Just Take Me Home Already

You know better than I do how quickly we could be through all this.

So why? Why let me waddle around in shit? What kind of parent are You?

Just grab my wrist, slap it hard, and make me get into the cosmic minivan.

Ground me. Send me to bed without dinner. Whatever.

Just take me home already.

I know You're patient.

In fact, that's the problem; I'm growing to despise Your patience.

But I suppose You'll be patient about that, too.

Remember when You knew my left knee wouldn't carry me

So You fixed it?

Just like that?

Well can't You just do it again?

I mean, it's basically the same thing.

Somewhere in my head my joints don't work right.

They're rusted out hinges. They're bent.

They stick; I want to do right by You but my hinges stick.

I want to quit shoving my nasty hands into those piles of filth.

I get coffee grounds under my fingernails.

I get used tissues and feminine products stuck to the backs of my hands.

I get bits of busted light bulbs embedded in my forearms.

I get to the bottom. I touch it a couple times. I look around a little.

Then I retrieve my hand and lick it.

I grimace and decide not to do it again.

I feel sick for a day.

I write about it online, like I'm determined to change it.

But I can't.

But You can!

Look, You know I hate this.

I know You hate this.

Can't that be enough?

Journey

This is what I think it should look like. Intense closeness with the Holy Spirit, where my identity is firmly planted in him, Jesus' eyes become mine and I spend my day doing what the father is doing, loving on people. Time spent every day soaking in the Word, my heart being a sponge that hungrily soaks up words of life and truth and wisdom, and I walk away changed, cut to the quick, and able to quote entire passages from 1 and 2 Kings. All activities become worship, including eating breakfast, having meetings, checking my email, writing in blogs, taking a shower, drinking coffee, driving my sweet ride, and playing Gladius on Xbox. I think I equate this with some sort of advanced level of meditation, like reaching some sort of nirvana type state. My eyes are always filled with peace, I stop chewing my nails, and a shimmering halo appears above my head.

And I have never attained this. And I never will. And knowing this has been the cause to no end of consternation and condemnation. I have always held my daily walk up to this standard and found it to be entirely lacking. I believed that upon reaching a certain age (21, 25, 27) that this would suddenly and quite inexplicably be reversed, and holiness would be attained.

It's always been about the destination. I've defined it, and been focused on reaching it.

I believed that older men in my life had reached this state, but it turns out even Jerry Kaldor, Joe Harting and Michael Gatlin still haven't seen this sanctification come to fruition. As much as these men are living lives dedicated to the pursuit of Jesus, I still don't spy sparkling halos peaking out from behind their heads.

Lately Jesus has been telling me it's not about this destination I've created. And I am relieved. It's about the journey forward. We strive for the prize, but the prize isn't sanctification but rather the prize is Jesus. We get him.

And we're all on this journey. We're all in pursuit of this prize. And as a 27 year old worship pastor, I'm not "there". And as a 87 year old ornery codger, I still won't be "there". But each day between now and then, I will strive for the prize, I will dive into this dangerous relationship with my Creator who is crazy about me, and let him deposit the discipline in me to keep my fingernails out of my mouth.

RSVP Ignored

I can imagine their wedding dance. My mom in her starched, 


lacey-white, matrimonial cowboy hat and my dad keeping


a beat with only the occasional squat and sway of his 
gray,

tuxed hips. And while they maybe two-stepped to a little 
John Denver,

a corsaged Aunt Kathy held post at 
the guestbook - the one with the

enormous plumed pen that 
ran out of ink somewhere between

Great Uncle Leonard and a 
surname of Lundgren.

Did someone scratch my name 
down in those gray, embossed pages?

I was there, too. I was there humming along to “Country Roads”

and feeling 
the waltzing chafe of Grandpa Shermer’s midsection

as he 
shuffled through a dollar’s worth of dance.

Between twirls 
and dips on chipped, church linoleum and

niceties with the 
horn-rimmed organist, I, too blushed at the

joke repertoire coming from 
Uncle George and

other schnockered uncles circling 
near the cake. Preludes of

“a guy walks into a bar” and 
“one man says to another man”

were met with slaps on suited knees, a swallow of Grain Belt and

bites of marble cake smothered 
in white-ish frosting.

And with each punch line, I made myself more at home in the first trimester. 



I hope Mom sipped a Grain Belt that night.


I hope her dress was cinched tight around her waist.


I hope that they had no idea I was there, hiding 


somewhere between her bladder and spleen, already


developing a taste for dancing around in dresses.

beauty

beauty.

There are things that are so beautiful to me that I have a hard time thinking about them coherently. My daughter's eyes are deep blue pools of mystery. Maybe you didn't know that. Now you know.

She looks up straight into my eyes from her 30'' post and time doesn't stand still so much as become warped and strange. I see in the deep blue of her eyes tremendous courage, and not just grit your teeth courage, but the courage that literally laughs at danger. She has the courage to roll right off the changing table without flinching, crawl out of her high-chair and across the table without the slightest hesitation. Her baths are not so much about cleanliness as they are opportunities to plunge her own face beneath the water repeatedly just for the wet splashy fun of it. In her eyes there is total wonder and amazement for every new thing. When was the last time you were in total wonder and amazement?

The love she expresses to me in a simple look is tangible. I can choose to sit passively in the room with it like a fat guy in a recliner sits with his TV thinking about cracking open another Grain Belt, or I can take it in and savor it like one of Trevor's amazingly feckless caramel rolls that dance around your mouth like sensual Russian dancers until they collapses from pleasure, fall, and slide down your throat into your gullet.

I used to sit in the room with Love. Love used to bounce tennis balls off of my head just to get me to look away from the asinine computer games. Love used to kick at my shins and call me silly names just to get me to crack a smile, but I mostly ignored it. I even thought Love was driving my dick into a woman as hard and frequently as possible. It's not, by the way.

You can sit in the same room with Love for years, and I did until Love dunked me under the water so deep that I forgot my self loathing. I forgot my insecurity. Shame. Guilt. Inadequacy. I forgot my daddy issues and addictions. Love held me under the water thrashing and dieing until I forgot to not breathe, and came up choking, screaming, mostly dead, and totally clean.

My daughters eyes are pools of mystery. With her eyes she gives me an almost ceaseless stream of love. I don't just sit in the room with it. I take it in, savor it, and let it swirl around inside of me. My daughters eyes are deep blue pools of mystery. Maybe you didn't know that.

Now you know.

Mirror

I came in and was dripping wet. The stainless steel furniture and white walls almost blinded me but I was ready for them to invade my space once again. When ever I came in from the damp character ridden world outside my door, the cleanliness of my apartment seemed to always catch me off guard. Though at once it put me to ease to know I was home. Work had been exceptionally difficult to cope with today. I had had unfinished business with an old flame. It had opened old wounds, but now it was all finished so I needn’t worry about it any more.

I slipped off my coat and let out a large sigh that to me rang off the walls of my little apartment. I sat in my favorite chair and again sighed. I still had my drenched coat in my hand and I stared long at the wall in front of me. After a short while my head fell back onto my chair and my eyes closed. I quickly entered a dream. It seemed to me it was more of a memory, when I had first met her. Lala. She was fantastic, and instantly I attributed her to the song of that name. Yet in my dream she never faced me. She was wearing all black. And her shoulders heaved up and down as if she was weeping. I tried to touch her, but every time I spun her around, it was her back I would see, and then I took my hands off her shoulders and they were covered in blood.

I sprang my neck forward and looked at my watch, 530. It had been a short nap. I looked down and saw my jacket on the floor I picked it up after slipping off my shoes and setting them next to the chair. I went to hang up the coat… “Damn!” my wet coat had created a puddle the size of Lake Michigan and now my right sock was soaked all along the bottom and I caught sight of it quick enough to see the moisture travel up the sock to just above my arch.

After I hung up my coat I took off my socks and jumped in the puddle my jacket had left behind, by spreading out the water it would dry quicker, and for once I could forget about work, and feel like a kid again. I walked down the hallway towards the bath room. But I stopped once again and began to stare, this time out the window. The window was fogged over, but water dripping on the inside and outside cleared little lines of substance for me to indulge in. I looked at my watch, 630. That was a good day dream. I reached my hand around the corner and flipped on the light in the bathroom and poked my head around the corner to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I paused. Then headed for my bedroom.

As I entered my room, I slipped off my shirt. I feel on my bed. Grabbing a slice of day old room temperature pizza. I ate it, counting the cracks in the ceiling. Upon arriving at 44 I got up and went back to the bathroom. I squared up to the mirror. I looked in my own brown eyes for what seemed like long enough not to see anything. Then followed my nose, crooked long nose to my prudish lips. I practiced a few smiles but my teeth aren’t straight enough for smiling, though their color is well suited for the task.

My arms did not betray my occupation. Though my jaw line may to a person with a keen sense about them. My hands, my hands betray all things, from death to ignorance, to justice and wisdom. When it came to it, my body could and would not be seen as anything other than a young man, but my eyes… those eyes, those are the eyes of a murderer.

Love.

Love.

"Don't want a spanking."
"Yes, and I don't want to give you one." But I do.
I won't let you have candy because you scream and kick.
I won't give in, and drive through McDonald's in response to chants.
If you hit another kid, I won't assume it was his fault.
If you throw a tantrum, I will not coo and coddle.

I will spank you.
I will hug you and wipe your tears,
pull up your pants to cover your red ass,
but I will spank you.

I won't let you stay outside past dark and play with the neighborhood boys.
"Aw, he's so cute." will not be my response to defiant screams of "no."
If you turn a deaf ear to my requests, I will not do in kind.
"donwanna, no, dowwanna..." is not English, but I'm sure translates roughly to "I'm cranky, I'm pretty sure I can get whatever I want, but what I really need right now is somebody to love me enough to spank me good."

I will spank you.
and you will hug me.
you will dig your little fingers into my shirt
and bury your blurry face into my chest
and I will hold you tight.

If I don't...
I might as well give you the bits of broken glass you clamor for,
All the sugar your eyes can behold, your fists can grasp and your lips can pass,
that boiling pot of water? yes, son it's yours,
and sh**, well I wouldn't pet that barking, salivating dog, but if it's what you want, go ahead reach out your fleshy little fingers and pet.

Eleven. Twenty-Two. Thirty-Three. Etcetera.

In late March 2008 I found myself totally wrapped up in two albums: Flogging Molly's "Drunken Lullabies" and the self-titled project from Ben Kweller. In late February 2009 I had a solid hankerin' for both once again so I burned them onto a disc and labeled it "Flogging Ben Kweller". Last week I got that very same taste in my ears while I was on my way out to a good buddy's house in West Duluth. As I sifted through my disc collection looking for "Flogging Ben Kweller" I was so tied up in the anticipation of the enrapturement that I'd enjoy when I finally popped that puppy into my CD player that I sideswiped a snowbank in my trusty old Lumina. Poor beauty.

Don't worry, she was fine. I'm not interested in talking about my car right now, or Ben Kweller, or inebriated Irishmen. This is simply the most recent manifestation of a personal phenomenon I began noticing a few years back:

My specific taste in music, literature, and movies runs in an 11 month cycle.

I first noticed that my tastes were constantly jogging on this not-quite-annual treadmill during my sophomore year at UMD, and let me tell you, whatever this thing is, it's a juggernaut. I can't stop it, I can't even curb it, I can't guess as to its source, and, honestly, I have no desire to deny it the control it so readily snatches from me whenever it rolls around. At this moment I would love to watch the Planet Earth documentaries because that's what I was doing two years ago during Mustache March. When I go home I'll probably grab up and devour my copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance because that's what I was reading last February when I wasn't watching Planet Earth. Next January I'll probably be listening to my most recent love, "The Seldom Seen Kid" by Elbow as I drive home to read a chapter or two from ZAMM and fall asleep to the voice of David Attenborough narrating the dance of the ellusive Bird of Paradise.

Whatever this dictator of taste inside of me is made of or birthed from, I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love knowing exactly what will tickle my listening fancy the most at this very moment. I love knowing which book is going to most firmly hold my tired attention tonight when I get home from work. I could set my watch by my media appetites, and that's fine by me. But the problems surface when a roommate wants to watch Shawshank Redemption in June, or when my iTunes library is playing on shuffle.

"I'm sorry, Spoon, it's nothing personal. 'Gimme Fiction' was great and all, but... well, look, your timing isn't great. It's not you, it's me, I swear. I'll see you in July. I just ...I'm sorry." *Next >>*