the old copier

Now THIS is an old copier...The one in my office is a decade or two newer than this oneI have the pleasure of sitting next to a senile old copier at work.

My desk is positioned in such a way that I face the back of the old fossil; so when people curse it and kick it and operate on it and unplug it and open it and slam it and curse it again, I hear everything. I see people in their finest business attire bent awkwardly upside down peering into some dark and haunted compartment, searching for the blockage. People in skirts or ties with perfect hair and golden pens in their pockets fall to their knees before the copier playing tug-of-war with this machine only to walk away in utter defeat -- with half of a ripped and burnt report -- into their 10:00 meeting. And no one leaves after that battle without kicking and cursing and spitting one last time as they straighten their ties and reset their hair.

Then, every once in a while, the repair guy comes by.

His first move is (with a loving smile and a maternal air) to give the old copier a bath. He sprays it down with Windex® and gently wipes it with a paper towel, massaging away all the fingerprints, footprints, and spit. The repair guy speaks softly to the old machine and offers words of encouragement and motivation. Then he opens it up, gently tweaks a couple of buttons, and turns it off for a one-minute nap. Once it wakes up again he tries a few copies.

And it never fails that, for the rest of that day, this gray-haired old copier performs with perfection, experience, and grace.

This looks like a happy copier.To quote the smash hit of 1985 by Huey Lewis and the News , "...It can change a hawk into a little white dove. More than a feeling, that's the power of love."

freedom

If you have ever jumped into a swimming pool after 20 minutes in a hot tub, then you understand that something normal can feel extreme if something abnormal has become normal, rendering the normal abnormal.
In other words, the hot water eventually feels normal so that the normal temperature of the pool feels abnormally cold.

I experienced this "rendering the normal abnormal" yesterday when I walked out of my office to meet Leah for lunch.

Moving my arms and legs in sunlight felt abnormal after 6 hours of sitting in a florescent and windowless and motionless office.  The fresh fall breeze felt abnormal after a morning of stale, breathy air. There was an atmosphere of freedom that felt abnormal after 6 hours of being chained to my desk by a telephone.

Blessed is the one whose job does not render the normal abnormal!

the hand

Baby Nat. The new son of our friends Jason and Gretchen.  You can see more pics of the cutie-pie baby here."The child hand raised to reach the holding hand. Hold the old holding hand. Hold and be held." -- Samuell Beckett in Worstward Ho

where the wild things are

"John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins...Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey." Mark 1:4-6

John's message was a plea for repentance. And John's life points to the wildness of repentance. A wildness is required (something near insanity) to enter -- intentionally -- the wilderness of the soul. And not for the sake of our own peace of mind; not for the sake of "self actualization" or any other psycho-social progress do we enter this wilderness inside. But for God's sake we enter it.

Like any wilderness, people don't go there...we don't go there. All the people we've hurt are in there. The people we can't forgive are in there. The people we don't love are in there. It's where the wild things are, and anything that enters must itself become wild.

But there are developed parts of us too. Tame parts. Carefully managed parts. And that's where we live; that's who we know when we know ourselves, and that's the part of us we think of when we normally think of repentance. But we don't mean "repentance" unless we mean something entirely uncivilized.

John lived a wild life -- something near insanity it seems -- to remind us to go further. To remind us to leave the developed parts of ourselves...the manicured parts of ourselves in search of true repentance. And you can't repent for something that you have first cleaned up because then it is no longer the thing that requires repentance. When you trim away its wildness, you trim away the truth of it. But it's precisely the truth of it that must be faced in repentance.

And it's precisely in the wilderness where the fullness of God's grace can be found. It's in the Godforsaken wilderness where we encounter the wildest thing of all: the Son of God on a cross.

Grace and freedom and eternity are the wild gifts from God that lose their deep meaning apart from our wildness. To ignore our sin (or manicure it, soften it, spiritualize it) is to rob ourselves of the wildness of God's love. When we ignore the desolate and haunted places, we are no longer shocked by God's untamed love. We loose the transformative power of God's "Nevertheless..."  Only when we are actually aware of and familiar with the dark things in us can we know the fullness of what it means that we have been set free!

the violin guy

You can't tell from this photo, but he's playing Mozart...The violin guy is moving to California for the winter, effectively muting my morning commute. Before he leaves on Friday, I'm hoping he will sit down with me for a cup of coffee so I can meet him and hear his story.

All I know about him at this point is that he comes to Suburban Station (the train station I use to get to and from work every day) almost every morning and transforms the place into his own personal concert hall. People walk by and give him dollars. He smiles and trills and fills the cold shuffling place with warmth and melody and, for those of us on our way to a corporate gig, he offers an assurance that there's more to life than work...

His music speaks to moving people...I'm going to see if I can get his story and if so, look for a posting by Sunday.

Update on Sep 30, 2006 by Drew & Leah

Well, the violin guy stood me up. Twice.

Maybe he was intimidated when I asked if he wanted to go have coffee one day so I could hear about his life. Or maybe he thought, "What more could I say about my life that I haven't already said by standing in a train station and flooding the place with music?"

He told me that he would meet me in the station when I got off work on Tuesday and we could go grab some coffee. But he never showed up. The next morning he apologized PROFUSELY, and we rescheduled for Thursday after work. But again, he never showed up.

However, in being stood up, I received a gift.

I spent an hour and a half (45 minutes each day) standing in a train station seeing what he saw every day. So many people run, literally run, with an expression of utter panic and complete submission... They run into the belly of the train and they are spit out down the line. There were so many things that I noticed and observed and learned during that hour and a half of waiting. So, despite the fact that I learned nothing about the violin guy, I am glad that I had an excuse to stand in a train station and watch myself go by...

a fire inside

Creating and sustaining a fire is one of the most important things a camper does with his or her time and energy. No one camps without a fire.

Fire moves quickly. Compare this snapshot of the fire in stillness to the ones below...The first thing you do when it's time to relax at the campsite is build a fire. But you don't simply build a fire, you build a relationship with a fire.  You raise a fire as if it were your own offspring -- setting up boundaries for it, fostering its hot spots and nursing those parts that haven't caught on yet. You feed its voracious appetite, create an environment where it can flourish, and then struggle to get it to the point where it is self-sustaining. Then once it gets to that point, you retire with a glass of wine and watch it dance and reach and climb. Of course, you still prod it occasionally, but you're only trying to help since you can't stop wanting the best for it.

When Leah and I were at Rickett's Glen State Park last weekend, we saw friends and families gathering around their fires at night to cook their food and tell their stories. People were warmed, fed, enlightened, and enchanted by their fires. I find that I could stare at a fire for hours, watching it move and eat and...live.

There is an interesting passage in the Bible where John says, "I baptize you with water, but there is one who is coming who is far greater than I am. And while I baptize you with water, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." 

The shape and motion of fire...Even after spending a whole weekend staring at fires, I'm not sure that I know exactly what he meant by that. Maybe he was trying to say something true about the paradox of faith. Maybe he was trying to say something that could only be said without exactly saying it. Maybe he was trying to say that when we are immersed in Christ, something bright happens in the darkness. Something hot happens which can be good, but can also hurt a bit since parts of us are consumed in the process.

Parts of us burn and crumble but the result and byproduct of that process is an altogether wonderful and eternal light that emanates from us and even attracts others. Parts of me that were as real and as tough as boards show themselves to be nothing more than a wisp of smoke when baptized in the fire of Christ. And in fact, it is precisely the destructive parts of me that are now being destroyed.

To be baptized by fire is to be immersed in the paradox of faith: that we are created by destruction; that we find our life by loosing it; that we are freed by our attachment; that we, in our finiteness, are loved by an infinite God -- whose judgement towards us is his forgiveness; whose suffering for us is his love; whose becoming for us means our becoming for Him.

I imagine that John spent many a night in the wilderness staring at his campfire and I imagine that when he said what he said about Jesus, he was saying it as completely and as truly and as accurately as he could. He needed a word for that thing that happens to us when we believe...and the word that came out was fire.

Leah stirring the campfire... 

bearless camping

Hey! We will have life stories coming soon. Our weeks have been full and our weekends restorative. So, we have much to talk about. Now that we have internet at home, we will be able to communicate more and better with our faithful blog-checkers. Here's a snapshot from a recent camping adventure! Notice Leah in the top left next to the waterfall...

 Maybe the next story will be about our camping trip to Rickett's Glen State Park...We didn't seen any bears, but there were so many signs warning us of the possibility of bears that most of the night noises were, in our imaginations, bears running for us with forks and knives...

But we had an awesome time together and as you can see from the picture below (i'll post more pictures soon) the park is beautiful! This is one of the nearly 30 waterfalls at Rickett's Glen... 

This is a photo of my beautiful wife! Even though she's all I see in the picture, you might have to look more closely...

some jobs are work

I work in that tall building to the left...Employment brings new and essential things into our life…like money…which we trade for food, clothing, and shelter. But employment also brings oppressive things into our life…like repetition.

Every morning, my train leaves at 7:18. It always takes me four minutes to walk to the station, so I leave at 7:12, allowing myself a two minute cushion in case some unforeseen event happens. An unforeseen event has never happened on my way to the train station.

One of my favorite statues in Philly...Every morning, there are the same people standing in the same places they stood one business day ago reading the same papers. The lady who stands next to me always throws away the Sports section and any advertising inserts before she takes her place in front of the tracks. People choose their spots based on where they think the doors will be when the train stops. No one talks. Most people are reading something. People will sometimes look up with no sign of contentment. They are looking for the train.

City Hall from Broad St.Repetition is a byproduct of schedules. My train leaves at a certain time, I must be at work by a certain time, I take lunch at a certain time and I leave at a certain time before getting on my homebound train which also leaves at a certain time. These times are the same every day.

I recognize the same people who follow the same schedule five days a week. One crowd goes to work with me, another crowd eats lunch with me, and another crowd goes home with me every day.

A flower we found in a hidden flowerland behind our apartment.When we were in Africa, time washed over us like a river. There was plenty of time and no one measured it and the days were long and everything got done. Here time drips out as if it is the last drop from an empty well. People are desperate to catch every ounce of time and do as much with it as possible.

And so, Leah and I have become hunters.

A fountain near my officeWe hunt for the unique and beautiful things that are sprinkled throughout every day. We try to notice things we've never noticed before. We try to see things in ways we haven't seen them before. That's why art is important. It helps you see the stuff of life in new and creative and meaningful ways.

Wherever you are, Leah and I hope you're seeing great and new and wonderful things!

cape may day

Mom, John, Leah at "The Ugly Mug" in Cape May, NJSpending time with family is always enjoyable for Leah and me. And although it's always nice to go home to visit family, it's really special when family can come visit us. When, instead of stepping into our familiar lives in Wisconsin or Louisiana, people are able to join us in our new and unfolding life together in Philly. Instead of driving by the old high school to see how things have changed, we can show our loved ones where we go to work everyday, where we shop, where we go to church, where we walk to get coffee, and what we like to do when we have a little scrap of free time.

Rory loved playing in the waves! (we're dog-sitting)Our Wisconsin Mom and John stayed with us this past weekend, and we had a great time together. They are very fun and generous people, and it's nearly impossible to be unhappy when they're around.  We had so much fun together! We ate at a Middle Eastern restaurant, saw Superman, shopped at Ikea, built furniture from Ikea, John fixed some things around the apartment, we took some great walks, went into Center City, had coffee at some cool cafes, went to Cape May, and still had plenty of time to sit around relaxing and talking and catching up on things.

John also discovered a new continent.We had a great time with them and can't wait for them to visit again. It's fun to share life with the people you love. And that way when we do visit them, they know what we mean when we say 'I went to work last week and..." or "Our new table works!" etc...

We really appreciate them and can't wait for our next parental visitors in late August! 
Cape May was a fun day.

long island...long day

 

The long road to Long Island...

The only thing more frustrating than being wrong is being barely wrong.

If there was a man who, instead of missing his train by one hour, missed his train by only one inch (where, with some poetic feeling of loss, he even reached out and touched it as it chugged away and he gave up the chase), then this man would be defeated precisely by the “almost-ness” of victory. These situations always spawn the same kinds of self-condemnations: “If only I had run that yellow light;” or “If only I had made lighter toast.”

But what is infuriating to one person is often funny to two.

The George Washington Bridge into New YorkLeah and I drove four hours on July 9th to attend a party that was on July 8th and even though we were only one number off, that number ultimately made all the difference. We arrived at the address, made some remarks about how few cars were around and how dark the house seemed inside, and after a few knocks and doorbell rings, decided we had the address wrong. So we booted up our laptop, found a wireless signal and checked the invitation. That’s when we realized that we had one number wrong: the date.

At this point, you might guess what happened: we sank into a brief pit of despair and self flagellation, but then began looking for the good in the situation. We went for a walk, stopped for coffee, laughed a little bit, and then decided to take another route home so we could drive through center city New York.

Whatever else we accomplished yesterday, we created a memory for ourselves. We drove 8 hours for a party that didn’t exist, but that is a story. And stories are the language of relationships. They communicate, to others and to ourselves, the history and reality and shape of our life together.

Objects in mirror are sometimes coming after you...I had a great time and enjoyed spending the day with my beautiful Leah. What would be frustrating and maddening if it happened to one of us, was ultimately exciting and funny and fun because we were together. We traded a party for a story and I think that we’re satisfied with that.