Loud and Clear

 

Back in the 1980s, the Rainbow Kids were one of the most energetic youth choirs in the Brownstown area. Singing from Liberty Christian Church in Sefton Township, we performed multiple shows a year, from Easter skits to VBS round ups to an occasional old school hymn, just to keep the Golden Years crowd in their pews.

The big event, however, was always our annual Christmas pageant.

The Christmas pageant took months of preparation, requiring costumes, props and, of course, intense rehearsals. I was one of the few boys in the group and also one of the oldest, and so I was often cast as a wise man or a chattier shepherd. (Joseph knew to keep his mouth shut around a sleeping baby, I guess, so that role was often given to younger boys who could hold a cane for twenty minutes without walking off stage to look for their parents.)

For most of my childhood a Rainbow Kids performance was just part of my life, as natural as any other date on the ecclesiastical calendar. Whereas some of the kids performed with a sense of dread, I kind of liked it. I didn’t mind memorizing the lines, for example, and although I did get nervous, the adrenaline that came with the performance balanced it all out. I especially liked it when a congregant would approach me after the performance to tell me how well I had articulated my lines; how loud and clear my voice sounded in the church.

So, when the day came one fall when the director told me she had a part that would be perfect for me, who was I to argue? I was a fifth grader now, nearing the end of a long and illustrious Rainbow Kids career. Now was the time for my grade school swan song.

This role, however, came with an unexpected twist - a solo! Not only would I be expected to perform standard Nativity-themed dialogue, I would also be singing part of the story in verse. My heart dropped. Sure, I could sing as part of an ensemble - which often meant very clumsy lip synching - but the idea of carrying a tune all by myself was horrifying.

“You’re a shepherd, and you’re singing about the Star of Bethlehem. ‘I see a star…a bright and shining star…’ you’ll be great!”

I wasn’t convinced, but after some coaxing I cautiously accepted the role.

Over the course of the next couple months we practiced each week. I learned both lines and lyrics. Finally, opening and closing night arrived. As it came time to sing about this miraculous stellar phenomenon, I slowly walked to the microphone and waited for the music to begin. I looked up into the spotlight, took a deep breath, and sang.

By fifth grade, I knew that a person’s actual voice doesn’t sound the same as it does to the person speaking, and so my first clue that something was terribly wrong came from the uncomfortable faces in front of me. Expressions that had been bright smiles moments before quickly dissolved into looks of pain. It was clear that my solo was not going well. I struggled through it, though, knowing full well that the show must go on.

As I finished, folks clapped, but of course they clapped…I was in fifth grade. Their applause was not enthusiastic. Their claps were weak; they were forced. An idea that was once hypothetical immediately became a Christmas reality - I was not a very good singer.

Mercifully, the pageant ended. As folks huddled around downstairs afterwards for cookies and punch, the typical congratulatory remarks seemed muted and sparse. My grandmother, an honest woman who would always keep a smidgeon of her Oklahoma drawl, offered the most pleasant spin on the situation that she could:

“Well hon, we all heard ya’... loud and clear.”

Despite the setback, Christmas did come that year, filled with presents and family and snowy days off from school. Eventually the sting of my embarrassment faded. It wasn’t until years later that I realized what a gift that solo would turn out to be.

 Nothing, it turns out, is quite as liberating as making a complete fool of yourself in front of hundreds of people. Thus, as adolescence began, bringing with it all its mortifying nonsense, I could always think back to that solo. Decades later as a school teacher, I still spend much of my week “performing” in front of my students, almost always without applause.

Botching that solo was embarrassing, sure, but I survived. More importantly, I’d opened a wonderful Christmas gift that evening - the knowledge that folks tend to forget the songs they don’t sing.

 

Sharing the Road

 

With yet another uneventful year drawing to a close, it’s time again to put on my “Uncertified Life Coaching” hat and answer some reader questions. Before beginning, however, let’s all keep in mind that I am very uncredentialed, and therefore my advice, while generally correct, cannot be used against me in a civil suit.

Without further ado, then, let’s take…

Question Asker One: Help! The holidays are here and I just…can’t. My son-in-law’s parents insist on celebrating Christmas at exactly noon on December 25th. 

Every…single…year. This leaves me with an empty house on Christmas Day, and I just think we should at least take turns or something. Any advice?

Answer: This type of question comes up quite often, and so I’ll start off by offering a blanket statement - folks who insist on celebrating any holiday on a specific date without regard to the plans or feelings of other people are, in a word, emotional infants. As such, it’s best practice to treat them as such.

 Just as we offer pacifiers to babies, we need to be the bigger person in these situations and let the in-laws (or other relatives) have their way. One might say, “Yeah, but then they’ll never learn,” and that’s true. Unlike a real human child, however, it’s not your job to help them grow up. Maybe they’ll eventually read a hilarious advice column and learn the error of their ways, but, chances are they won't, or, if they do, they’ll assume the suggestions don't apply to them.

Regardless, you and I both know the real baby Jesus was no more likely to have been born on December 25th than Mary or Joseph or anybody else involved. The point of Christmas is to treat each other like it’s always Christmas, regardless of the calendar. So, with that in mind, smile, take a deep breath, and give your family the best present anyone could ever want - peace on Earth.

Question Asker Two: Help! My parents insist on celebrating Christmas on December 25th and so do my wife’s parents.

Every…single…year. Neither of them will budge, and they live hundreds of miles from each other. What should we do?

Answer: I would probably just get COVID and stay home. Gas is still pretty expensive.

Question Asker Three: What is a good age for a President to be? My current President is, like, eighty or something, and he’s planning on running again. Is that constitutional? I’m not trying to sound ageist, (in fact I hope to be an old person someday and use a fancy cane) but seriously - haven’t the baby boomers had their chance?

Answer: Sure they have, and although there is nothing inherently wrong with being post-youth, a third of a century is more than enough time to “stop the fire” or whatever it was Billy Joel was yelling about. Believe it or not, between 1992 and now we’ve had five Boomer presidents winning eight different elections, and while they’ve all had enough interesting things to say and policy accomplishments to fill up the backside of a trading card, none of them are making the historical top ten. They absolutely do need to retire and give Generation X a chance to kick the can for at least one or two election cycles.

It’s our turn! We have ideas, and don’t act like we wouldn’t be willing to cater to corporate interests and ideological folderol if the opportunity presented itself. We’re cool. 

Oh, well…whatever…you know what? Never mind…there are some Millennials old enough. Let’s see what they can do.

Question Asker Four: Hey, thanks, first time caller, long time listener here…

Answer: We are not…on the radio…

Four: …and I understand you’ve been married since the end of the second George Bush administration.

Answer: OK.

Four:...so I was just wondering…any advice for newlyweds?

Answer: Oh…just shut up.

Four: Excuse me?

Answer: No, I mean, not you personally, but, you know, just don’t talk that much. Don’t be quiet in a weird, antisocial way, or anything, but just be aware you don’t necessarily have to say every dumb thing that pops into your brain, especially in front of your spouse.

We live in a culture that celebrates unfiltered thoughts, but a lot of those thoughts are just trash. Learn to hold your tongue. Practice ‘active silence,’ where you really think before you speak, or where you sometimes just don’t say anything at all. Marriage is not a sprint. It’s a very long marathon filled with hills, puddles and angry bees, so choose your words wisely. If it’s not kind, truthful, or at least moderately amusing, seriously consider keeping it to yourself.

Four: Keep it to myself, huh? That's a funny thing to say, coming from a guy writing a…

Answer: Thanks for calling.

And that ends another informative session of Uncertified Life Coaching with Me. As this year draws to a close and we look forward to 2023, let’s remember that just as a simple steering wheel directs our powerful cars and trucks, the words we say influence our fast-moving lives.

With that in mind, let’s all drive thoughtfully in the coming year and never forget this simple truth: we’re always sharing the road.

Golf Carts

It’s a good time to be alive, and that’s because I’ve been convinced to buy a golf cart. I am thrilled. My entire family, with straight faces and without irony, have told me - repeatedly - that we need to make this purchase.

Before continuing, I think it’s relevant to mention a few things.

First off, none of us golf. We’ve been golfing, of course, but we do not golf, and we do not live on a golf course. We do not live in an airport. We do not have a pressing need to get from one tarmac to another to catch a flight during most days of the week. Finally, none of us have any major leg issues that inhibit our mobility. We’re fine. We can all walk without assistance and we’re in relatively good health.

No, the reason we need a golf cart is really quite simple and it’s so we can go trick-or-treating. This realization dawned on us recently, when we were, of course, trick-or-treating, and it became evident we were the only group of idiots walking up and down the road without a golf cart.

Now, the golf cart situation in our neighborhood has been on the upswing the last few years and we have had very casual conversations about getting one. This Halloween, though, was a real eye opener, because there were just so many. The golf carts would drive down the road, the kids would putter up to houses, get back in, and drive away to the next green. I mean house.

While all this was going on, however, our poor children had to walk the entire distance while my wife and I just stood there without a clue like Ma and Pa Ingalls. Needless to say it was very embarrassing and we have sworn this will never happen again.

This is a major purchase, of course, but I have never been opposed to buying a golf cart in principle. They look like fun and would be a great way to teach our kids how to run yellow lights. The problem has always been we have nowhere to actually put it. Our house blueprints say we have a two car garage but it's mostly just a storage unit for good intentions and broken dreams. It’s full of bicycles, basketballs, lawn chairs, softballs, baseballs, baseball cleats, soccer cleats, various netting -  an entire collapsible swimming pool -  just so many, many things, and some of them don’t even make sense.

Take our Frisbee collection, for example. We have thirteen. Why? How? We only have ten hands. Are we circus performers? Why do we have thirteen Frisbees? I could go on but you get my point. Occasionally I’ll get ambitious and straighten the place up and even take before and after pictures like I’m starting a health cleanse. After a few hours we can get our van into the garage. It’s a wild moment and always the apex of my week.

Returning to the golf cart, though, before we make this purchase we will need a place to park it. We technically do have a shed for our lawn mower but it needs to be condemned and replaced with a bigger shed, one that can reasonably hold the potential golf cart and a bunch of other stuff. Ideally this newer, bigger shed would be built on top of actual concrete. That would be tremendous. The problem with this, of course, is that someone will need to be hired to pour the concrete and then to build the shed on top. (I sometimes struggle to pour a bowl of milk in the morning, so it’s best to leave these things to the experts.)

            Regardless, now that we’ve been convinced the vehicle is less a luxury and more a need, it’s time to get the golf ball rolling, so to speak. In the meantime, the good steward in me knows I should at least start making space. Let me know if you need a Frisbee.

 

 

 

 

Ninjas and Hover Boards

 

In the summer of 1989, long lines of sweltering young people waited to ride Six Flags St. Louis’ newest attraction, The Ninja. Although originally called The Scream Machine when it opened up three years before in Vancouver, British Columbia, the coaster was renamed in Missouri to distinguish it from the park’s other headliner, The Screaming Eagle.

For those familiar with both rides, you know that the two roller coasters have little in common. Whereas the Screaming Eagle is a long, wooden coaster known for thrilling passengers with relatively intense drops and raw speed, the Ninja is a tight metal ride with a variety of upside down loops.

God willing, I will never ride either of those contraptions ever again.

            And it’s not because I’m scared because I’m not.

I rode both of these coasters dozens of times over the years and I have ridden many other rides at Six Flags and other parks, too. However, the time for such clankity pursuits is likely coming to an end.

Why?

Pain, mostly.

Nausea.

Pain.

I could go on but I won’t because I’m beginning to sound like the old man from “Up.” Regardless, the risk/reward ratio involving roller coasters has finally, after decades of leveling off, flipped. These rides no longer bring me enough joyful adrenaline to justify the increasing downsides.

Besides waiting in lines, for example, almost all such amusements now make me physically ill. The tight harnesses cause claustrophobia. Then, of course, there’s the unlikely but not impossible potential for the coaster derailing, or, even worse, getting stuck upside down or buried in a cave.

No thanks.

Despite this hesitance, though, for decades I paid little attention to the decreasing “return” I earned from waiting in line and buckling up. This all changed one Christmas morning two years ago, at the end of 2020.

My son - who, perhaps needless to say, loves roller coasters - had just received an ill-conceived gift from Santa Claus himself - a hover board. After watching all three of my children quickly learn the fundamentals of the toy and then zip around the living room, kitchen, hallway, and around the basement, I decided that I, too, might as well give it a try.

This turned out to be a tremendous mistake.

Besides the fact that I am naturally clumsy, age has not been kind to my overall sense of balance. These hard truths, coupled with the even harder basement floor, shattered some misconceptions and even a bit of my left elbow. After a few days in a cast, one orthopedic surgeon gave me the option of surgery, which might fix it, I was told, or it might make it worse. A few days later, a second surgeon suggested I forgo the surgery altogether.

“Considering your mobility, I would skip the surgery. Do stretches, take it easy as far as lifting heavy objects, and, uh…stay off hover boards.”

I agreed, and it occurred to me at that very humbling moment, sitting in that surgeon’s office with the X-ray of my damaged elbow glowing nearby, that that’s it. That is really the only biological benefit to aging, isn’t it?

Knowing to stay off hover boards.

As we get older, we’re less prone to do stupid things that could kill us because we’re more fully aware of how many things can kill us. When we’re young we don’t know, or don’t care, or some combination of the two. Because of our experiences, though, we learn how much easier we are to kill, either due to cholesterol, poor balance, or the abrupt jarring from an amusement park ride.

For many years I struggled with this truth, because I wanted to like roller coasters again. I wanted to be thrilled like I did back in 1989, when I was one of those young people waiting in line at Six Flags. It made me mad that I was only riding the silly things so my kids could ride them.

But then I fell off the hover board.

And the reason I fell off the hover board is because I had no good reason to be on one in the first place. Hover boards are made for young people with quicker reflexes. They’re made for lighter people closer to the ground; people who bounce back when they fall, or at least heal quicker when they don’t.

And that’s OK. I’ve made a fractured peace with this new, much slower reality. Let them have their hover boards. Let them have their Tik Tac videos and their rolled Takis chips. I am satisfied now where I am, standing safely with both feet on the ground, looking for a chair.

And speaking of places to sit, in the winter of 2021, a full year after my hover board mishap, my family and I waited in line to ride Universal Studios’ newest Harry Potter-themed attraction, Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure. I rode it once and enjoyed bits and pieces of it. I really enjoyed watching my kids enjoy it, however, and afterwards decided to find a bench.

“Dad! Look! The line’s not that long! Do you want to go on it again?”

“I’m good.” I replied, sitting down. “It’s your turn.”

Stand Part Two

One of my least favorite parts of the “Why does this keep happening?” phase after another American mass shooting is the badgering of ideas on social media. Despite my personal distaste for the practice, however, as an American school teacher with school age children, I’m triply required to offer my thoughts. 

With that in mind, I absolutely do think most people should have the right to own and even carry around guns

The caveat, however, and the real sticking point for some folks, is the word “most.” 

Because not everyone should have a gun. Guns are dangerous and so are some people, and just as not everyone should be able to drive a car or handle complicated machinery, not everyone should be able to quickly purchase a weapon designed to kill a human being.

Sorry. I know that makes me a pinko commie and, even worse, uneducated about the Constitution, but since we brought up the topic, let’s consider that document in the first place. 

When the Constitution was written, no human on earth had access to a firearm capable of killing many people very quickly. Perhaps more importantly, few humans could fathom a society so broken this very reality would become increasingly commonplace. An amendment from the 18th century need not be repealed in order to engage a 21st century problem, but it does require us to stop pretending as though the law was carried down the mountain by Moses.

Besides the legal argument, however, we also have the “Gun control wouldn’t have stopped this particular incident” talking point, which gets much traction but fails to recognize the inherent flaw in its reasoning. Just as seat belts aren’t capable of saving all lives in all car accidents, gun hurdles would not be capable of saving all lives in all massacres.

That much is true. 

But the goal of seat belts is to reduce traffic fatalities, not end them. Reasonable, nationwide gun purchasing requirements would absolutely reduce deaths because it would make it more difficult for evil/insane murderers to get a gun. Arguing against all gun control measures because it won’t work all the time is the intellectual equivalent of a father telling his children they need not wear seat belts because they wouldn’t help if the car rolled into a lake.

            Continuing, we have the “apples to oranges” line of reasoning, which points out that states with strict gun control measures, such as the one I’m sitting in right now, also have high homicide rates in many urban areas. This violence, we are told, is the only evidence necessary to prove that gun control doesn’t really work.

Gang-related gun violence, however, while a nauseating blight in and of itself, is not the same criminal phenomena as a lone shooter blasting away at unarmed people because he’s mentally ill. Just as tornado and hurricane deaths are technically both weather-related fatalities, the strategies you would use to decrease the number of both sets of deaths would not be entirely identical.

A final argument against gun control is that a well-armed militia must be maintained in the event we get invaded by a foreign adversary, or, more chilling, we must defend ourselves against our own federal government. In these hypothetical scenarios, the America we once knew collapses and our only hope of survival lies in the millions of weapons locked away in gun cabinets throughout the nation. 

Both of these predictions could certainly happen. According to some theorists, the latter is already taking place. Both hypotheticals are, however, just that - they are guesses about a future that may or may not occur.

Do you know what is not hypothetical? 

Small town funeral homes running out of coffins.

 

In the spring of 1999, monsters walked into Columbine High School and initiated the modern era of the mass school shooting. Two and a half years later, monsters walked onto four separate passenger jets and started the global war on terrorism. As we’ve been reminded recently, our national response to that latter tragedy was not to ban airplanes, but we did make it nearly impossible for the crime to be committed again. It was - and continues to be - quite a headache to board a passenger jet, but it’s an annoyance and sacrifice we’ve made peace with because it’s undoubtedly saved lives. 

Many Americans found comfort after 9/11 in their faith, and, based on church attendance, America continues to be one of the most religious nations on earth. As such, we should be blessed with some of the spiritual fruits of our collective piety: Kindness, for example…patience…joy…

Peace.

Unfortunately, when it comes to gun violence, the opposite seems to be true. Whereas many developed nations struggle with mental illness, drug addiction, and the disintegration of the nuclear family – scapegoats often blamed for our violent crisis—we outpace them when it comes to gun violence.

Why is that? Despite all our moments of silence, despite all those flags flown at half-mast, month after month and year after year, why are we still having this sick conversation?

Partly it’s because we have chosen secular ideology over reason and compromise.

We have deified the right for good people to own guns but have neglected our responsibility to keep them out of the hands of evil men.

Why does this keep happening?

We know why this keeps happening. A better question is, “When are we going to be bold enough to truly do something about it?”                                                   

 

Update

After her transplant we were told the five-year mark would be a crucial milestone for Annaka, and this spring she reached it. A biopsy of Nancy’s gift was taken in February and studied by both teams – St. Louis and Pittsburgh. While most of her recent lab draws have indicated a well-functioning liver, the biopsy was still a major benchmark in the post-transplant protocol and we couldn’t help but feel a little anxious as we waited for the results. Fortunately, everything looked healthy. While she does have some scarring on her liver, it’s considered in the normal range for someone who has undergone a transplant. 

A few weeks ago we sat down for a teleconference with members of her Pittsburgh team who told us news we were hoping to hear - she may be able to decrease the amount of antirejection medicine she ingests each day, or, if that’s not possible, at least decrease the amount of lab draws from once a month to four times a year. Her next biopsy won’t be for another five years, but even this is tentative, (as all things are, I suppose.) As the Pittsburgh doctors continue to stay up to date on research, there is a growing consensus that biopsies themselves might not be necessary if lab numbers stay where they need to be. 

This is all good news.

The bad news is, her life continues to be more dangerous than we’d like.

Just a few days after the meeting Annaka had a very serious allergic reaction while playing at the park. Her nose started running and she complained that her throat felt “scratchy and tight.” JaLana quickly gave her one Epipen injection and headed to the hospital. Because she was still struggling to breathe while waiting to get admitted into the E.R., JaLana injected her again. A third injection administered by hospital staff, along with an hour-long breathing treatment, finally got her back to where she needed to be. She recovered fast, and a couple hours later she was home playing, albeit with a five-day prescription for oral steroids to help flush out whatever caused the problem in the first place. Regardless, the experience itself was very concerning because we don’t actually know what she reacted to.

This isn’t the first time she’s had to get the injection, but this is the first time it took three entire doses to get her back where she needed to be, and it’s also the first time she’s reacted to a “mystery allergen.” Prior to this, we’ve always known what caused the response, whether she accidently ingested a cookie made out of real butter or been stung by a jellyfish.

 It’s possible she had a contact reaction to one of her food allergens while playing at the park. She’s very sensitive to dairy, so if someone had just enjoyed a bag of Doritos before pushing the merry-go-round before she touched it, for example, and then she wiped her nose or eyes, she could have reacted. If that’s the case, however, it would suggest her reaction to a dairy contact is now much more intense than what it once was.

Or, even more unsettling, she might have had a new reaction to an environmental stimulus, like pollen. Either way, we have to find out, which will require uncomfortable pin prick tests up and down her back, and even these are not always conclusive. In the meantime, we’ve been instructed to give her a prophylactic dose of Zyrtec each day, and now we’re even more cautious about letting her play outside.

She has thrived this year in Kindergarten, however, thanks to her wonderful teacher and staff at Unit 40’s Early Learning Center, and she’s made many new friends. Unlike her siblings, who were often willing to sit back and watch things happen, Annaka is, by her own definition, often “the boss” at playtime. 

“Things just get done faster,” she explains. “When I’m telling people what to do.”

Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

 

Reboot

 

As a child I often imagined myself a superhero. I would eventually put away this fantasy, but as the years passed the idea of a solid origin story and a mysterious super power continued to weigh heavy on my mind. This did not pan out, however. Besides having the very dull ability to eat food past its “due date,” I am, unfortunately, very normal.

My own lack of a mutant healing factor, however, never stopped me from reading about the exploits of more gifted heroes such as Captain America and Spider Man. Hundreds of hours (and dollars) were spent collecting comic books during my adolescence. In fact, had the Marvel Cinematic Universe dropped into the culture two decades earlier, it’s unlikely I would have even found the time to get married.

This sounds stupid, perhaps, but the reality is I put in a lot of hours throughout the 1990s honing the skills needed to make me a keepable husband. Had my attention instead been focused on those dazzling big-screen adventures, my own life story would have likely followed a much lonelier route. Fortunately, by the time Disney+ came out a few years ago, saturated as it is with more MCU and Lucasfilm content than even I can reasonably digest, I was already married with children, and thus all I needed to do was grab the remote and start the cycle all over again.

One particular series that the whole family looked forward to last summer was “Loki.” Now, this show is so complicated and full of comic lore and allusions to the larger MCU that it would take days to truly unpack its relevance. For the sake of this column, then, let’s just say this series is about the importance of becoming yourself.

In the series, Loki, who is technically a bad guy, disrupts “the Sacred Timeline” by being, well, bad. This causes problems and produces what is known as a variant of himself to exist outside the “official” flow of cosmic history. The show then spends the next five episodes exploring that concept as Loki meets and often battles his own variants hiding out in multiple timelines.

Admittedly, it’s a lot.

It’s interesting, though, too, because it begs the question, “Might there be variants of myself, for example, years down the road, existing - or not - based on actions and decisions I make today?”

            That heavy concept then forces us to ask other questions: “If I keep doing what I’m doing, will I simply become an older variant of my current self? Or, even worse, if I double down on some bad habits, might I someday devolve into an ‘alligator man,’ grumpy and unhealthy and ready to snap?"

            Once we have some miles on us, it’s easy to see how past events do influence our present reality, and this reflection is not always pleasant. Regrets are part of life, however, and anyone who claims to have none is either a liar or dangerously unobservant. Fortunately, our understanding of time flows both ways, and thus we can ask a third question, “If I step up now, develop some good habits and behave like this particular Loki, of all pretend people, might I become a version of myself unexpected - the redeemed hero?”

Spring is a good time for origin stories. Easter is a good time to think about sacrificial heroes and retconning ourselves into something nobler. Early in his ministry, for example, Jesus called Simon “Peter” not because Peter was behaving solid at the time but because Jesus knew his potential. Jesus understood what Simon would eventually become - the rock. Although impulsive and a bit unreliable throughout much of the Gospels, Peter became one of the founding fathers of the early church, the bedrock apostle, just as Jesus had proclaimed years before.

It might seem a strange segue to move from a discussion of a Marvel supervillain to a Biblical hero, but both stories emphasize an important truth - if you’re alive, your story isn’t over. God has work for you.

Today is perfectly suited for a reboot, regardless of your timeline.

Sowing

 

A year ago, after months of worry and weeks of tests, Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. For a very short season we lived in twilight, daydreaming scenarios where he defeated the cancer; imagining months, perhaps years, of treatment and recovery. That fiction soon ended, however, and it seemed that even before we could process one shocking reality another took its place. Dad left us before the planting was even done. He didn’t get to see how full his grain bins would get that fall.

And that was maybe his best and saddest lesson - we sow for harvests we won’t quite make.

...such times...

 

Armchair analysis from a middle-aged American whose only military experience comes from Nerf warfare might sound a little trite—because it is. However, if you’re interested, here are some thoughts:

To begin with, any long term conclusion to this horror that leaves Vladimir Putin in power is unacceptable. I understand that there may need to be diplomatic off-ramps to stop the killing that allow him to keep his job in the short term, but he has to go. Ideally this removal comes from within Russia, but he has to go. We’ve given him the benefit of the doubt for two decades and four presidents, and, yet, here we are. 

    An argument can be made that his behavior is simply an inevitable response to NATO expansion, but that's like blaming the window maker for the broken glass. A nation is being shattered on live television, and those holding the clubs should be held accountable.

Secondly, the Cold War is over. Generations of Europeans have lived most of their lives - some of them their entire lives - during the uneasy truce that followed World War II. Two weeks ago Russia destroyed that peace and replaced it with tremendous suffering.

We already know the people of Ukraine are willing to suffer for their homeland. We already know that Russians willing to speak out on this atrocity are willing to suffer and make sacrifices for the sake of truth. Might our only sacrifice in this country be shelled retirement funds and exploding gas prices? 

Heaven help us.

Finally, pray.

Universal

On December 29th, 1986, my father turned forty years old, and on this momentous birthday he was doing what he loved best - waiting in line at Disney World. 

This is not true, of course. My father was not a fan of Disney World or amusement parks in general. He was at Disney World on his birthday because that’s where we were and he didn’t want us to get lost.

On December 29th, 2021, my father would have turned seventy-five years old, and on his momentous birthday I was waiting in line with my family at Disney World’s snarkier little cousin, Universal Studios. Dad passed away back in May, which was pretty good timing on his part, because I don’t think he would have been impressed.

If you want to know what the world looked like before God started making plans to flood the place, Universal Studios is where you might start. It’s not necessarily evil or anything, it’s just kind of wrong. Half-drunk middle aged men holding nine dollar beers, cussing at each other because they don’t want to budge their strollers; angry moms yelling at underpaid park attendants about rules neither of them understand; kids freaking out about waiting in line for overpriced pretzels and then freaking out even harder because they ran out of cheese.

It’s just a lot to take in, especially in the Florida heat, and I was often shocked by how much money and effort we had invested in voluntarily spending our Christmas break in such a crazy place. The drive itself, which our GPS said would take thirteen and a half hours, was more like twenty hours over two very long days, crawling down the interstate as part of a huge migration of questionable choices.

It wasn’t all bad, of course, and, honestly, much of the trip was great. The kids really liked the rides themselves, particularly the Harry Potter attractions, and our resort had two different pools to enjoy: one with a water slide and one with a lazy river. It was also nice to just be away from home for a while and soak up some sunshine.

It was nice to be together as a family.

Minus dad, of course, who was heavy on our minds all week.

We began discussing the trip in June, and, like many winter plans conjured up in the summer sun, it made perfect sense at the time. We were anticipating the need for an emotional balm to help us endure not only our first Christmas without dad but also his birthday and even his and mom’s anniversary, which was on New Year’s Eve.

It was an impossible task, of course, but it was a start.

It was something.

Although the trip south was, as mentioned, long and slow, it was only slow once we were about half way there. We were through Illinois by mid-morning and well into Tennessee by noon, focused entirely on the road in front of us. Through parts of Kentucky, however, we were shocked by the storm damage beside us, where we found trees wiped out and signs bent useless from the tornado that ripped through the area just a few weeks prior. The damage reminded me of another trip I’d taken with Dad years earlier to Oklahoma, when we stopped for lunch on our way through Joplin, Missouri. Although a year had passed by that point, the effects of the 2011 tornado were still stark and violent.

As they do for many Midwesterners, especially those who enjoyed an early television diet that included “The Wizard of Oz,” tornados have always loomed large in my imagination. A few times each year, in fact, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had a recurring nightmare I’ve called “Tornado on the Horizon.” Like the gray funnel cloud approaching Dorothy on her Kansas farm, the monster from my dreams lurks from a distance.

It approaches dark and slow; inevitable.

A few weeks after dad passed away, I had another tornado dream, only this time the storm made it just outside the window. A few months later I experienced a similar dream, only this time the storm wiped out the house, leaving debris everywhere I looked.

Had this “tornado on the horizon,” then, been an unconscious manifestation of watching my father get older year by year, the unspoken realization that his time with us in this word would someday end?

Perhaps. The mind is a funny thing, complicated and temperamental.

Having grown up in south-central Illinois, however, I learned early that tornadoes are inevitable. My own closest call came in 7^th grade while helping to set up for the Spring awards ceremony at school. No one was hurt and the damage wasn’t significant, but I will always remember the intense moments listening to the wind and hail, waiting for the storm to pass, crouched beneath  cafeteria tables with my classmates.

Storms in general are absolutely a sure thing. We live on a funny planet, complicated and temperamental, full of hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis and disease.

The debris from such calamities can be overwhelming.

Death, also, can be overwhelming, like a whole house flattened with its guts tossed for miles. Such loss is often paralyzing. We can barely wander around the remnants of what we thought we understood, too shell shocked to even begin to pick up the pieces.

We do, however, begin to eventually pick up the pieces, because that is what survivors do. We learn—often quite slowly—to honor the memories of our loved ones by just breathing, by waking up each morning, and by carrying on the best we can.

This looks different for everyone.

For me, I suppose, a big part of honoring my father means raising his grandchildren as well as I can, guiding them, praying over them, telling them the dad jokes they secretly adore.

I suppose it also means waking up before the sun rises on occasion, to wait in line at amusement parks.