on fire. And the view is breathtaking.

Creativity

April 4, 2012

I’ve been reading about creativity, and I can guess at what you might be thinking.

They write books about that?

I used to think the same way. Either you have it. Or you don’t. What’s there to write about?

You might be surprised. Almost 38 years ago, for instance, I was born into this world as a not-creative type. But I’ve changed.

Illustration. In fifth grade, I took an admissions test for a special program that the district was offering for at-risk students. I aced the reading comprehension and numeric memory portions of the test. In fact, I earned a perfect score on the memory part – something that apparently made me kind of special. But on the section that examined creativity, I scored in the bottom quartile. My parents received a letter from the district. Out of 100 possible points, I had earned only three.

Students with low scores on this test often have trouble socializing, they’re less flexible than their peers, they struggle to break projects down into smaller tasks, to problem solve, to prioritize. They are easily overwhelmed by new situations and expectations. They struggle to express their emotions. They are considered a retention risk. At age 10, I had been identified as a potential high school dropout.

Because I wasn’t creative.

Creativity – it turns out – is important.

Fortunately, creativity can also be taught. I made it into that special program, and my teacher (whose last name reminded me of atomic number 27) helped me to do the work of creativity. I learned how to steal someone else’s idea, make a little change, and call that idea mine – a process my teacher called “piggybacking.” I learned how to use sensory prompts and word-association to quickly generate new possibilities – a process my teacher called “ideation.” I learned how to pace myself when coming up with possible solutions in order to keep from getting ahead of my ideas – a skill that my teacher said would lead to “fluency.” And I learned a lot about work.

Creativity – it turns out – is work.

Creativity, which I’ve learned to define as the process of making new connections between old ideas, seems to require the following kinds of work:

Collecting: Old ideas are everywhere. They’re in the things we do, the conversations we have, the systems and processes of our lives, our families, our communities. They’re in books and in programs and in people. Being creative requires that we collect the ideas we find. Even bad ideas.

Observing: People are constantly connecting old ideas; pay attention to what they put together, how they do it, and why.

Imagining or Experimenting: Being creative requires asking a question. What if … ? Why don’t we … ? Could I … ? Or taking a risk.

Whatever you call it, creating or connecting, what it comes down to is putting old things together in order to make new things.

So I’ve been reading about creativity. And thinking back on my childhood. And wondering … what if our community had to take that test? How would we do? And could we change?

What if our community had to take that test? How would we do? And could we change?

Power

January 26, 2012

If self-disclosure is the door to friendship, then the danger for pastors, teachers, doctors, and counselors is that the very nature of their jobs requires those to whom they minister to open up about the parts of their lives that they would normally choose only to share with a friend. This very act blurs the line.

Do I share because we are friends?

Are we friends because I share?

In many cases, neither is true. But it feels true. So there is an imbalance of power, of influence, of affection. And it is all too easy to misinterpret signals. Or to take advantage.

It is all too easy to misinterpret signals.

Waiting

March 2, 2011

The long, dark nights of winter make the early morning a time of almost – almost light, almost new – and I find in these early-morning, liminal moments, the perfect threshold for prayer. It is still quiet. But the morning quiet is a quiet of anticipation, not the evening’s tired silence. It is still dark. But the morning’s black sky, edges changing to silvery gray, makes a promise of warm light to come. It is still, the perfect setting for contemplative prayer. For waiting.

So I wait.

And each morning, as I wait, I feel peace, at ease. I feel that yesterday’s concerns don’t apply today, that everything hard’s been set aside, that it can wait.

And each morning, as I wait

Blessing

February 2, 2011

Every Monday morning, I meet with an 8th grade, home-schooled student for a writing session. Afterward, as I walked to the post office this week, I prayed that he would feel good about the work that he’s done, that God would help him to think clearly and to organize his thoughts as he works to become a more effective communicator.

Early on Tuesday, I watched from my office window as high school students rushed to school, filling up the parking lot across the street. I prayed that God would ease their anxieties, help them to slow down and enjoy being in community no matter what the work for the day might entail.

On Wednesday morning, I was scheduled to meet with another youth pastor for coffee. He texted me two minutes before our meeting to say he was sick and unable to come. Instead of walking back to the office, I sat in the coffee shop and prayed that God would give him comfort, relieve him of the stress he feels as a young minister, carrying parent and community expectations, wondering if he’s doing decent work.

On Thursday, I took the back road past Champoeg State Park on my way to the seminary, both praying for and experiencing God’s blessing in the mist, in a stand of trees back-lit by early sun, in an open field, in the sky.

And I realized, that each day as I’d prayed for God’s blessings for others, I’d also been praying for me.

As I’d prayed for God’s blessings for others, I’d also been praying for me.

Names for God

November 11, 2010

Each of us has an image of God. In our lives and in our communities, we have created God in our image. And we continually recreate that God as a reflection of both our experience and of our need.

We have many names for God – gracious Father, Father God, Abba, Daddy, precious Savior, Jesus Son of Mary, Redeemer, Comforter, Emmanuel, Adonai, Lord – but our words for God represent nothing more than “our conceptions of the divine nature” (Gregory of Nyssa). They do “not convey the meaning of that nature.” Our names for God are human constructions, even if they are revealed in scripture.

Why, then, do we name God?

The issue of naming is an issue of control. Consider the formula “to pray in Jesus’ name,” a formula that simply gets it wrong. To pray in Jesus name must always be a prayer of humility, must never be a prayer of control.

What, then, is spiritual maturity?

It is a willingness to let God be God.

Our names for God are human constructions

Creating a Golem

July 27, 2010

A friend recommended that I read Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and it is amazing. Toward the end of the story, Joe Kavalier, a Czech emigre, is considering his life’s work as a comic book artist and compares it to the Jewish tradition of creating a golem — a living creature that has no soul and acts for the protection of its people. I found the following an inspiration:

“The shaping of a golem, to him, was a gesture of hope, offered against hope, in a time of desperation. It was the expression of a yearning that a few magic words and an artful hand might produce something — one poor, dumb, powerful thing — exempt from the crushing strictures, from the ills, cruelties, and inevitable failures of the greater Creation.”

And I wondered at my own golems, the words I’ve ordered on the page, the creations (some ill-conceived) of which I’ve been a part.

And I wondered at my own golems

When Words Fail

June 23, 2010

Often, while speaking of God, I will talk in one direction, stop, turn, and stop again, only to find that I’ve run out of words without completing my thought.

At the beginning, the issue seems clear enough. I’m moving along under a full head of steam, when I suddenly spot a break in the track up ahead. I jump to another line, engine shuddering, as I try to maintain speed. But just around the corner, there’s that same break. Except for now, it’s a chasm. So I stop, try another metaphor, pull out a different analogy, hoping that this time I’ll jump the divide. But there it is again, looming ever larger.

And I wonder at this gift of words that is also a curse. After all, language gives us freedom to relate, to connect and create. What is the Church? It’s just a word. But the collection of our shared understandings, of our hopes, of our fears, of our deepest needs has made this word into a physical place of refuge for some, a family for others.

This same language, however, also confines. We are imprisoned in a society held up by words that are not our own, and we are isolated from those we love by a failure to communicate what we really mean, what we truly need.

What then can I do when my experience of God — of the very source of love, truth and life — transcends language? What dare I try when words fail me?

What dare I try when words fail me?

More Words

May 10, 2010

Language follows its own law of relativity. Words prop up words and are, in turn, supported by other words. Take a tour through the dictionary — or any reference work — and you’ll find that words define words (and not always definitively).

A single word cannot stand alone in the cosmos. It speeds through the space of consciousness, revolving around some words, pulling others to itself, exerting and being exerted upon.

So what is it that holds language together? How was this cosmic balance achieved? What keeps these various words from spinning out of control, crashing down, breaking apart? What is it that allows these combinations of symbols and sound to rise above animal grunts or the crash of water on rock?

What gives a word its meaning?

A single word cannot stand alone in the cosmos.

Excrement in Heaven

May 5, 2010

I recently stumbled upon a series of old theological treatises. One that caught my attention discussed whether two angels could occupy the same physical space. Another questioned whether excrement could exist in heaven.

At first, these issues strike me as superficial, even silly. And I’m amazed at the extent of human curiosity (as well as the sources of our conflict).

But I think the question of excrement in heaven could point to a deeper issue. For instance, are natural body functions — eating, defecating, flatulence, perspiration or having sex — unclean? Will we somehow lose the physical aspects of our existence when we enter eternity? The implications are huge.

I’m amazed at the extent of human curiosity

In the Garden

December 28, 2006

It was morning in the garden, and the Master had stopped at the garden’s edge where the blue-green grass grew right up to the place where the earth fell away. The Master looked down into the depths where a river of fire roared through the narrow gorge, and the Master spotted Ahab, blistered and burned, crowded with the others on a narrow shelf of rock above the flaming torrent.

It was true that Ahab deserved his fate. He had murdered some and stolen from others, but the Master remembered a single act of kindness. Ahab, lifting his foot to crush the head of a snake, had stopped, convinced that the snake was harmless. To kill it would be thoughtlessly cruel.

Remembering this, the Master felt compassion. There was a snake at his feet, casting off its skin. With his walking stick, the Master gently lifted the end of the dead skin and laid it over the edge. The snake wriggled and twisted, and its skin slowly descended into the abyss.

Ahab, crushed by the constant shifting of bodies on the rocky ledge, looked up away from the fiery river and saw the snake skin, slowly descending.

“If only it would stretch far enough,” he thought, “I might pull myself to safety.”

As the snake skin came closer, Ahab reached until he touched its tip. He grasped tightly the slippery scales, and in spite of his pain, Ahab climbed, hand over hand, higher and higher. At first, Ahab climbed quickly, but he soon grew tired, and the cliff’s edge seemed so far. As he looked back down to the river, however, Ahab was encouraged by how far he had come. But Ahab saw something else. There was a man beneath him, climbing the same snake skin. And beneath him, another man. And beneath him, another man.

Ahab let out an anguished cry. For how could the dead, slender skin possibly hold the weight of all those eager to escape the flames of the abyss? Ahab felt fear’s sharp sting, and then he was angry.

“Get off! Go back!” he shouted to the men below. “This is my skin!”

With that, the skin broke, and Ahab fell to the rocks and fire below. The Master looked on with sadness. Ahab’s greed had destroyed him (as well as the rest).

The blue-green grass swayed gently in the breeze at the cliff’s edge. It was about noon in the garden.

With his walking stick, the Master gently lifted the end of the dead skin and laid it over the edge. The snake wriggled and twisted, and its skin slowly descended into the abyss.

Writing a Poem

September 5, 2006

When writing a poem, I often begin by looking for an image, a starting point.

Black sandals on the floor.
A Bible stacked atop a Book of Mormon.
So many books.
Three piles and a stand with lamp.
A glass of water half full.
A blue ballpoint pen.
Leather shoelaces in plastic, purchased at WinCo at least a year ago.

The neighbor dog barks in the night as the crickets at my window hold their breath, stop singing, wait. I wonder if it’s raining. The crickets return to rubbing a stuttering tune, squeaky at the start of summer as if they’ve yet to find a voice.

Still, it could be worse. I stop listening as a moth flutters up from beneath my bed, blunders into a bookcase, slowly circles, searching for the light.

She’ll burn soon enough.
I’m betting dead by morning.

The fan in the kitchen window blusters its importance, pushes against the heat, escorts night-cooled breezes through darkened rooms.

As we sleep.
The cricket weeps,
“Sleep sleep sleep sleep
arreeep
sleep sleep.”

While the moth bounces against the bare bulb, drowning in the light.

The neighbor dog barks in the night as the crickets at my window hold their breath, stop singing, wait. I wonder if it’s raining.

Dry Storm

July 9, 2006

004

Living in a basement — even with windows — I spend so much of my time looking up at the flowers in the front yard (daisies, petunias). The way the sun lights up their petals makes them translucent — so bright. But mostly I look at the sky. And Thursday night, it was dark — the round purple bottoms of storm clouds gathered overhead, pushed the last little bits of summer sunshine out of the corners of the sky. No rain. Just sudden darkness and a dry wind that whipped bits of dirt and gravel against the window and rolled garbage cans down the street. An empty cardboard box and plastic bags flew into the yard like weary gulls sometimes do in winter — so far away from home. But I couldn’t write it down, couldn’t imagine the forces at work. It was just another boring movie playing across the window screens. Couldn’t change the channel, however, so I went out into the wind, tried to play my part, sat in the garden and weeded the carrots while the storm raced by.

like weary gulls sometimes do in winter

What Literature Does

June 16, 2006

002

People often ask why anyone (I think they mean me) would teach English. They imply that nothing could be less useful in the real world. I disagree.

Here’s my philosophy of literature:

Literature is not practical. It doesn’t tell you how to repair a computer, build a bookcase, or change a tire. What it does do, however, is far more powerful. Literature takes you out of yourself, provides transcendent experiences that give a taste of what might be. And it takes you into yourself, helps you to process the events of your own life, to produce your own narratives.

I believe in the notion that literature — our attempts to make sense of the world through story — is a form of truth-seeking and truth-telling that draws us ever closer to relationship with each other, with creation, with our Creator. We find in story — all stories — attempts to answer these questions: Who are we? Why are we here? How ought we to live? And we find in each story reflections of the STORY: relationship, rejection, redemption, and reunion.

Who are we? Why are we here? How ought we to live?

Words

March 22, 2006

Language follows its own law of relativity. Words prop up words and are, in turn, supported by other words. Take a tour through the dictionary – or any reference work – and you’ll find that words define words (and not always definitively).

A single word cannot stand alone in the cosmos. It speeds through the space of consciousness, revolving around some words, pulling others to itself, exerting and being exerted upon.

What gives a word its meaning?

A single word cannot stand alone in the cosmos. It speeds through the space of consciousness

Unstuck Life

May 2, 2005

- Dreaming about the only life I ever wanted - #silverfalls #silverfallsstat

It seems my life is full of lists: groceries, meetings, projects, goals. I plot the points on a plane, hoping someday to transcend this two-dimensional existence. I dream and plan and strategize the use of time and money. I try to jump off the page — to fly — but I have no wings. What is it like to lead an unstuck life? Will I ever know? And yet I push, let go of possessions, chase away old friends, throw overboard the ballast of grounded living.

I have many admirers.

If they only knew.

My so-called courage is little more than desperation to escape the stifling expectations of a 9-to-5 world.

From whence comes freedom? I do not know. This journey I’ve set upon seems little more than random rambling, shuffling steps in the dark, feeling along the walls, stubbing toe on bookcases and nightstands. I’m searching for an exit. I have faith it can be found, refuse to consider

that it might not exist.

I try to jump off the page — to fly — but I have no wings.

Kindergarten Colors

April 8, 2005

A friend of mine teaches kindergarten at a local elementary. She asked me to come volunteer in her classroom. I thought about saying no but realized this could be an incredible opportunity to shape future followers of “The Muhr.” So I agreed. My assignment: Supervise four students, who have trouble completing work.

Dane, Courtney, Sierra and Demi sat at my table with pictures of a goose and her eggs.

Sierra didn’t color the pictures because she got stuck while titling the page with her name. The S wasn’t good enough, so she drew and erased it at least six times. Then she had to fix the A because it looked too much like a Q. Then she arranged her crayons in her crayon box. But they didn’t look right, so she found a paper cup. But they kept tipping over, so she put them back in her box. Then she quizzed the other students to see if any of them could guess her favorite color. Turns out it was a trick question. She likes all of them best.

Demi couldn’t arrange her crayons because they were broken. “That’s so I can share them,” she explained, taking time to tell me which students in the class had used each one. Her favorite color was blue or black or purple. But she colored the goose’s eggs red “because they’re really hot.” The teacher reminded Demi that she needed to color the entire picture. But Demi couldn’t find a white crayon “for all the snow,” so she had to leave it uncolored.

Dane made the goose brown and the nest green and the sky black “because it’s night out.” He refused to color the mouse “because he’s dumb.” And the dragonfly didn’t get a color “because he bites people.” In between coloring, Dane talked about Demi: “She won’t leave me alone. I need my space.” And his mom: “My pants have a hole. She should patch them.” And his progress: “I never finish my work.”

Meanwhile, Courtney was quiet. She finished early.

Then she quizzed the other students to see if any of them could guess her favorite color. Turns out it was a trick question. She likes all of them best.

Data Collection

February 15, 2005

Looking back on my trip to #SilverCityID. The Silver City schoolhouse. (http

I volunteered just over a month ago to help the local school district revamp its writing curriculum. They needed a community member and originally asked the editor of the daily newspaper. She couldn’t do it but recommended me. I didn’t have anyone to recommend, so I said yes.

At today’s meeting, the discussion circled around the topic of data collection for close to 30 minutes. How do we find out what teachers are teaching? How do we find out what kids know and don’t know? How do we find out what schools need? It could have gone on forever.

A wise teacher pinned down the problem and brought the conversation back to earth with this insight: “No matter how much data we collect, we’re going to discover what we already know: The elementary schools don’t give teachers enough time to teach writing, and instruction at the secondary schools aims too low.”

We should have applauded the lady for getting us out of that mess of a conversation. Instead, we quietly agreed and moved on to the next topic.

No matter how much data we collect, we’re going to discover what we already know

Audience?

February 14, 2005

CYI Memorial Park (http---instagr.am-p-KRNU0Pnx2F-)

I used to write for an audience, and I still consider — usually — the weight and effect of each word. But more often than not, I write for myself: to calm down, to remember, to clarify elusive thought, to analyze my anger, to dream.

I write an essay during church, using the scripture or song as composition prompt. I scribble notes on a pad while cooking, while reading, when I wake in the middle of the night. (One sheet of yellow paper on the floor beneath my bed holds a single line, describing the work of a medical researcher, pulling away a layer of skin, trying to find the face of God. I don’t know where it came from or when. But I recognize the handwriting as my own.)

Even now, as I type, I look at the clock and realize I’ve been at this for close to an hour.

And I wonder, will anybody read this?

Does it matter?

pulling away a layer of skin, trying to find the face of God

Satisfied to Wait

February 12, 2005

Black Butte fire lookout (http---instagr.am-p-KEIUZInxxD-)

In pursuing the dream of supporting myself as a writer, I’ve unwittingly become a kind of hero to some. No one’s actually come up and asked for an autograph, but the frequency with which questions about my success occur makes it feel as if my friends are trying to live their own dreams through me. At first, it was flattering. But it seems there’s a certain amount of judgment attached to the vicarious life.

I am sick of this question: “Are you syndicated yet?”

And this one: “How many newspapers carry your column?”

People genuinely want to know how I’m doing. But too often, these questions lead to the litany of advice, the list of things I should be doing and am not. And won’t.

I am satisfied to wait, rather than turn even this — the secret pleasure of creation — into a 9-to-5 occupation.

I am satisfied to wait

Self-Discovery?

February 1, 2005

Innocence & Experience (http---instagr.am-p-KwLr0gHxwX-)

“To write is to learn more about oneself.” But I would add that writing, itself, is about much more than self-discovery (as valuable and true as that is).

For me, writing does help to clarify what I’m thinking and why I’m feeling. Beyond that, however, it provides a means of connecting, of reaching out to others within my community and around the world.

It seems that writing, with its capacity for bringing us together (even across boundaries of time), carries within it the seeds of God’s Kingdom, a living, breathing creature that transcends physical place and present tense.

writing, itself, is about much more than self-discovery