Stop the Madness

Over the course of the last week or so I’ve been composing the Mother of All Blogs. See, I recently received this email about a certain movie which was about to be released which supposedly threatened all that we (whomever that refers to) hold dear as Americans or Christians (the people who compose and circulate these things seem unable to differentiate). It’s my duty, this guy says (it just has to be a guy,) to boycott whichever pieces of art (or stamp or whatever) he, in his indescribable wisdom, decides are deleterious to me, this country, the people I love, my dog and Kitty-Kitty. Thing is, I don’t even know this guy. He certainly doesn’t know me. So how in the world can he expect me to surrender my capacity for thought and intelligent decision-making? How is it that he qualifies as the One who can decide these things while all the rest of us are left to follow along like lemmings obligated to get all pissed off and mean about something about which we know only what he’s deigned to tell us. “Really?” I ask. “This thing is a ‘movie against our Christian nation?’” Where do I even begin to address what’s wrong with that statement? With that kind of thinking? The tone of these things is bothersome to me too. Are things like, “a washed-up actor who watches his mouth these days” helpful? (I won't mention the title of the film here, but call me--maybe we could catch a matinee.)

Anyway, I wrote this whole big long diatribe about how tired I am of this stuff and how these people are part of the problem. It was a lot like the paragraph above, but longer and angrier and more sarcastic and a bit more satisfying, but then it occurred to me that raging against these monsters isn‘t my job. Maybe someday someone will tell these people that they’re part of the problem. I doubt it. They wouldn’t listen anyway. Plus if I let this guy have that much of my energy--of my life--he's won more than he deserves. (I also caught myself telling a friend just the other day, "Don't forget that the 'I'm right/you're wrong' thing is a bigger problem than who's actually right or wrong.")

I can’t imagine the beauty and truth that I’d have missed in my life if I’d let my artistic intake been policed by The Machine. I’d be living in a world without The Shawshank Redemption. And Indigo Girls. And American Beauty and The Fisher King and Moulin Rouge and Glory and A Prayer for Owen Meany and Rombauer’s El Dorado Zinfandel and God knows what else. But I don’t live in that world. I live an aware life in a world filled with beauty worth being aware of. Gratitude seems a better response.

“You came without an axe to grind, did not toe the party line. No wonder sight came to the blind--you had no stones to throw.” Rich Mullins

Dead Waterheater and a Double Sister

Our water heater died again yesterday. Fact is Ruthie and I both knew when it happened that it was very likely just the pilot light out again, but I’m the world’s worst pilot lighter and at six o’clock Wednesday morning, there just wasn’t time. (Plus this thing is due to die—its original five-year warranty expired in 1989.) Went to work, forgot about it, no problem. Until we both got home yesterday afternoon and needed showers. What to do? We could call my sister hannaH’s house; her family lives just a mile from us and we could pop in, shower and pop out pretty quickly. But were they home? Were they busy? Maybe they had company. Maybe they had Sam to bed early and were having one of those rare peaceful evenings. I didn’t want to bother them. Now, all of this debating took place in my head in about two seconds, but I finally allowed myself to realize than not only would it not be a problem to call her, but that if I didn’t and she found out she’d probably kick my ass. And I could hear myself saying to someone, if our places were reversed, “are we not past that yet?” So I called. They were in fact home and of course, she said, it wasn’t a problem, so we packed some clean clothes to put on and off we went.

We lived with hannaH & Dale for a couple years after we left Kentucky so their house feels like home anyway, but when we got there hannaH was working on their supper and there was steam on the windows and it smelled wonderful and it was warm and huggy inside. Ruthie showered first while I talked to Dale and Sam. hannaH suggested that we stick around for supper. Again, here’s one of those moments where you either play the polite, “Oh, we couldn’t impose” game or you recognize that there’s authentic love and relationship going on and you eat their food. We chose the latter.

As Ruthie was wrapping up her shower I realized and commented out loud that I should’ve brought a razor. Dale offered me one of his and within thirty minutes I was showered (it was hot) and shaved and had exchanged my grimy work clothes for clean ones and felt wonderful. HannaH threw on an extra piece of chicken which Ruthie and I split, and there was a big salad with olive oil and homemade bread.

After we ate Dale put Sam to bed and we all sat down and talked a little and then Friends came on. Joey’s funny. We laughed together and talked some more and when it was time to go home we left with four bags full of groceries. What we had intended to be a quick in-and-out borrowing of some hot water had become a couple hours of life together. It was good.

There’s no punch-line. No big moral to the whole thing. Maybe not even enough to justify blogging over it. Except to say that people are lots more willing to love us than we are to ask them to. My friend Michael says that one of the lessons we should learn from our dogs is how to not be ashamed to ask for affection. (I’m handicapped here by virtue of living with the Boomer, who won’t get up when we come home, but his point is valid.) A little bit at a time we’re finding that life together—real, honest, open life—is better than the other kind. And that a big part of that is my willingness to admit that my water heater has died again, whatever that may mean to a given relationship on a given day. Really, people are okay with that. And so you see, there is love enough for the taking.

Watershed

And just like that I’m sixteen years old again, or nine, and terrified.

My friend Michael invited me last week to hang out with him and a few of his friends at a bar on Sunday night. They get together every week and sit and talk and drink beer and eat nachos and listen to bluegrass. So I went. Michael is one of those people with whom you look for excuses to spend time, so my first visit was a no-brainer. I’d been invited and I went. Had a great time. Didn’t say much (what did Mark Twain say about giving away the fact that you’re an idiot?). Met some interesting people. Crackin’ good fun. No problem, right? On with life.

But then this past Sunday afternoon Michael calls again about something unrelated (if that’s a concept you’re comfortable with) and as we’re hanging up he mentions that “you only get invited once” and that I’m welcome to join them again sometime. And I panic. By “sometime” did he mean that evening—two times in a row? And then maybe again? Or that I should make an occasional visit? Or did he not mean it at all and he was just being Christian? Got off the phone with him around six in the evening which gave me a good two and a half hours to develop an ulcer trying to decode what I’m sure was to Michael a pretty unambiguous statement. Do I go? Or is two in a row inappropriate? Would they think I’m trying to horn in on their Sunday night thing? Would I seem like Michael’s kid brother (you could do a lot worse) tagging along with the big guys when they went to play ball. Would they smile and act nice and then after I left ask, “What’s with that guy?" Who do I think I am anyway?

And just like that I’m sixteen years old again, or nine, and my family has just moved and I’ve changed schools again, and though I’m terrified I have to sit through the horror movie of trying to find people who’ll be okay with me when all I want to do is leave the theatre. Will they make fun of my shoes? Will they greet me at the door with an appalled, “What are you doing here?” These things have happened to me. God knows how many experiences I missed growing up solely because I was too afraid to risk the rejection. Somebody cheesy once said something like, “The longest distance in the body is from the head to the heart.” Which is the kind of thing I generally dismiss as just so much bullshit, except that there I sat on a Sunday afternoon aware—giving cognitive assent to the fact—that Michael loves me (whether he’ll say it out loud or not) and wouldn’t hang me out to dry, wouldn’t set me up to be destroyed like that, probably wouldn’t hang out with the kind of people who would—and yet I was completely unable to act on those convictions. "You can stand there and agonize till your agony’s your heaviest load."

And just as I feel my first ulcer beginning to open up and say hello, I (with the encouragement of the Best Wife Anyone Ever Had) made a decision to act on a principle rather than on the nightmare that my emotions were presenting to me. One of my great fears is that in five years or ten or twenty I’ll look back on stuff like this and say with tears, “I could’ve spent some Sundays with those guys.” And I realize that I have to go. We talk a lot around here these days about Life, and for me, on Sunday, November 9, 2003, Living was meeting those guys at The Comet. Not because what happens there is earth shattering, but because the factors that would have stopped me are death surer than cancer. Wasn’t easy. In fact I stopped at a gas station on the way and called Michael just to make sure that he meant what he’d told me. Actually used those words—“Did you mean that?” If he were less gracious he could legitimately have been offended. As it is he'd probably be completely astonished that I made this big a deal about it.

But I went. Had a great time. As far as I could tell, no one minded my being there. I’ll probably go back, but probably not this Sunday—I’m still not quite over the trauma.

“Every choice is worth your while.” Emily Saliers