where lyrics come from

When I read the Psalms, I often don't identify with the words. The war imagery, the persecution, the seemingly endless lists of enemies, the troubles of the time I don't encounter.

At other times, it's like I wrote them myself.

Words harness the great power to build up or tear down. "From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way," James 3:10 warns us.

We all identify with those words.

And I find the lyrics come alive at the strongest times, of desperation, of elevation, in midnight hours and restless mornings. I even go to sleep, and when I wake, the lyrics are still there.

Finally, I pick up the instrument, and it's like it plays itself.

The words fit, matching the melody.

It's another Psalm for another day.

whistle (or smoke) while you work

Life has been less-than-funny over the past few weeks. But right now, perched at my computer in my home-office, I sit here with a smile.

Our lawn guy is smoking while cutting the grass. He's really efficient, both at smoking and lawn care. A cigarette dangles in his mouth, one hand periodically removes it for an oxygen break; the other steadily guides the grass machine. For him, it seems like all is well with the world. It’s like whistling while you work.

And for some odd reason, this makes me laugh.

Even though I know smoking is bad.

mistakes

in an imperfect world, we often fail. we make mistakes. they always affect others.

it can be as simple as a type-o, or as complex as damaging a lifelong relationship.

as much as we'd like to, we can't always fix what's been done.

all we can mutter is “i'm sorry,” and do our best to help pick up the pieces.

mosquitoes (let me sleep)

4:25 a.m.

lights on.

light buzzing.

“mosquitoes.”

three of them.

two of them.

one of them.

none of them.

4:52 a.m.

lights out.

lie in our graves

"Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up." --Henry David Thoreau

lois (she plays piano)

in a room filled with laughing youth
she plays the electric keys

she offers songs to the Lord
written on the tablet of her heart

wrinkled hands dance along imitation ivories
yet move softly in a symphony of grace

she learned first as a child
her father by her side

but in old age the sage
nears perfection, completion

she remembers the golden years
while the rock of ages

clefts for us

three prayers

My old church used to sing the Doxology before meals at potlucks and Bible camps:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Today, God blessed us, and the Doxology immediately stormed my mind.

The rhythm and melody and habit of the Doxology had replaced any deeper meaning with visions of pig roasts, but when I revisited it today, I rediscovered a wonderful poem, a verse in a larger hymn, part of yet a greater Psalm.

Our family had another prayer we were forced to say before meals:

Come, Lord Jesus;
Be our guest;
May these gifts to us be blessed;
In Jesus name,
Amen.

When it was our respective turns, my brother and I would speed through the prayer and blur the last two stanzas to create something that sounded like, “Engeeezusnameamen.” You could hardly blink. It was over. Our faces were stuffed.

I guess it was fitting, since we were never really grateful for our food anyways.

It was always on the table. My father once traveled to India on a mission trip for a month, and I remember him sending faxes back home and talking to him on the phone about how someone killed a rattlesnake or cobra in their motel kitchen. I think he has video of it somewhere. Snakes were exciting. Hearing him talk about how he was going to ship us to India for our ungratefulness wasn’t.

He once fasted for 40 days, just like Jesus.

And he never complained. He never does. We didn’t understand why Dad was only drinking soup and getting skinny. I remember the first time he ate again; watching him like a hawk as he ate barely a morsel, getting sick shortly after digesting solid food again. I recently heard or read about how the angels ministered to Jesus in the desert, and I’m sure angels ministered to my Dad in the same way.

As children, before we would go to sleep, my Grandmother would pray with us:

As I lay me down to sleep;
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I die before I wake;
I pray the Lord my soul to take;

I used to say this prayer just in case I croaked during the night.

I wondered what would happened if I forgot to say it, if I’d miss out on Heaven. Sometimes, while riding on family road trips late at night listening to oldies or Dad’s classical music, I worried if we were in a sudden accident, if I’d be able to squeak out enough “I’m sorry for my sins” to God in time to slip safely past St. Pete.

These prayers, representing blessings, food, rest and salvation, were often confusing as a child, yet a childlike faith is exactly what Jesus calls us toward. It is good to reflect, to find the meaning in what was once meaningless.

my day as the freak show

Today we conducted an experiment. We became amateur social scientists.

I’ve been enjoying a week-long vacation since Sunday morning outside of Tampa, and we found ourselves at Busch Gardens riding rowdy roller coasters and doing our best to dodge the chaotic post-holiday traffic.

During the afternoon rush hour, we were stalled in endless lines, the park bursting at max capacity with high school kids and young families and children and diverse tourist groups from around the world. As we strolled past a face painting stand, someone asked Steve what it would take to get Spiderman pasted on his face.

We turned around. The conversation started. Bidding was high. Testosterone flowed.

Recognizing an opportunity to compensate for steep ticket prices, I offered my own services, and for the next two minutes, Steve and I bid like serious stock traders on various face paints intended for children. In the end, I came out on top, bidding $12.99 plus expenses over his $13 bottom line to have my face morphed and walk the rest of the day in the park.

Saddling up on a round bar stool, eye closed, the artist began to apply mounds of green paint to my grill. And more green. And more still. “Do people in their mid twenties ever do this?” I asked her. “Yes.” I was relieved. Moments later, my face had been transformed into a human lizard snake, complete with white fangs and scales.

And we were off, laughing at the oddities of it all. I crept into the bushes and pretended to climb on the side of a fake bamboo fence. Photos were snapped. People stared. I stared back. They grinned. I smiled. They looked away. I looked away. They were confused. I was confused.

Steve let me borrow his book Blink by Malcom Gladwell to read on the beach.

It’s about the first two seconds of decision making, human instinct, intuition and “thin slicing,” the power to make quick decisions more rapidly than sorting through mounds of analytical data. There’s an interesting section about people’s facial expressions, how our faces often speak exactly what we’re feeling inside. Only the trained can hide from exposing what they’re feeling.

Making a point to be attentive, I watched people’s faces closely, making eye contact as much as possible with as many onlookers as I could. Periodically, I would forget I looked like a green snake lizard, but for most of the afternoon, it was the only matter on my mind. I wondered what people thought about me. We all do.

I had become the freak show. In the end, I was left only with an instinctual analysis (judgment) with absolutely no scientific basis, only a collection of what I saw.

Little boys loved it, though some were frightened and buried their faces into their mothers’ laps. Little girls gave mixed reaction. Teenage girls giggled. Teenage boys probably thought about doing it themselves. The elderly saw the folly of a seemingly attention-starved young man. Middle-aged men were either envious or disgusted, I couldn’t tell—probably both. Mother’s worried about their children. Young couples were armed with a new conversation. The roller coaster operator was impressed, saying, “I love when adults do that.”

Two people took pictures, saying, “That’s really cool. Are you the Incredible Hulk?” I told them not to post the photos on the Internet. The MC who boarded people like cattle onto the shuttle made a scene in front of a couple hundred people in line: “Look at the guy with the green face, that thing is scary, stay away from me!”

Everyone stared. I smiled, clenched my fingers like a claw and raised it into the air.

A family next to us in line said they loved the bamboo bit. A young blonde boy across from me on the shuttle couldn’t keep his eyes off my face. A woman in the Pizza Hut lobby afterwards (yes, payday required more public shame) told me jokingly, “Stay where you are.” Her son came out of the restroom. “Are you scared of that man?” she asked him. He stared, absorbed the sight, then bolted toward a stack of 25 cent candy machines.

The green snake lizard experiment was impromptu and fun, yet I experienced what it’s like to be really different, to be the odd one out. This is not the first time I’ve felt like this, nor will it be the last. We came across thousands of people, and nearly all of them saw me, but none of them looked like me. We all are different.

I am not a snake lizard. I am not dangerous. I am not an experiment. I am still human.

independence day: volume II

It was one year ago today.

I boarded a plane and flew across the sea, boldly declaring a sense of “independence” and freedom I longed for, a weighty risk worth taking. As I reflect on the incredible events between then and now, my mind is filled with a great paradox.

I am dependent: on God, on family, on friends, on strangers.

It has been a year lived in extremes: pride and brokenness, plenty and want, victory and defeat, laughter and tears, wisdom and folly, blessing and curse, rest and unrest.

It has been a year fully lived, and perhaps that is what I was really chasing. As I look toward the future with great anticipation, the vision has evolved, from “independence” to “interdependence.”

And I am grateful that the year has taught me one of life’s greatest lessons.

rain king

The morning has brought heavy, steady rain.

At 8 o'clock, I sat in stillness on the front porch, resting in an old, white rusty chair, watching the rain batter the streets. When granted a moment's reprieve, I ran inside, first downstairs then up, lassoing a full bag of trash, dropping it on the corner.

The storm has darkened the house where no one else is home. Anchored in the dining room, it feels as if I'm working by candlelight, yet surrounded by paperwork and books and bright computer screens and coffee cups and boxes containing drums.

Three candles sit unused in the center of the table.

Lightening struck moments ago, but it couldn't rival last week's 5:31 a.m. thunderous wake up call, when the sounds of the storm sprung my sleeping body upright 90 degrees, like it was raising me from the dead.

I try my best to work while listening to Ray LaMontagne and the Counting Crows, because they seem to understand the rain better than the others. I think of a flood-like rain during my youth, which filled the outer rims of the parsonage parking lot, my brother and I nearly swimming in pools of muddy water.

In the photo, you can still see it in our faces; there was no other place we'd rather be.

Father's Day

“May the Lord bless you and keep you; May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you everlasting peace. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

-My Father, adapted from Numbers 6:24-26

At the end of each sermon, my father used to speak these words from the pulpit.

When he would hit the “Amen,” there would be a pause, his voice would drop what seemed like a full octave, and he would finish in a rhythm that was always familiar, never different.

Oftentimes, Steve and I would take a break from our mischievous back pew Sunday routine, look up and mouth the words; we knew they were coming. It signaled the end of the service, there would only be one hymn left, at which time we could evaporate through the back staircase and be first in line for the potluck.

But until recently, the weight of these words, spoken week after week, had failed to become a part of me. It wasn’t until I left the church and returned that they began to take on an almost mystical meaning.

It wasn’t until I looked back that I realized I almost missed the blessing.

two kinds of wood