...Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have-the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.
...January 28, Daily Reflections
A stunning experience I was not prepared for, spiraled into a chaos I could not control, and ended in an obliteration of past, present, and future joy, is my greatest possession. I now am saying yes to what is not.
In some hours, the dark days of the past crush me. I can't bury or disown the past. Rewriting is beyond unhealthy. The only way to live in the present is to acknowledge the past. Humility is the reward for bearing the truth. That's enough.
Left living where we died, the dark past is our only possession which matters, and that's OK.
Life is the gift from God. What we do with our possession is our reciprocation.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Into The Wild
The older person does not realize the soul-flights of the adolescent.
a quote attributed to a father who's twenty year old son vanished in the desert
Last Sunday Patrick and Tim were discussing Into The Wild. They had read the book and suggested it was worth reading. Patrick's copy was in Aaron's room so Monday I started reading. By Wednesday I was over half way through and I wasn't liking the young man who the story was about. The guy,Chris McCandless, graduated college, packed his car, and left his family without warning to drift across the U.S. for two years, ending up dead on the Stampede Trail outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. A true story. It wasn't until I nearly finished that I understood why I was annoyed with young Chris through the first 100 pages.
At the time when he was at the top of his accademic life, Chris chose to turn his back on his family society. He dived into a life of rambling around the country exploring a life of freedom as he defined it. With an ability to make friends easily and welcomed anywhere, Aaro...I mean Chris lived on the edge. The longer he was away the more he embraced the life his parents would not approve. The deeper he went into the drifting life, the more the life owned his soul.
After two years on the road, the final three in the Alaskan wilderness, Chris writes that he is ready to return to civilization. He packs his few belongings and starts walking out of the wild. The stream he wadded thigh deep across in April was flowing deep, fast, and wild with summer runoff in July. Chris stood on the wild side ready to go back, but he couldn't cross. He was trapped. Cunning and baffling, nature owned Chris.
His body was on the wild side but his mind was ready to be back in society. After returning from the edge of the river to his camp to sit tight until the time would be right to venture out, a mistake no one could explain for certain and some concluded as intentional caused his death.
I know that story. Nature was Chris McCandless' drug of choice. What started as intoxicating freedom of the road grew into a dangerous concoction of a little knowledge and an overdose of wilderness.
Chris, his parents, and his sister, are not people I know yet they are a family I relate to. Nature coaxed Chris across the point of no return. If the story wasn't true it could have been a metaphorical account of the life and times of families affected by drug addiction. I wonder how they are today.
a quote attributed to a father who's twenty year old son vanished in the desert
Last Sunday Patrick and Tim were discussing Into The Wild. They had read the book and suggested it was worth reading. Patrick's copy was in Aaron's room so Monday I started reading. By Wednesday I was over half way through and I wasn't liking the young man who the story was about. The guy,Chris McCandless, graduated college, packed his car, and left his family without warning to drift across the U.S. for two years, ending up dead on the Stampede Trail outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. A true story. It wasn't until I nearly finished that I understood why I was annoyed with young Chris through the first 100 pages.
At the time when he was at the top of his accademic life, Chris chose to turn his back on his family society. He dived into a life of rambling around the country exploring a life of freedom as he defined it. With an ability to make friends easily and welcomed anywhere, Aaro...I mean Chris lived on the edge. The longer he was away the more he embraced the life his parents would not approve. The deeper he went into the drifting life, the more the life owned his soul.
After two years on the road, the final three in the Alaskan wilderness, Chris writes that he is ready to return to civilization. He packs his few belongings and starts walking out of the wild. The stream he wadded thigh deep across in April was flowing deep, fast, and wild with summer runoff in July. Chris stood on the wild side ready to go back, but he couldn't cross. He was trapped. Cunning and baffling, nature owned Chris.
His body was on the wild side but his mind was ready to be back in society. After returning from the edge of the river to his camp to sit tight until the time would be right to venture out, a mistake no one could explain for certain and some concluded as intentional caused his death.
I know that story. Nature was Chris McCandless' drug of choice. What started as intoxicating freedom of the road grew into a dangerous concoction of a little knowledge and an overdose of wilderness.
Chris, his parents, and his sister, are not people I know yet they are a family I relate to. Nature coaxed Chris across the point of no return. If the story wasn't true it could have been a metaphorical account of the life and times of families affected by drug addiction. I wonder how they are today.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Super Bowls and Distractions
Ten years ago this month Cathy, Aaron, Patrick, and I went north to join my family for a retreat. We were joining relatives to watch the Packers and Broncos play in the Super Bowl. The destination was a cottage in the deep woods of Northern Wisconsin. My sister, her husband, and their daughter were in retreat from the agony of the death of son and brother Kristopher two months earlier. We were retreating to a distraction from the resounding helplessness and our own grief.
Just a year earlier we were all besides ourselves in happiness over the Packer's first Super Bowl win in nearly 30 years. Our families were intact and Packer football was more than entertainment. We sent a Christmas card of Patrick and Aaron in Lambeau Field with a heading...Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a Super Bowl! It was all games and fun. Cathy and I went to New Orleans for the game. I had a ticket. Cathy snuck in. That's another story for another time.
In 1998 the Super Bowl, sure to be another victory would provide a much needed distraction and something to be happy about. A momentary relief. If ever I had all my emotional eggs in one basket that was the day. The Packers didn't do their part. They lost. A painful battle finished when hope died with an incomplete pass. Grief would not be relieved. Dissapointment mixed with the grief. Ugly as slush. Bitter as January. I expected more than a game; more than entertainment. I wanted happiness, peace, relief, comfort.
Ten years later I am grieving the loss of another young son in our family. The Packers are close to another Super Bowl. Aaron is gone. Patrick is two years older than his big cousin Kristopher. This time I'm only interested, not invested, in the outcome of these games. Expecting happiness or freedom from suffering in a game is to live on the doorstep of hell.
The last Packer playoff game I attended was with Patrick, Aaron, and Cathy on a Sunday night. That cold January night was a beautiful family evening. It was our last game as a family. Four years have passed since I've been in the stadium. I can't imagine a game without Aaron. I thought I would never go back.
Patrick and I will attend the game Sunday night as the guests of Tim and Charlie Kritter. I'm wiser now. Tim has an idea what this trip might mean to me. The outcome of the game will not effect my well being. Going back to the stadium with my son and my good friends is good. And it's enough.
Just a year earlier we were all besides ourselves in happiness over the Packer's first Super Bowl win in nearly 30 years. Our families were intact and Packer football was more than entertainment. We sent a Christmas card of Patrick and Aaron in Lambeau Field with a heading...Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a Super Bowl! It was all games and fun. Cathy and I went to New Orleans for the game. I had a ticket. Cathy snuck in. That's another story for another time.
In 1998 the Super Bowl, sure to be another victory would provide a much needed distraction and something to be happy about. A momentary relief. If ever I had all my emotional eggs in one basket that was the day. The Packers didn't do their part. They lost. A painful battle finished when hope died with an incomplete pass. Grief would not be relieved. Dissapointment mixed with the grief. Ugly as slush. Bitter as January. I expected more than a game; more than entertainment. I wanted happiness, peace, relief, comfort.
Ten years later I am grieving the loss of another young son in our family. The Packers are close to another Super Bowl. Aaron is gone. Patrick is two years older than his big cousin Kristopher. This time I'm only interested, not invested, in the outcome of these games. Expecting happiness or freedom from suffering in a game is to live on the doorstep of hell.
The last Packer playoff game I attended was with Patrick, Aaron, and Cathy on a Sunday night. That cold January night was a beautiful family evening. It was our last game as a family. Four years have passed since I've been in the stadium. I can't imagine a game without Aaron. I thought I would never go back.
Patrick and I will attend the game Sunday night as the guests of Tim and Charlie Kritter. I'm wiser now. Tim has an idea what this trip might mean to me. The outcome of the game will not effect my well being. Going back to the stadium with my son and my good friends is good. And it's enough.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Cat's Cradle
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man on the moon.
"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then.
You know we'll have a good time then."
-------harry chapin
Somewhere along the way Aaron and Patrick picked up on this lyrics when they were little boys. A way to give dad a good natured ribbing when they wanted me to participate in one thing or another when I'd rather loaf.
"Dad, wanna build a soap box derby car to ride down the hill?"
"A Dad gets to nap in a hammock on Sunday afternoon."
"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...."
My turn eventually came to sing the later verse to them.
"When you coming home son?" "I don't know when...."
Kurt Vonnegut wrote the classic Cat's Cradle in 1963. Aaron was a reader of Vonnegut's books. Patrick bought the copy we have in our house. I read the book this week. Characters in Vonnegut stories are typically defined by peculiar habits or appearance. In the end of these books of humorous fiction an odd character, representing something clearly American, will say something deep and meaningful about our insanity. "Ambassador Minton", delivered the deep thought in Cat's Cradle.
The scene has the Ambassador to San Lorenzo preparing to toss a wreath into the sea to honor the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy. "We are gathered here friends to honor the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy, children dead, all dead, all murdered in war. It is customary on days like this to call such lost children men. I am unable to call them men for this simple reason: that in the same war in which the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy died, my own son died."
"My soul insists that I mourn not a man but a child."
"I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To the everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays."
"But they are murdered children all the same."
"And I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects..., that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind."
On another day when I miss my son, I pause to think of the fathers and mothers who miss their children sacrificed in stupidity and viciousness by insanity. The media shows us their photos in their uniforms. The faces of these souls, these men/women who are children to their parents, are real. I'm sorry these children are dead on this beautiful winter evening.
Little boy blue and the man on the moon.
"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then.
You know we'll have a good time then."
-------harry chapin
Somewhere along the way Aaron and Patrick picked up on this lyrics when they were little boys. A way to give dad a good natured ribbing when they wanted me to participate in one thing or another when I'd rather loaf.
"Dad, wanna build a soap box derby car to ride down the hill?"
"A Dad gets to nap in a hammock on Sunday afternoon."
"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...."
My turn eventually came to sing the later verse to them.
"When you coming home son?" "I don't know when...."
Kurt Vonnegut wrote the classic Cat's Cradle in 1963. Aaron was a reader of Vonnegut's books. Patrick bought the copy we have in our house. I read the book this week. Characters in Vonnegut stories are typically defined by peculiar habits or appearance. In the end of these books of humorous fiction an odd character, representing something clearly American, will say something deep and meaningful about our insanity. "Ambassador Minton", delivered the deep thought in Cat's Cradle.
The scene has the Ambassador to San Lorenzo preparing to toss a wreath into the sea to honor the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy. "We are gathered here friends to honor the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy, children dead, all dead, all murdered in war. It is customary on days like this to call such lost children men. I am unable to call them men for this simple reason: that in the same war in which the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy died, my own son died."
"My soul insists that I mourn not a man but a child."
"I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To the everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays."
"But they are murdered children all the same."
"And I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects..., that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind."
On another day when I miss my son, I pause to think of the fathers and mothers who miss their children sacrificed in stupidity and viciousness by insanity. The media shows us their photos in their uniforms. The faces of these souls, these men/women who are children to their parents, are real. I'm sorry these children are dead on this beautiful winter evening.
Monday, January 07, 2008
15
Bart Starr was my favorite Packer as a little kid. He wore number 15. I remember getting a set of used shoulder pads in the mid 60's, probably in a rummage sale. A gray sweatshirt became my jersey. I used a black marker to imprint 15 on the front and back. My dad gave me a helmet, red with white stripes. Numeral decals made for boat registration numbers (my Dad's store was the Sport Marine---more Marine than sport as far as I was concerned) were stuck on my helmet. Fifteen. That was going to be my number. It looked strong. Confident. 15. Good guys wear 15. Winners wear 15.
You can trust 15.
At Antigo High School in the 60's and 70's, the jersey numbers under 20 were few. In fact, they were three: 10, 11, and 12. When I was a junior 10 and 11 were taken. I became 12. It didn't matter to me then that there was no 15, I had a jersey and I was happy.
In his youth, Aaron's favorite football number was the number of his first favorite football player--himself, number 29. Two-Nine as he used to say. When Aaron was a Sophomore, he was one of a few in his class to suit up for every varsity football game. Being a first year player Aaron had probably had no choice in numbers. He was given jersey number 15. He looked good in 15. Aaron was glad to have a jersey. I was happy with the number.
Tonight, LSU is playing Ohio State for the College Football Championship. LSU wears uniforms identical to the uniforms of Aaron's high school. LSU's quarterback wears number 15. From the back, he looks like Aaron, bigger of course, but the same style 15 on the same jersey. I want to watch, but I can't watch. I see the jersey, the number, a player, and it's not my son. If I watch the player on TV it may confuse my fading memory. I'm losing the grasp of the memory I have of Aaron's distinctive running style. His ability to leap and climb air. His hands. I can't confuse the image with someone else.
15 is solid. 15 is safe. 15 is my Aaron.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Outlive Money
Trudging overfed to the end of the year I ended the trip on the couch. None of the bowl games interested me. Same for the movies. The Twilight Zone Marathon was a favorite New Years Day happening around our house. My attention span was too short this year. Maybe that's why the ad caught my attention--- "Don't Outlive Your Money"
Why not? Why should I not outlive my money? I outlived my oldest son and the world didn't stop. It should have, but it didn't. If I outlive my money, what's the penalty? Is it worse to outlive your money or your children?
What do you have to do to not outlive your money? Make more? Save more? Chase it. Capture it. Fight for it. Worry about it. Sounds like fear driven hoarding. I had that experience. I'm not interested in repeating past lives.
If I have nothing will I be less of a person? Does money in the bank translate into compassion in the heart? Isn't it possible that if I have more compassion than money I might have something to offer the world in my last days?
I couldn't save my son. I doubt I can save money. I love my sons, not money. If the money's gone, I won't miss it. I don't have the emotional energy to miss more than my son. Someone else can worry about money. As far as I know, they'll make more.
Why not? Why should I not outlive my money? I outlived my oldest son and the world didn't stop. It should have, but it didn't. If I outlive my money, what's the penalty? Is it worse to outlive your money or your children?
What do you have to do to not outlive your money? Make more? Save more? Chase it. Capture it. Fight for it. Worry about it. Sounds like fear driven hoarding. I had that experience. I'm not interested in repeating past lives.
If I have nothing will I be less of a person? Does money in the bank translate into compassion in the heart? Isn't it possible that if I have more compassion than money I might have something to offer the world in my last days?
I couldn't save my son. I doubt I can save money. I love my sons, not money. If the money's gone, I won't miss it. I don't have the emotional energy to miss more than my son. Someone else can worry about money. As far as I know, they'll make more.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
